The Pattern Scars

by Caitlin Sweet

  “Hush, Nola! Dearest girl. Come here, now—quietly—there. There . . .”

  And so he took me again, on the floor of Ranior’s Tomb. This time, afterward, I did not run.

  Moabu Bantayo and Ispa Neluja walked into Sarsenay City at noon on a hot, clear, late summer’s day. They were flanked by four Belakaoan men with spears. There were no drums. The rest of the Belakaoans—hundreds of them, our soldiers said—were encamped beyond Ranior’s Hill.

  “Not enough,” Teldaru hissed. “Why are there not more? These hundreds might simply be the ones who left our city—where is his army?”

  Bantayo and Neluja were led into the Great Hall, which had been cleared of everything except for one table, now a bier, draped in orange and green island cloth. Zemiya was lying on it. She had been dead for weeks, but thanks to the work of the healers, who attended to as many dead bodies as they did live ones, she looked smooth and clean—just resting, with her hands folded across her breast.

  Bantayo did not even glance at her. He looked at Haldrin, who was standing next to the bier. The gems on the moabu’s golden tunic-dress winked as he lifted his hand and pointed at the king.

  “What will you do,” Bantayo said in his voice of metal, “to repair the damage you have done to the honour of my land?”

  “Moabu.” Haldrin was very pale, but he sounded stronger than he had since Layibe’s birth. “We will speak of this—now, if you wish. I thought, before we did, that you might want to see your sister and your niece.”

  I stepped forward. Layibe was lying on my shoulder. Her curls tickled the skin under my jaw, and my neck. There were shells in the curls, threaded there by Jamenda, who would not leave the castle.

  “My sister is dead,” Bantayo said, “thanks to Sarsenayan treachery. I have no reason to look on her. And I have no wish to see the child.” I wondered how he could hold his eyes so steady. He almost did not blink.

  “But I do.” Neluja turned from the bier. One of Zemiya’s arms was lying straight now; Neluja must have moved it, perhaps to hold her hand.

  She walked to me. She seemed even thinner than she had been: her arms and neck, her cheeks. She held out her arms and I passed the baby to her, thinking: Surely the princess will be quiet with her own aunt. But of course this was a ridiculous hope; the princess stiffened and lifted her head, and Neluja looked down into her face. Into her rolling, grey-white eyes.

  I heard Neluja suck in her breath. As she did, the scarlet lizard slipped out of the neck of her dress and onto her shoulder.

  “The child is blind,” she said—to Bantayo, but really, I thought, to me.

  “Haldrin,” Bantayo said. He managed to make the word both taunt and threat. “Here is yet more shame. Tell me—is there some other insult you have prepared?”

  “Moabu,” Haldrin said, between his teeth, “let us speak now. Privately.”

  Layibe was wailing. Neluja gazed at her a moment longer and handed her back to me.

  “Ispa Nola,” she said, “we should speak together also.”

  Yes. Yes—you understand so much more than anyone else, so I will not need perfect words.

  “And with me, perhaps?” Teldaru said from behind me. “For I am Master, here.”

  “You.” In the silence after Neluja spoke this word, Haldrin and Bantayo’s footsteps sounded very loud. They fell on rushes and stone. They grew faint—out the door and into the courtyard—and died.

  “You,” Neluja said again, when we three were alone (we three and a dead woman and a baby), “are even less than you were as a boy—and you were nothing then.”

  She was taller than he was. She stared down at him with her black eyes that were edged and flecked with pearl, and I thought, She is magnificent. And yet she looked at Layibe and then at me, and she turned and went. Her lizard held itself up on its clawed feet and watched us, all the amber facets of its eyes reflecting sunlight and space.

  “And so we are alone again.” Teldaru’s breath was stale with old wine and sleeplessness. I had not noticed this smell before.

  I nodded. “But the king—will he not need you?”

  “Oh, Nola,” Teldaru murmured, “there is only you, for me”—and he laughed as he kissed me, with his hot, cracked lips.

  The king did not need Teldaru. Haldrin and Bantayo shut themselves in the library, as they had before. Days passed.

  Teldaru and I began to ride back and forth from the Hill in full daylight. Only soldiers were allowed on the road now—but an exception was made for us, of course.

