by K. Johansen
“Faith,” he says.
Oh, Ahj.
But it is as true an answer as any and less complicated than his own truth, which is that, for himself, still and after all these years, he does not find it matters.
Ahjvar…
“It is a terrible thing to keep a soul from its road,” she says. “It is wrong. Wrong. But you are not of my folk. They are long ages gone, farwandered and folded into other folks, following the waters. But if another god had taken one of mine to hold as Nabban holds you, I would have raised my folk to war to take them back and free that enslaved ghost to its road. Yes, even if it cost a thousand lives.” She speaks as calmly as if she discusses the unchanging dry-season weather.
“I am not yours.”
“No.”
“And no slave. My will is my own.”
“But how do you know?”
“You repeat yourself.”
“And so do you. Faith is no answer, when you cannot step aside from him to see yourself clearly.”
“Faith is my only answer. Love. Trust. But this argument is pointless. I’m no concern of yours,” he says in Nabbani. “Lady of lost waters, you speak of binding and yet you don’t answer me. Will you give Dotemon back to herself?”
“You have not said, servant of Nabban, what you will do, if I do not.”
He shrugs. “I suppose, when the time comes, I will go to find her. I will tell her, as my god bids me, that Nabban would have her free to keep the oaths she swore him long ago. And we would all, you and we alike, await what came of that. I don’t think you could hold her if she truly fought to be free. Certainly not if my god chose to aid her.”
“You said you did not come to threaten me.”
He shrugs.
The goddess shuts her eyes and sits so, long enough for the shadow of her to move, to turn to touch his knee, and he does not like to have even the shadow of her on him when she has spoken of taking him from his god, which is childish.
“Not for your threats,” she says, opening her eyes at last. She speaks slowly, as if hearing and considering each word as it leaves her mouth. “Not for fear of Dotemon. Not even to have the corruption of you gone from my land while it is yet mine to protect. But because I dream as you dream, you and your god.” She rises to her feet, ponderous, graceful, a weight like flowing stone. But she is water. “Take this, then. Make me free of her when you must, if you must. Yours, the choice, what you do.”
The wind veers round, storm-wild, swinging through all points of the compass. Trees thrash, branches bend. Ailan wakes with a cry, but Ahjvar stays where he is, sitting by their fire. Walking memory. Dream. Reaches, then, a hand. Seizes the young man’s arm, pulls him down, beside the fire under the bank of hollies, beside the fire under the baobab.
“Stay,” he says, slow and slurred. “Nothing to fear.”
Peace,Ghu says, to that wild-beating heart, and sets a hand on Ailan’s head as he might calm a panicked beast.
Ailan settles into Ahjvar’s forbidden side, close and innocent for once as a small child, frightened as one, baffled. Surely he thinks, will think, he is dreaming, when the morning comes. It’s all right for him to be here. Ghu stands by Ahjvar. He can lean his shoulder against his leg, head to his hip. Feel the hand rest in his hair, fingers twining in it.
The wind settles into the west.
Young Ailan, who was not there, stares up at the naked goddess.
The woven ring of black the goddess wears about her wrist lands before Ahjvar. He catches it up, but when he looks to speak to her, the land is empty. Even the sense of her is gone, deep beneath her roots, into her waters…Only himself, the tree, the clear golden land to the horizon.
Ailan is only a shadowy shape, huddled into the side of the shadow-shape that is himself. Not here. Very far away, twelve years and thousands of miles.
Ahjvar rises to his feet and bows low to the thick skeleton of the baobab, sliding the bracelet onto his wrist. Silk sleek hair. He sets his hand on a long, ridged scar of the otherwise beech-smooth trunk. Once there had been bones coffined within the tree, prison and grave, and then a second birthing into life. Or a third life, maybe, or a fourth. She has remade herself more than once, Yeh-Lin Dotemon, starting when the peasant girl Nang Lin set off to find a noble patron and training for her wizard’s talent.
We are reborn each day, and must make ourselves anew, the poet Yeon Silla wrote.
