by Kate Elliott
Yevgeni had one pretension to beauty. He had a mobile, prettily-shaped mouth. His lips twitched now, and Hyacinth could tell he was struggling inwardly. Finally he flung his head back. “Let me see.”
Hyacinth rummaged in his saddlebags and brought out the med kit. He fingered through its riches and brought out the things that he thought would be most recognizable to Yevgeni; and in the end, they worked out a rough compress and some salve and decided to nurse the horse along.
Valye watched with disapproval. “Do you think you should accept his khaja medicine? It was his khaja ways that brought down her enmity on us.”
“We don’t know if she’s angry, yet,” retorted Yevgeni.
“You’re a fool if you think we won’t pay for it, Yevgeni.”
“I’m a fool four times over, then,” he snapped, “once for leaving the tribe to ride with Dmitri Mikhailov, once for agreeing to bring you with me, once for riding away with Vasil Veselov when I should have stayed and begged for mercy.”
“What about him?” Valye jerked her chin toward Hyacinth. “Five times, then, for taking up with him.”
“No,” said Yevgeni in a low voice, not looking toward Hyacinth though he must know that Hyacinth could hear every word they were saying. “Not for him. You don’t understand what it’s like to feel shame every time you look at a man with desire, to know you can never speak of your feelings to him. Oh, I thought for a while that Vasil might—but he needed a second in command, he needed men for a jahar, he used his beauty to make me think he might love me, but he never did, and then I felt ashamed for being a fool, for not knowing better. But he never made me feel ashamed. Because he never felt ashamed. That was a gift, Valye, but perhaps you can’t understand that.”
Her throat worked. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She had pulled back her hair into a long braid, but the sunlight betrayed how dirty it was. Dirt encrusted the cuffs and hem of her tunic and caked the knees of her trousers and the palms of her hands. Not that Hyacinth was any cleaner. “I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. She offered a hand to Yevgeni and he accepted it, and she lifted him up and hugged him. “You’re all that I have, Yevgeni. I won’t judge you.”
He smiled tremulously. “You’re the best sister any man ever had, even if you are wild, and won’t listen when you ought to.” He kissed her on the cheek. A pang gripped Hyacinth’s heart, seeing their true feeling for each other, seeing their bond. Like the one he had once had with the actors in the Company. Was this how Yevgeni felt, riding in the army, as if he was always on the outside looking in?
Yevgeni pushed her away. “We’d better go. It’s never wise to stay in any place too long.”
Except that they already had stayed too long. Or perhaps their fate had been tracking them all along and simply chosen this moment to strike.
One moment, the scene was all silence. It was bleak, true enough, but there was hope in the way the path wound up into the heights, suggesting freedom in the distance, and hope in the way Yevgeni turned and with a shy smile glanced toward Hyacinth and away, as if he flirted with him. Then he stopped in mid-stride. His expression shifted abruptly. He canted his head to one side, listening. Hyacinth heard something, a gentle ring, the echo of a sound like a voice’s echo. Yevgeni drew his saber. Valye pulled her bow from its quiver. It was already strung; it was always strung. Hyacinth stared.
“Mount.” Yevgeni sprinted toward him.
Hyacinth heard a whoof, like air being expelled; heard the ring of bridle; heard the shout. Yevgeni called a warning. It all took place in a vast sink of time, drawn out so excruciatingly slowly that to experience it was painful. Valye staggered forward in the act of fitting an arrow to her bowstring. She half turned to raise and aim at the sudden clot of khaja riders on the ridge above them, but a strange shadow cut across her.
Two arrows stuck out of her back. She shot anyway. She shot again as the riders charged down toward them, and a man toppled from his horse. Yevgeni scrambled onto his horse and swung round to go back to her. His horse stumbled and staggered and crumpled to the ground, pierced through the neck with a mass of arrows. Thrown, Yevgeni tumbled down, landing at Valye’s feet. She shot again. An arrow skewered her in the thigh. Still she did not go down. A trio of arrows pinned Yevgeni to the ground, but he tore free of them and struggled up to stand next to her.
They were going to die.