  “We must be at the place where Sarsenay’s Pattern is strongest,” he told the guards. “We must be close to Ranior, and to those who threaten us.”

  Except that no one was threatening us—not yet. We stood at the top of the Hill and gazed at the plain, which was patchy with fires and people and a few horses. “This is not an army!” Teldaru cried. “These are old men, women with babies, waiting to return home with their king. Bantayo has brought no men to defend the honour of his land!”

  “You cannot possibly see that.” I squinted at the tiny people-shapes and their tiny coils of smoke. They were Pattern and Paths, and everything around them was shadow, even in the sun; I shuddered because I did not know whether to feel relief or dread.

  We practised, on these days. We were Mambura and Ranior, and each time we had more power over them: over their limbs and movements and the memories that only drifted, now, like coloured mist. Several times I thought that I could lose myself—run out forever along Mambura’s endless, always-dying roads. But I did not. And every time I returned to the hard, painted stone of Ranior’s Tomb, I wondered why.

  “You are never in your bed, Mistress,” said Leylen one morning.

  “It is a busy time.” I pushed her hands away and undid my own laces with fingers that did not falter, since they knew the motion so well.

  “And Bardo has sent no more notes.” Her voice was strange—clipped and shrill, as if she had expected to speak these words but had not expected to feel so awkward about it.

  I pulled my dress over my head and took the clean one she held out to me. “As I just said, it is a busy time. But why should this concern you?”

  “Oh, because I worry—you know I do, Mistress, too much—I think he might need me, or you might, and I want to be close by if you do.”

  I wrenched the clean dress on. “We do not need you, Leylen, and we will not. In fact, do you have family you could go to? It might be best.”

  She gaped at me. My brush hung from her hand. “You would . . . you would send me away from the castle?”

  It was too much for me, all of a sudden, and she was too easy a mark. “Yes, girl, I would! I will! Go now—I do not want to see you again. Go!”

  The brush slipped from her fingers. She whirled and ran from the room. I heard her sobs receding down the corridor, and I did not think to care.

  It was late afternoon on the day I sent Leylen away. It was the fifth day since Bantayo had arrived. I was standing with Teldaru in the Tomb. He was pacing in front of the two heroes, who were sitting beside each other, almost as if they were watching him. He was talking. I heard him say something about how he should have waited to kill Zemiya until her brother arrived, for then he would surely have been shamed and enraged enough to take immediate revenge. I was not really listening, though. I was thinking: Tonight I will get away, somehow. I will pretend I am ill, at dinner, and have Sildio escort me to my room; Sildio is much bigger than Teldaru and does not seem to like him, so he will insist, if I do, that he be the only one to go with me . . . And I will tell him to return to the Hall and whisper to Neluja to come to me—not in my room, for I will not actually go there, but in the kitchen. It will take Teldaru some time to find us. And while he’s looking, Neluja will be asking questions and understanding my almost-senseless answers, and she will tell Bardrem what it means, and remake my Paths, and then I will kill Teldaru and all of this will end.

  I did not believe what I was thinking. It was a desperate jumb
le of words and imaginings, and I knew that none of it would come true, but for once my hope was stronger than my fear, and this seemed to matter.

  “Nola.”

  I blinked at him. He was standing with his hands on his hips, glowering down at me. “I have said this twice already. You will listen this time.”

  “Yes,” I said, “of course.” You twisted horror of a man—I will not have to pretend any more, once this battle of yours happens, or doesn’t. Once Neluja helps me be free of your curse, and you.

  “We will take them outside now,” he said.

  I blinked again—as slow and mindless as the living dead across from me.

  “We will walk them into the air, to the top of the hill. We will practise moving on earth, not floor. We will practise seeing horizon, not walls.” He passed me Bardrem’s little knife. My bleeding had begun the day before, but I did not mention this. I said nothing—just pricked my forefinger and slipped the knife into my belt, quickly, before Mambura’s skin and sky surrounded me.

  A girl walked to the king’s library door. (I know this now and did not, then, but I will write it anyway.) She held herself very tall, as another girl once had, when she stood there and said, “I must speak with King Haldrin.”