The pilgrim party is approaching. He feels them, the life of them, the intrusion, as if it were something he might smell on the wind. He turns to see Sister Enyal catch sight of him, come striding ahead, the white headscarf she wears over her priest-shaved scalp floating back like a banner.
“She called to you?” Enyal asks, foregoing the rebuke he expects with something like wonder in her voice.
Close enough. He agrees with a nod. The priestess’s eyes go to his sword. “What have you done here?”
“Prayed,” he had answered, then, and around him the dream is fading the land gone to shadows. He sits by the fire, a chilly night on the edge of spring, and Ailan is in the crook of his arm, as another young man should be, and is not. “Prayed. And been answered. I’ll wait for you back at the hostel, Sister.”
“Ahjvar…?” Ailan, close within the circle of his arm. Shivering. “Ahjvar, I—was that a dream?”
“Was what?” He took back his arm, stood and moved away. Ailan stared up at him, all ruddy and shadow in the firelight. Hurt. Confused.
“I—I’m sorry. I had a dream. A nightmare. Sort of a nightmare? It—it scared me but it wasn’t bad. You were there. A woman. She was a woman but in the dream I knew she was really a tree, and—Did I see your god? There was someone else and I knew he was your god. He was—he said—he…” Ailan shook his head. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to—not this time, I mean. I—” Incoherence trailed to silence. To get close, he meant to say. Which boundary he did try to push, once in a while, and Ahjvar put him off while pretending he didn’t notice, which seemed the best tactic.
“It was a dream,” Ahjvar said. “Don’t worry about it.” Added, “Sorry,” himself, because he had dragged the man in somehow, or Ghu had, or—
The wind was gusting wildly, rattling the stiff leaves of the hollies. Ashes swirled. Then stillness. But there was the feel of thunder gathering in the air.
She came like a dragon, a typhoon, a sandstorm howl of wind in the badlands. The hollies bent almost double. The fire went out like a candle in a draft. Ailan yelped and jumped to his feet. Camels bellowed but stayed put, hunkered low, shutting their eyes, heads down. Ahjvar shut his own eyes against the gust, rocked with it, but didn’t move from where he stood. Rubbed ash and grit from his face as the wind died. Ailan scrambled over to him, the knife he had taken from the priest unsteady in his hand. He crouched, free hand on Ahjvar as if he were a rock to cling to, all warnings to keep himself off again forgotten.
“Dead king,” Yeh-Lin said. “You called?”
“Did I?”
“I wonder.’
“Someone did. And I believe you have what is mine.” She held out a slender hand.
“No,” he heard himself say. “Not yet.” Echoes in the mind. Ghu.
“You deny me? Even constrained as I am, I could tear you from your young god’s grip, dead king, and put you from the world. I could take back the empire that was mine and even your sweet-eyed horseboy in the full strength of his land could not in the end endure against me. Why should I serve him?”
“It’s more interesting than the alternatives. We wouldn’t want you getting bored. Also, you swore an oath of your own will.”
“That.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” he said. “Sit down, put my fire back together, and have some tea. It’s nearly time for breakfast. Ailan, it’s all right. This is—?”
“Scholar Daro Jang.” She winked at him and bowed gracefully.
“Scholar Daro Jang, who serves the god of Nabban.”
“Does she indeed?” Yeh-Lin asked,
speaking Nabbani, Imperial, and as it had been two hundred years past, or longer. Her hair, loose and falling to her waist, still stirred in the memory of the wind she had ridden. “It seems we have established that I do, as you are still standing there. Oh well. Tea, you say. Proper tea or the tar they call such on the road in these parts?”
“That. You didn’t bring any coffee?
“I was asleep in my bed, as a virtuous middle-aged historian ought to be in the small hours of the morning. A god boxing my ears and shouting for my attention does not immediately bring to mind the thought, ah, I should pack a little basket with a picnic breakfast, no.”
“I wish someone would box your ears.”
She laughed. At least she was not in her nightrobe. She wore a Marakander caftan, carried her sword on her back. Shifted it off into her hand, but only to throw it down. Ahjvar caught it by the brocade-covered scabbard before it hit the ground.