Then Hyacinth remembered his knife. What did he care what prohibitions he broke? He drew it and raised it and fired. He saw nothing but a shimmering in the air. But the effect was stunning, and immediate. Twelve riders closed in on them, a thirteenth left back on the ground with an arrow in his chest. Twelve khaja men fell like stones from their saddles. That fast. The horses faltered. One went down. The other horses pulled up short not six paces in front of Yevgeni, riderless, confused, and probably half stunned themselves by the concussion.
“Gods!” cried Valye, whether from her wounds or from astonishment Hyacinth could not know. She collapsed to the ground at Yevgeni’s feet.
“Hyacinth, look after her!” Yevgeni cried. He ran forward, drawing his knife in his other hand, and knelt by the foremost khaja bandit. “Gods, he’s still breathing. So is he!” He glanced back toward Hyacinth, looking suspicious, looking apprehensive. Then, methodically, gruesomely, he slit each man’s throat.
Hyacinth roused himself out of his stupor and dropped the reins and ran over to Valye. Mercifully, she was unconscious. Blood bubbled out of her mouth, welling in and out in time to her labored breathing. Hyacinth fumbled in the med kit and brought out the scanner and ran it over her. Then he flipped over his slate and read the results into it. They flashed RED RED RED: condition critical; advise moving subject to urgent care facility immediately; wounds to deep tissue in thigh; damage to internal organs; right lung has been pierced; do you wish a more detailed diagnosis?
“No,” said Hyacinth.
“She’s going to die, isn’t she?” said Yevgeni. Hyacinth jumped, startled, and turned. Yevgeni limped up to him. He bled from his leg, from his arm, and from a gash to his head. “What is that?” He pointed with his bloodstained knife to the open slate.
“It’s a hemi-modeler. Maybe you’d know it as a computer. Never mind. It doesn’t matter what it is. Do you know how to get those arrows out?”
Yevgeni shrugged, staring at his young sister. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen wounds. She’s breathing blood. It’s got her in the lungs. She won’t live.”
“She can, if I can get help.”
Yevgeni gave him a look of complete incomprehension and then knelt beside Valye and began the slow process of turning the arrows out of her wounds. Blood gushed. Hyacinth had to turn away before he threw up. He grabbed his slate and went and crouched beside the horses. He lifted the knife, and held it up so that it could read his retinal print, and then he released its code. For five minutes, he knew, it would pulse silently, broadcasting the distress signal. He tried to gauge how long it would take for them to get a ship here. Could they get one here soon enough to save Valye?
“The horses,” said Yevgeni.
Hyacinth hobbled their horses, caught the strays and as many of the others as he could, and hobbled them as well. Yevgeni’s horse—well, it was suffering, that much was apparent.
“Kill it,” said Yevgeni.
What choice did he have? Force Yevgeni to leave his sister? The rider had two of the arrows out, by now, but the third came slowly, spiraling out along its tracks on the silk undershirt she wore, driven into the wound. Hyacinth hadn’t a clue how to kill a horse. He used his knife to stun it into oblivion and hoped it would bleed to death before it woke up. Then he went back to Yevgeni and ran the scan over him. He set the med kit out and queried the modeler about first aid, and the slate began a stream of directions to him in clear Anglais.
Yevgeni started so badly that he almost twitched the arrow still lodged in Valye’s side. He swore, and then again, seeing that Hyacinth wasn’t speaking. He we
nt white. “What is that?” He was terrified. “Who is that speaking?”
“Trust me,” said Hyacinth. “Just trust me. Take that arrow out.” Listening to the directions, Hyacinth did as well as he could with the equipment in the med kit. He used a sonic cleaner to sterilize the various wounds and an antibiotic spray to prevent infection. The seamer stitched up Yevgeni’s head wound, sealing it, and his leg wound as well, and Valye’s thigh wound, but there was nothing he could do about the internal damage. He ran the emergency pulse again, or so he hoped; he could not hear anything. Yevgeni was in shock by this time. He stumbled away from Hyacinth and began to gather wood for a fire, refusing to be deflected from this task, so Hyacinth set up his tent by himself. They carried Valye into it and laid her on the floor. She did not regain consciousness. Her breath bubbled and subsided. Night fell. No one came.
All that long night Yevgeni sat beside her. Hyacinth set up the lantern, not caring now if its constant, tireless glow amazed Yevgeni, but Yevgeni sat so sunk in grief that he did not seem to care. Valye breathed. Night passed. No one came.