  The four Belakaoan guards and four Sarsenayan ones glanced at each other. A few frowned; the rest smiled. It had been many days with nothing but the closed door to stare at, and nothing to hear but a muted murmur from behind it.

  “And what is so important that you’d disturb the conferring of two kings?” one of the Sarsenayans asked.

  The girl lifted her chin even higher. “Master Teldaru and Mistress Nola have been using Bloodseeing to make the dead live again. They have been doing it at a house in the city and also at Ranior’s Hill. Bardo the cook will be able to take the king to the house.” She held up a hand. She was clutching some pieces of folded paper. Her knuckles were white but her voice was steady. “Here is the proof of their treachery. Now let me pass.”

  The Sarsenayan who had spoken took the papers. He unfolded them and squinted down at the writing, then looked back at her. “I don’t read. How is it possible that you do?”

  The girl smiled a little, with pride and memory. “My father knew, and he taught me. Let me pass.”

  One of the Belakaoans reached for the pages. He lowered his head; his lips moved as he gazed at the notes. When he looked up his dark eyes were wide. “She tells the truth,” he said as another Belakaoan leaned over and read, and another. They muttered and nodded.

  The Sarsenayans looked at each other a moment longer. “Very well then,” their leader said, and knocked on the door.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I was Mambura. I was standing with my back against Ranior’s monument, but I could not feel the spirals and lines pressing into my skin: I felt only Mambura’s skin, inside and out. It burned. It remembered sunlight and cloud scattered by wind. It remembered moss and earth, pebbles caught between toes.

  Mambura’s skin remembered and so did Ranior’s.

  They walked around the Hill, Ranior taking long jerky strides and Mambura taking smaller steps. They walked and circled each other and walked again. This place was a memory. Ranior’s eyes saw it from this height and Mambura’s from below. They saw each other, Bird and Hound. Their Otherworlds crackled with slow, brightening flames.

  Teldaru and I stood and sat and stood. Teldaru lay on his back and laughed; Ranior’s mouth gaped, and he thrust his sword up toward the sky that was turning from blue to gold. From blue to gold to crimson, in the west, and the heroes remembered sunset.

  Hours passed. It was the longest the men had stood, hefting wood and metal, and they were strong—even Ranior, whose flesh was loose around his joints and whose left foot was turned inward and dragged, a little. Teldaru and I, though, were hunched against the stone. Teldaru was panting; I hardly seemed to be breathing at all. Our sagging shoulders touched. I stirred once; I knelt, and Mambura stumbled, and Teldaru cried, “No! Stay, Nola! Longer . . .”

  from his mouth and Ranior’s. I did. I collapsed back against the stone. Mambura threw his spear in a gentle arc. It lodged in the slope below and he walked to retrieve it. He slipped twice but did not fall.

  He stepped back onto the hilltop. He stopped walking. No one else was walking, and yet pebbles slithered down a slope. Feet crunched and slid. Teldaru and I heard this and our heads turned. Mambura and Ranior’s heads turned.

  Haldrin and Bantayo crested the hill side by side. Bardrem was behind them, and Neluja behind him.

  Teldaru and I knew these faces, even though the crimson and gold of sunset were very bright. We knew but did not move, at first. At first Mambura and Ranior did not, either. But then Borl came trotting up behind the king.

  Mambura had never seen Borl—never while I had been inside him, anyway, filling him with strength and vision. Now the dog was all he saw: the hunting hound, with his lean, heaving flanks and his lolling tongue, and the teeth that had been so sharp, the last time Mambura stood upon this hill. The teeth that had torn at his flesh while his people broke and fled like a great retreating wave behind him.

  Mambura’s Paths lashed and bent. I tried to cling to them, and to my place upon them, but I fell. The flames were all around me, blotting out the images, but it did not matter: Mambura remembered a rage so strong that I had no strength myself.

  Mambura wheeled. He was very close to Ranior, whom he had been seeing for days—but now the dog had made him recognize the man. Mambura was too close to throw his spear so he jabbed it instead, while I tried to find my hand in his, my arm in his—while I writhed and groped, trying to get out.