“I am Nabban’s. Did you doubt? Did he? And that being the case, Rihswera of Nabban…What took you so long? I’ve been expecting you these past two months, and, since I have introduced myself properly to the ambassador at last, in all confidence, so has the ambassador. Lord Ilyan Dan has on my suggestion asked his house-mistress to supply herself with the best Rostengan beans, and has found a tailor to produce a decent court gown in Nabban’s colours that may possibly fit even your long bones, since you must of course present yourself to the senate, and the priests, and Gurhan the god, and I knew you would show up looking like something even the most desperate caravan-master would think twice about hiring. But—who is this?”
She folded herself to her knees—graceful, as her every movement ever was—and began to pile up the sticks of the wind-scattered fire. Smiled at the youth. Deliberate. Devastating. Wasted effort in the night.
Ailan was far too close. Ahjvar could feel the heat of him, pressing to his side. Moved off again. “A man.”
“A young man, yes, so much I had observed. Have you acquired a son?”
“No!”
“Are you sure? He has rather a look of you, but for the pretty Nabbani eyes.”
“Quite. He’s—someone who needed to get out of Star River Crossing.”
“Oh, indeed? And you brought him along out of the goodness of your heart?”
Ahjvar shrugged.
“I see. Well, that’s between you and the young god, I suppose.”
“Cold hells, do you think—”
She was snickering. Flicked a finger at the fire and watched the flames blaze up again. “I think nothing. He looks a charming companion. Perhaps I’ll—”
“No.”
“He’s surely old enough not to need a keeper.”
“Just leave him alone, old woman. Call him a page.”
“He’s too old.”
“Not your horseboy, I suppose?”
“Nor my shield-bearer. Gods, he can hardly grab a knife by the right end.” That wasn’t fair. Ailan was vastly improving. “Call him whatever you want. My ward.”
“I must introduce him to mine, though I fear she takes regrettably little interest in pretty youths. Or maidens, either. I’d worry less over her if she did. Does he speak Nabbani?”
“Not that anyone in Nabban would acknowledge. He’s Taren. But yes, he claims he has a little Imperial.”
“A very little, I think. For your god’s sake, reassure him. He thinks we’re discussing how to cook him for dinner, by the looks he’s giving me.”
“Weren’t we?” he asked. “Ailan, it’s all right, truly. She’s—a wizard, the greatest of Nabban. She serves my god. She’s—”
“Reformed,” said Yeh-Lin, with excessive piety, hand over her heart.
“She’s annoying, is what she is,” Ahjvar said. “And she’s not nearly as young as she’s choosing to look. Pretend she’s an embarrassing relative and don’t let her bully you. Can you fill the kettle? Jang, tell me about these red priests.”
“The army has crossed the Kinsai’av. I have that from the witness of one Moth, whom you might better know under the name—”
“We know Moth.”
“Oh? She does get around, for a woman who by her own report spent nearly eighty years trying to turn herself into a glacier. I believe her humours are out of balance. Too much black bile, the physicians would say, although—”
“What? No. Never mind. Shut up about bile. What army?”
“Ah. Dead king, you are very behind the times. I don’t suppose the empress has sent an army to follow you?”
“No.”
“Pity. We could use one.”
“What army crossed the Kinsai?”
“Jochiz had made himself god of Tiypur and is marching east. The Western Grass has fallen. The goddess Kinsai is dead.”
So.
Yours. To die for you, idiot boy. Even for that. He will not reach Nabban.
CHAPTER XXVII
…winter comes on, the dying season of the year in which the All-Holy conquered the Western Grass
Autumn declined towards winter during the month they travelled from the shores of the Kinsai’aa. At first they had travelled by night, when Mikki could ride, but as his strength returned they had begun to journey under the sun, hunting as they went. If Mikki was slow and sleepy, reluctant to wake in the mornings, that was—almost usual. He had told himself so. It was winter, and the nature of demons was coloured, somewhat, by the form in which the soul of the world had shaped them. He had used to sleep days at a time, those years when they had settled in Baisirbsk and the winter sun had barely crawled above the southern horizon.