She died at dawn, slipping peacefully out of herself and away. Yevgeni readied the fire, evidently not caring that it would provide a beacon for any other khaja bandits passing by. He dressed her carefully and folded her hands over her chest; he laid her on the fire, and lit it. It blazed up. Soon smoke and flames concealed her from their view. Yevgeni flung himself on the ground and keened. He threw off his shirt and slashed himself with his knife, over and over, along his arms and on his chest. Blood, like tears, washed him.
Hyacinth stared at his transmitter. No one had come. They had abandoned him.
Morning passed. The pyre burned. The sun rose to its zenith, reminding Hyacinth bitterly that exactly one day had passed since they had halted here before. The bodies of the dead khaja still lay on the ground, ravaged by night stalkers. Insects swarmed them. A bird circled down and settled with lazy grace on the corpse farthest from the horses. It began to feed. Soon another bird joined it.
Hyacinth walked forward and touched Yevgeni on the neck. “Yevgeni,” he said softly, not trusting the other man not to jump up and threaten him with that knife. At least Yevgeni had stopped mutilating himself, though blood still seeped from the cuts scored all over his skin. “Shouldn’t we move on? What if they come back? If someone else comes?”
“Ah, gods,” said Yevgeni, his voice hoarse with rage and sorrow, “she trusted me. When did I bring her anything but grief?”
Hyacinth winced. Yevgeni’s desolation was a palpable thing, like a blow. Yevgeni stared at the fire that consumed his sister’s body. If he even noticed Hyacinth’s hand on his neck, he gave no sign of it. “Yevgeni, we should ride on. What if there are others around here?”
“What does it matter? Grandmother Night will have her revenge on us in the end.” His voice sounded hollow and lifeless. “We killed her holy messengers, and the only punishment for that crime is death. It has already begun. Valye is dead. What does it matter if we die, too?”
Yevgeni had given up. Hyacinth shut his eyes. “Yevgeni, listen to me. I don’t believe in grandmother night. I’m not going to die, not for grandmother night, not for you, and not for them!” He opened his eyes, shocked at his own vehemence. But it was true; now that they had lost everything, now that he had been abandoned by his own people, now he refused to give up.
Yevgeni lifted his head. His eyes were glazed, but a sudden gleam of fear lit them. “You mustn’t speak of her with such disrespect,” he said, but with no force behind the comment.
“And risk what? Valye is already dead. What else is there but our own lives? I’m going on, and you’re coming with me.” Hyacinth did not know what else to do, except to keep moving. Yevgeni rose, stiff with pain and drying cuts, but he would not let Hyacinth clean his wounds. Face drawn, he pulled his shirt on over the raw cuts. He hesitated. The pyre burned steadily now, but Hyacinth was not sure how much of Valye’s body would actually be consumed by the time it went out. He didn’t intend to wait around to see what khaja locals the fire attracted.
“Yevgeni, come on.”
Yevgeni obeyed numbly. They strung the khaja horses on with the rest and set off northeast, up the valley.
That night, Hyacinth downed two birds with his knife and brought them back to camp. Yevgeni sat slumped over his knees, apathetic now in his grief. Hyacinth sighed and stared at the two birds. He steeled himself, going off a few paces away from the safety of the hobbled horses, and he began the disgusting, messy work of preparing them for supper. He hadn’t a clue what to do with them. He plucked at the feathers, but they wouldn’t come out cleanly. He had to hack and tear at the skin and peel it off entirely. It was horrible. He cut off their heads and feet, swore copiously, gutted them, and threw up once at the smell and sticky texture of the fluids that gushed out of them. But he did it.
Yevgeni just sat there. Hyacinth got out the little solar powered oven he had stolen from the Company’s camp and roasted the two birds in it. That wasn’t so bad, since the oven had all kinds of timing devices built into it according to weight and type of meat. He also heated water to boiling and while the meat cooked, he took a cloth and dabbed the cuts on Yevgeni’s back with hot water. Yevgeni let him do it. He was otherwise listless. He shivered, and Hyacinth hoped that he wasn’t going to get some kind of infection. He brought out the scanner again and ran it over Yevgeni, and the med program on his slate advised him to use the antiseptic mist.
