by Giles Carwyn
She continued down the hill toward the city, her glamour wrapped about her like a cape. The Zelani school was set high on South Ridge, overlooking the bay. Moonlight glimmered on the waters that were Ohndarien’s lifeblood. She couldn’t believe her eyes when Master Victeris had first brought her to the city. Ohndarien, jewel of the known world, was everything her home in Faradan was not.
In the Free City possibilities ran like a hundred roads into her future. In Faradan, there was only one meager, rutted track leading toward a bleak end.
Young women in Ohndarien were afraid their businesses were growing too slowly. Young women in Faradan were afraid to go outside after dark.
Shara imagined her eldest sister, Nelda. The lucky one. The firstborn. She married a kilt-maker’s son, and none of Shara’s other sisters could aspire to anything better. Now Nelda was punching holes in leather from sunrise to sundown with nothing to show for it at the end of the day except for a thatch roof, a hot meal, and the touch of a drunken and defeated man.
Nelda must already have daughters of her own, daughters who knew all too well the sting of their mother’s hand whenever they showed a drop of spirit, whenever their eyes drifted up from the ground. Mothers in Faradan learned to strike their children quickly before their fathers could raise a beefy hand. Feeling a lighter blow was the only kindness a child could expect in the kingdom among the pines.
But Ohndarien was so very different. When Shara first arrived she couldn’t believe the way children simply played together in the streets, running around in little chattering packs day or night. Those children grew up without fear. If that wasn’t freedom, nothing was.
She breathed in the cool night air, thick with the scent of flowers from the gardens that spilled over the roof of every building.
The Free City was a mythical accomplishment of engineering, built around a series of locks that connected the Great Ocean with the Summer Sea. Endless trade made her the richest city in the world. Her hundred-foot walls kept her that way.
Far below, bright lamps sparkled in the Night Market. Food, drink, song, dance, games, theater—the best in the world could be found at Ohndarien’s Night Market, if you had the coin. It was packed with people from a hundred lands from dusk until dawn.
Above the market rose a circular plateau known as the Wheel of the Seasons. The Wheel was the spiritual and political center of the city, and the most beautiful place Shara had ever seen. Most cities boasted a king in a castle, or an emperor in a palace, but the leaders of Ohndarien held council in a garden. Shara had spent countless hours walking with Brophy in those gardens. She’d waded in the fountains, lost herself in the hedge mazes, and slept away warm afternoons under the trees.
At the center of the Wheel stood the Hall of Windows, a stained-glass amphitheater many considered the most remarkable building in the world. But there was sadness mixed with its beauty. A single torch burned in each of the cardinal directions atop the Hall of Windows. The flames held vigil, waiting thirteen years for the return of Ohndarien’s Lost Brothers from the Vastness.
Shara continued across Donovan’s Bridge into the Night Market. She wandered amidst the shops, naked as the moon above, pretending to look at the wares while studying those around her. They saw what they expected to see. Perhaps she was a haughty strumpet from the Silver Islands. Perhaps she was a cocksure duelist from the Summer Cities, spouting poetic challenges to any who looked his way. They saw anything they wanted, anything but the truth.
With a laugh, she moved on, going wherever she pleased. She walked past the attendants into a private masked ball thrown by an ambassador from Kherif. She strolled through the kitchens of the Midnight Jewel and stole a breast-fruit tart from under the steward’s nose. She joined a drunken singing contest between the crews of two trading galleys from Faradan. The bawdy lyrics and guttural accents reminded Shara of sneaking away from her father to watch dueling minstrels on Midsummer’s Eve.
That was the night she met her first Zelani.
The haughty stranger had come to the village festival with a squad of the king’s soldiers. The man’s penetrating gaze scared Shara at first, but he spoke softly despite the hungry glint in his eyes. He called for everyone’s attention and showed an enormous coin to the crowd. A hush fell over the village as the poor farmers and craftsmen looked at more gold than they would make in their entire lives. In a quiet voice, the Zelani master said any child who could pick up the coin and return it to him without dropping it could leave with him to study at a new school in the Free City. Then he threw the coin into the bonfire.