Moth had been patient. She had not pushed. She held him when he twitched and whimpered in his dreams. When all he could do was pace in silence, and the hills and the sky faded, even the scent of them gone to rank reeking of his own body and human stench and smoke, a cage in the darkness of the All-Holy’s temple or the endless jolt and creak of the wagon and the singing that was inside him somewhere, words circling, gnawing, rooted in his flesh…when he could not seem to lift his head even to follow the flight of a hawk or the darting fear of a hare, the water-flow passing of a herd of antelope, she was there, a voice, a clean scent, a rope he could cling to, to haul himself back. She sang, often, or chanted one of the old lays of heroes half-remembered, humankind and demon-kin in the old days before the seven came into the world—the travelling ones, the wanderer-heroes they had loved best, he and she both. In their former travels he had told those as often as she, they taking turns, sometimes, which of them presented themselves as the storyteller, the singer, and which hung back in the shadows, watching…They had hunted Ogada so, Ogada who had been her cousin Heuslar, slayer of her brother, of Mikki’s mother, when first they took the road together.
He had been so young. His mother would have said so, though the cousins he had sailed with when he was truly a young man had grown old and white-haired and taken the road to the Old Great Gods by then.
The Undrin Rift twisted its way between the northerly reaches of the Red Desert and the Black, and followed the course the Shikten’aa might once have taken, carrying meltwater from the mountains to the northern sea. Ghost of a river, cut deep. Up in the desert it was all shattered, knife-edged stone. Where it sliced through the faded yellow grasses here, it was still a region of cliffs and ledges, dry terraces. To the north it broadened to a valley, and the river began to come to life in pools and sloughs and swamps, acres of cat-tail and loosestrife. Clans of the Great Grass grazed their herds in the summer meadows there, and held the hills against intruders, be they raiders from other clans or peacefully passing caravans. He and Moth been there before, long ago.
These cliffs were less contested, but a bad road for horses. For camels. For anything short of a goat, really. There was a track, or there had been, long ago, when Ulfhild Vartu had ventured on some expedition into her enemy and husband’s lands of the Great Grass.
Moth had flown it first, making sure it was no false trail they followed, something that might fade away and
leave them hanging over a sheer drop. Passable, she said. But she had sounded doubtful. For a bear, the narrow way was perilous. Mikki went head low, rocks rubbing his flank in some sections, each paw placed with care, following where Moth led the horses. She had said she would rather have taken the horses down first and flown back to follow with Mikki, but he had not waited. Had not argued. Simply been there, behind her.
Black ice slicked the stones in small patches where the morning sun had not fallen.
Not a child, not a damned invalid. He had been, he knew it. He was just…not ready to be out of her sight. To be where the wind might not bring him the scent of her.
“I sent you away,” he said.
It had been burning in him, growing, a pain he could not spit out.
She stopped, there on the crumbling track. Tied the lead reins up, first one, then the other, where the horses wouldn’t tread on them, careful deliberation. Came back, edging past the more excitable spotted horse. Sat down, there at Mikki’s feet, Keeper hitched over her lap, her back to stone and some creeping thing with tiny leaves turning red hanging over her. Below them the stone dropped away, not quite cliff, loose and betraying, to any great weight that set a foot there. He sank down, head on his paws, where he could see her face. She set a hand on his neck, fingers digging into his ruff. She was looking for those scars again, as if she feared they might have torn open. As if she had to remind herself, every time she touched him, that they were there.
He wished she wouldn’t. They were scars. Hardly the first he’d won.
“I left you,” she said.
“I knew why, minrulf.” It came easily, and then it hurt, like seeing a place long lost in time, trees and years long fallen, half forgotten. Taste of the word on his tongue. Tears burning in his eyes and he did not think he’d ever wept before, not in his daylight form, not the bear. Could bears even cry? “I knew why. You were wrong. You should have defied them. The Old Great Gods to turn against a demon of the earth—they would not. They could not. I would have told you so. It was a lie, their threat against me. It was, my heart, it always was. But you left. You flew away. And so I looked for you. Years, I looked for you. Holla-Sayan came, too, a while. After his wife died—I was still looking for you then, and he and I went up into Baisirbsk. The homestead was gone by then—”