“What are you doing?” Yevgeni asked at last, roused out of his stupor by the stinging of the mist.
“Keeping you well. Roasting some meat.”
But Yevgeni wouldn’t eat when Hyacinth brought him the roasted fowl.
Hyacinth crouched beside him and took Yevgeni’s chin in his hand. “They’ve all abandoned you, Yevgeni, don’t you see that? So what does it matter what you do?”
“It matters to the gods.”
“Well, I don’t believe in your gods. How did those twelve men fall off their horses?”
For the first time since Valye’s death, Yevgeni lifted his gaze to look directly at Hyacinth. “I don’t know,” he whispered.
“I did that, and you know I’m no fighter.”
“You’re a Singer. A shaman. Perhaps you know sorcery.”
“It’s not sorcery either. Listen, Yevgeni. Maybe we have a way out of this. Do you know where the shrine of Morava is? Maybe Soerensen is still there.”
The glaze of dullness that stiffened Yevgeni’s expression lightened slightly. “Who is Soerensen?”
“The Prince of Jeds. If we can find him—”
“He would help us?” Yevgeni shook his head. “He can’t help us. No woman or man can, now that Grandmother Night has settled her terrible gaze on us.”
“Yes, he can. He’s more powerful than grandmother night.”
“Don’t say that!” Yevgeni shrank away from him.
“But it’s true. I made those men fall down, with this knife. I can heal your wounds with these simple instruments. That box is an oven that baked this meat without fire. I’m more powerful than grandmother night. Let me show you something.”
He brought out his slate and unfolded it, so that it lay flat on the ground. In silence, Yevgeni watched. “Do you remember the jaran tale we sang? The one about Mekhala, the woman who brought horses to the jaran?”
Yevgeni lowered his eyes. “Yes.” He said it as if something shamed him about the memory. “I was with Valye. She liked to see your people’s singing.”
“Run Mekhala folktale, scene two. Meter field.”
In scene two, Hyacinth played the khaja prince who had come to demand tribute from the rhan, as the jaran tribes had called themselves before they had gotten horses and become ja-rhan, the people of the wind. Above the slate, about a meter cubed, the play unfolded: Anahita as Mekhala and Diana as her sister, Hyacinth entering as the prince with his retinue of Quinn and Oriana.
Yevgeni stared openmouthed at the image, moving,
playing out. He reached out and snatched his hand back before he touched it. “Sorcery,” he murmured.
“No, it’s not sorcery. It’s a—oh, hell, there’s no way to explain it to you. Run image of Morava.”
The image melted away and re-formed into the gorgeous dome and towers of the Chapalii palace the jaran called Morava. Hyacinth had not seen Morava except through this program, and he was delighted to be able to pace around it and see the complex from all angles. He envied the duke’s party for experiencing it firsthand.
“But how did it get so small?” Yevgeni demanded. “How did you capture it and bring it here?”
“It’s just an image, Yevgeni, not the shrine itself. Look, do you know what a map is? Let me see. Maybe I can reconstruct where we left the army, and where we are now. It’s been thirty-five days since we left camp and if we’ve ridden northeast… Goddess. I should have paid more attention in cartography tutorial.”
“But no one is more powerful than Grandmother Night,” said Yevgeni suddenly. “Even seeing these things and what you did to those khaja bandits, still… She attends us at our birth and grants us a measure of days in which to live. She is the One with whom we may bargain for gifts, if we’re willing to risk the bargaining, if we’re desperate enough. She is death, Hyacinth. No person can escape death.”
“How old do you think the Prince of Jeds is?”
Yevgeni shrugged. “Of an age with Bakhtiian, I suppose.”
“He isn’t. He’s older than Mother Sakhalin.”
“He can’t be.”
“He is. Why would I lie to you? Dr. Hierakis is older than he is. Owen is in his seventies, too, and Ginny is at least as old as that. Yet they are still young. My great-grandmother Nguyen is one hundred and sixteen years old, and I can expect to live at least as long as she has and stay young until I’m ninety or so. Grandmother night doesn’t scare us. You’ve got to believe me, Yevgeni. You’ve got to want to believe me, you’ve got to want to live. If we can make it to the shrine, if we can find the duke—”