The crowd gasped, and a couple of the parents protested, but the presence of the king’s men kept that the villagers cowed. Every child was given a chance to approach the fire.
Few children had the courage to face the flames. Those who did yanked their hands back quickly with yelps of pain. None of the children got close to the coin until it was Shara’s turn. She strode forward and thrust her hand into the blaze.
The people all around her gasped as she plucked the searing coin from the coals and jumped back with it pinched between thumb and forefinger, a fierce grimace on her face.
Shara’s fingers still showed those burn marks, but she never dropped that coin. She never even cried out. Her teeth were gritted in pain, but inside she was soaring as she placed the red-hot coin in Victeris’s outstretched palm. It was the first moment in her life that she felt free.
The stranger knelt next to Shara. The firelight flickered across his thin face and smoky goatee.
“Well done, child,” he said. “What do you say we give that coin to your parents and teach you how to make a thousand more just like it?”
That was Shara’s tenth summer. The last she would spend in Faradan. Her father took the stranger’s gold, called Shara a whore, and sent her on her way. She had never looked back.
Reveling in her night of triumph, Shara wandered through the thinning early-morning crowds until a fire-lit doorway caught her attention. She moved toward the noisy café and stood at the threshold. A drunken pipe band tried to overwhelm the laughter and shouting voices in the smoky room. Young women, and older women trying to look young, sat on the laps of drunken men. Some were half-naked, giggling as leering men fondled a thigh. Others were fully dressed, breasts pushed up into shifting globes, layered skirts riding up their legs.
She stood for a long moment, watching the women work their trade. It had never been so clear to her. She was no whore. These women offered nothing more than a moment’s pleasure. Shara would rewrite men’s souls.
She turned to go, but a voice stopped her. “Most wait to get upstairs before dropping their skirts.”
She suddenly felt cold. He knew. He saw.
The thin man sat alone in the closest corner. His eyebrows were black slashes above his dark eyes, giving his gaze a fierce intensity.
The man’s gaze traveled the length of Shara’s body. His plush fur cloak made him look like a sailor from Kherif, but his features were harder to place. He had a prominent nose and gray flecks in his brown hair. He looked like a man who hadn’t smiled in years.
Her heart beat faster, and her concentration wavered. A cool breeze tickled the nape of her neck, and a few of the other men turned to stare at her. Their eyes weren’t anywhere near her face.
She gasped and fled out the door. A group of drunken youths stopped and stared as she ran by them.
“Shara!” shouted the sailor from Kherif, sprinting after her.
She doubled her effort, but he reached her in seconds. He was neither tall nor powerfully built, but he caught her as though she were a child and dragged her to a stop. She would have fallen, but he held her up with one hand.
“Let me go!” she demanded.
He did. She stumbled back a few steps.
The young men began to whistle and clap. “Naked women running away from you is a bad sign, my friend,” one of them shouted. The stranger shot the boy a deadly look. The youth blanched and said nothing more.<
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The stranger shrugged off his cloak and offered it to her. His voice was quiet, dark like his eyes. “It will be a long walk home, dressed like you aren’t.”
Hesitantly, she took the cloak and wrapped it around herself. The cluster of boys continued on their way, laughing and joking among themselves.
“How do you know my name?” she asked, flushed.
“I have found that it is good to know things,” the stranger said.
She pulled the fur cloak more tightly about herself. “And who are you?”
“A dog at the feast,” he murmured, “A spider in the palace. You may call me Scythe if you have need to call upon me at all.”
She elevated her chin slightly. “I doubt I will need to call upon the services of a dog, or a spider.”
“More than once, you mean?”
She clenched her jaw, wanting to throw the cloak in his face. But she kept it.
“Would you prefer someone more fair?” he said softly. “A rock lion is certainly prettier than a dog. Black fur. So soft. So powerful. A better companion by far. But then, they eat their young…”
“Just because you caught me naked doesn’t mean you can treat me like a child,” she snapped at him.