  The spear grazed Ranior’s side. It tore the white tunic Teldaru had put on him earlier that day. It made a dark, puckered line on Ranior’s bruised skin. Ranior did not react. Bantayo started forward. Haldrin and Bardrem did too, each seeking a single direction, but Bantayo was ahead of them, his body low and lithe. He was just paces away from Ranior when a piercing cry came from above.

  A bird wheeled among the streamers of cloud. The bird was sunset: scarlet and gold and blue. Her cry was island and blood-drenched plain, and Ranior remembered. He turned his eyes from the bird to the man who was also island, also memory. Ranior lifted his sword, and Teldaru, within him, shrieked his joy and hunger.

  Bantayo had a curved knife in his hand. He charged Ranior—bore him to the ground and sank the knife into his gut. Black seeped into the white cloth. Bantayo leaned back, already relaxing. Ranior reared forward, his right fist coming up and in. It caught Bantayo on the chin with a crack and sent him sprawling. He lay on his back, twitching and gasping.

  Haldrin was upon Mambura. The king had no weapon: just his hands, which he wrapped around Mambura’s forearms. He was small, though, and Mambura was a dark, burnished mountain. Haldrin strained, and Mambura dropped his spear, but the Belakaoan’s hands were free, and they closed around Haldrin’s neck.

  No, I thought, from the Otherworld. No to the rage, and my own need for it. No to the feel of skin and tendons between my hands—Haldrin’s skin; Mambura’s hands.

  Haldrin wrenched himself away. He faced the stone, cried “Daru! Nola! What is this—Daru . . .” Then he lunged for Bantayo’s knife, which was now lying on the ground. He hacked at Mambura’s chest and slashed his arms, swift and deep. Mambura oozed black but did not fall. He struck Haldrin again and again, from face to jaw to belly, until the king stumbled to one knee. Mambura picked up his spear. Haldrin looked up into Mambura’s face, his blue eyes wide and unafraid.

  Mambura plunged the spear into the fleshy hollow of Haldrin’s collarbone. Haldrin toppled slowly, in a shower of bright red blood.

  No! I screamed—and at last, too late, I was the stronger one. I tore my fingers and arms away from Mambura’s. I tore my feet away from his snake-Paths. I clawed my way through flame and foaming water and suddenly I was only myself, lying on my side beneath a tall, carved stone.

  I retched and sobbed and ground m
y palms against my eyes to clear them. I needed to see. Mambura face-down next to Haldrin, whose blood was leaving him in streams now, not gouts. Bantayo struggling to sit. Ranior sweeping his sword in whistling arcs, at no one. Teldaru propped an arm’s length away from me, his mouth dribbling spittle and blood. Bardrem crouched on my other side, his eyes darting everywhere at once—Bardrem so close that I could have touched his twisted hand or the toe of his boot. Borl lying with his muzzle in my upturned hand.

  And Neluja, standing straight and still at the crest of the hill, watching the bird circling above us all.

  Help us, I wanted to say. You are the only one who can help; you are the only one who might understand any of this.

  Bardrem took a step. It was small and clumsy because he was crouching, but I could see his eyes, through the black splotches in mine. He was looking at Teldaru. He took another step. His foot was against my drawn-up knee. I moaned and uncurled my body. He gazed down at me and I moved my chin and one of my hands—Look there, Bardrem, at my belt. . . .

  He saw my knife—his knife, really. He reached and plucked it free. He wrapped his good fingers tightly around it and smiled at me. He stepped over Borl, whose eyes rolled, following the sound or sense of him.

  Teldaru’s face was angled away; he was watching Ranior and his sword (though he would be seeing flames too, I thought, and ancient, Other things). He did not see Bardrem easing himself closer. Bardrem was nearly upon him. He raised the knife, and the last of the burnished light danced on its small, slender blade. Teldaru did not see the glint through his own eyes, but he did through Ranior’s. Ranior blinked and sprang forward, his sword descending as Bardrem’s knife did. And the sword was faster. It was heavier and so much larger—surely it should have been slow—but Ranior had been a warrior and a king, and Bardrem was just a man.

  The sword sliced into Bardrem’s exposed side. He hit the stone and heaved himself around so that he was facing Ranior.