Scythe took a step back and bowed gracefully. “My mistake.”
“I thank you for the cloak,” she said, backing away. “I’ll see it is returned to you.”
“Keep it,” Scythe replied. “Perhaps it will give you some small protection against the lions you bring to your bed.”
Clutching the cloak around her, she hurried into the darkness wishing she hadn’t heard his words, wishing she didn’t know what they meant.
2
I’M GOING to break your balls with this one!” Trent promised. He wobbled and caught his balance.
Brophy laughed. “Not if you fall first!”
Trent’s lips pressed into a line, and he hurled the rock.
Brophy didn’t move. The stone whipped past him so close he felt the breeze. It clacked down the scree slope behind him and disappeared over the cliff. Trent was getting better at this. He had his father in him after all.
Each boy perched precariously on a boulder, sixty feet apart. The rocks were particularly jagged south of Ohndarien, thrusting up like half-buried blades. The boys played their game on the knife-edge ridge that separated the two halves of the world. Piss off one edge of the ridge and it ended up in the Summer Seas. Piss off the other side and the yellow stream flowed across the Great Ocean all the way to the Opal Palace.
Throwing rocks at each other was stupid, really. They began doing it out of sheer boredom. Brophy went along with it time after time. Talking Trent out of a stupid idea was always more work than going along with it. Unfortunately, it had become Trent’s favorite game. He made certain they played it every time they went hawking.
Brophy bent his knees, cocked back, and threw his stone. It flew high, missing Trent’s head by a foot or more. Brophy flailed for a moment, regained his balance.
“Pathetic,” Trent shouted across the distance, narrowing his eyes and stilling his body. His wavy black hair fell in his eyes, and he flicked it back with a twitch of his head.
Brophy transferred a rock from his left hand to his right and found his center. He sent his will into the boulder and anchored himself, determined not to move. The last two times they’d played, Brophy had managed to clip Trent on the arm and then the leg, ending the games.
“Get ready,” Trent shouted. “And no flinching! You turn coward, I’ll pound you.”
Trent kissed the rock, aimed, and threw.
Oh hell, thought Brophy.
He winced, but refused to move. He didn’t even close his eyes. The rock smacked him square on the mouth and stars burst in his vision. His foot slipped and he went down. The sharp edge of the boulder smashed into his ribs as he tumbled from his perch. Brophy cried out, hit the ground, and slid to a stop on the loose rock. He couldn’t breathe.
Trent laughed, triumphant.
Brophy rolled over onto his knees, tears welling in his eyes. He wanted to cry, but he held it in. Not that. Not in front of Trent. He opened his mouth to draw a breath, but his lungs wouldn’t cooperate. He gaped like a fish on a riverbank.
Trent’s laughter died and Brophy heard scrabbling noises. He thought he might pass out.
“Brophy!” Trent called.
Brophy sucked in a desperate breath. Trent scampered over the jagged rocks and dropped to his knees next to his friend.
“Brophy! Are you all right?”
He continued sucking air. Blessed air!
“Don’t mess about!” Trent said.
“I’m all right,” Brophy mumbled through a numb mouth. He gasped and put a hand on his ribs. It felt like someone had hit him with a club.
Trent leaned him against the big boulder. Brophy touched his mouth and his fingers came away bloody. He probed the inside of his lips with his tongue. His front tooth felt loose.
“Good throw,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
Trent’s concern vanished. He laughed and shoved Brophy against the rock. “Damn, you should have seen the look on your face. Why didn’t you move?”
Brophy glared at him. “You said no flinching.”
“Yeah, but…” Trent chuckled. “There’s brave and then there’s stupid, Broph.” He continued laughing as he offered Brophy a hand. Trent had large, powerful hands like his father. He had almost grown to his father’s towering height, with shoulders just as broad. When he filled out completely, he would be a mountain of a man. Effortlessly, he yanked Brophy to his feet.
They moved down the rocky ridge slowly to where they’d left their hawks. The hooded hunting birds were perched on the lowest branch of a squat, twisted scrub oak.
“I think you broke my tooth,” Brophy said.
Trent chuckled again as he untied his bird. “You should have moved.”
“I’m not playing your stupid games anymore.”
“Don’t be sour,” Trent said, giving a deft flip to his hawk’s tether. It wrapped around his wrist. “You did good. I was impressed. You’re still beating me two to one.”
Brophy licked blood from his split lip and tried a smile. Trent was much more magnanimous in victory than defeat. No point in spoiling the moment.
Wincing against the pain, Brophy retrieved his bird. The smell of blood made the hawk nervous, and Brophy stroked her feathers to calm her.
Trent became somber as they walked past thorny bushes along the goat trail back to the city.
“You know…” Trent said, his voice low, thoughtful, “we need to come up with a good story.”
Indeed. They were supposed to be hunting.
“My father won’t think much of our game,” he continued.
“No.” That’s because it’s a stupid game, Brophy thought. Trent’s father was the Brother of Autumn and the bravest man Brophy knew. He was the first foreigner to take the Test of the Stone in Ohndarien. Krellis wasn’t afraid of anything, and he would be the first person to tell Trent it was a dumb game.
“We’ll say you stumbled walking up the slope.”
“Let’s tell him the truth. Let’s just—”
Trent’s eyes flashed, and Brophy fell silent. Trent’s moods came and went like a summer storm.
“No.”
“He’ll understand, Trent. We’re kids.”
“You maybe. Not me. No. We’ll say we were chased by Physendrian scouts. We were running away, and you fell.”
Brophy sighed. He tried to think of a way to stop Trent from telling his father another lie. It must be hard to be the son of a man like Krellis. But Trent would spend less time fighting with his father if he spent more time telling him the truth.
Trent’s eyes fell on Brophy’s hawk. “What if we break her wing? That will be more believable. We’ll have evidence.”
Brophy rolled his eyes. “You’re not breaking her wing.”
“No?” Trent said, his eyes turning flinty once m
ore. “Since when do you tell me what to do?”
Brophy was almost angry enough to get into a fight, but he resisted. He was already too beaten up. And Trent was seventeen years old while Brophy was only fifteen. Brophy was large for his age, but Trent was huge.
“No,” Brophy said. “We’ll say we were tracking a partridge. I was looking up at the sky and didn’t see a sudden drop-off. No need to hurt my hawk.” Lying was bad enough, but ruining a good bird to cover up a bad lie was worse. Sometimes Trent didn’t think things through very well, but he never liked being reminded of it.
“Well, maybe,” Trent said.
They wound their way through the foothills of the Arridan Mountains in silence. Their path led them out of the jagged boulders and down a steep bank into the loose sand of a dry riverbed.
Ohndarien’s Water Wall loomed in the distance. The first hundred feet of the siege-scarred wall were solid blue-white marble. The defensive masterpiece had repelled seven Physendrian invasions.
Those massive ramparts were the foundation for five tiers of delicate stone arches that rose three hundred feet farther into the sky. The soaring web of stacked stone supported the world’s tallest aqueduct, which carried a constant stream of seawater from the Great Ocean to the enormous locks on the eastern side of the city.
A cavernous tunnel disappeared into the base of the wall, providing the only spot of shadow on the sun-blasted landscape. The impregnable Physendrian Gate stood at the very center of that tunnel. The fifty-foot metal portal was so massive it could only be opened with hydraulic pressure diverted from the aqueduct far overhead.
Once they were within sight of the city, Trent took a deep breath. He was smiling again.
“It was a good day,” he murmured, looking sideways at Brophy. “I mean, besides your getting hurt.”
“Thanks,” said Brophy. His lips were beginning to sting, and every step he took jostled his side, sending a thudding ache through his body. He wondered if he had broken a rib. He’d once seen a dock rat break his ribs when a sudden gust of wind pulled the ship away from the wharf. The boy fell into the gap and was almost crushed when the boat rocked back into place. Supposedly, it happened all the time. Brophy tried to ignore the pain.
