2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows

by Ginn Hale

  Kahlil didn’t have any idea where he was or how he could keep following Fikiri. This place had to be some kind of trap. He was a little worried about where he would find himself if he left the Gray Space. At least while he was inside it, Kahlil couldn’t be harmed by hurtling into a stone column.

  Kahlil crouched down and scowled at the fractured lines of Fikiri’s path. The marks resembled arcs of hanging frost, disconnected over the walls, stairs, towers, and trees. Kahlil studied it, trying to find a pattern. He tilted his head and his view snapped to a different angle, somewhere down near his knees. He jerked his head back up straight, feeling slightly sick.

  A dull little bird fluttered up from the branches of a pine tree. A murky marine form darted from the shadows and swallowed it. The creature undulated up through the air like an eel swimming in deep water and coiled up into the branches of an apple tree.

  This wasn’t the place or the time to just throw himself after Fikiri. Even if he could work out the way, Kahlil realized, he would be entering Fikiri’s world. And it didn’t look at all familiar. There was also the strong possibility that, should he need to escape, he might have to pass through more spaces like this one.

  He was going to have to challenge Fikiri in a place that he knew. It would have to be at the Bell Dance in three days.

  Kahlil retraced his steps, skipping back across the staircases and hallways, until he reached the point where he had first stepped into this distorted collision of structures. He drew away from it into the evenly textured Gray Space that he was accustomed to.

  Then suddenly something blazing hot snapped up around his leg. Kahlil looked down only to see a blinding white form. The air around him screamed as it was ripped open. Warm air and sound slammed into Kahlil as he was torn out of the Gray Space and thrown down.

  He hit the ground hard.

  A huge blonde man towered over him.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t know you were here?” the man bellowed. He grabbed a fistful of Kahlil’s hair and jerked him up. “I’ll kill you—” A look of pure shock swallowed the man’s expression of fury. He stared at Kahlil and his grip on Kahlil’s hair went slack.

  “You...” the blonde man whispered. His blue eyes widened. His lips parted slightly as if Kahlil had knocked the breath out of him.

  Kahlil didn’t wait for the man to regain his composure. He snapped open the Gray Space, plunged through the man’s body, and out through the black wall behind him.

  He was in Nurjima again. He recognized the orderly lines of buildings and the trolley tracks cutting through the street. Behind him there was the wall. Kahlil recognized it now. It had been constructed where the Payshmura’s Black Tower had once stood. The heavy wall closed the ruins off from the rest of the city.

  Kahlil turned and ran from it as fast as he could.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He was dying. Blood poured from his chest. He tasted it in his throat. The blonde man stared down at him. He’d had this dream before, only now Kahlil recognized the man’s face.

  It was Jath’ibaye, watching him die.

  Then his eyes snapped open and he was awake. He groped for Alidas’ key, and finding it still in place, his muscles instantly relaxed.

  Thin predawn light drifted in through the small window above him. He lay in bed, staring up at a low wood ceiling. Canvas panels hung on either side of him. The heavy smell of other men pervaded the air.

  It seemed that he was always waking up like this.

  He expected to hear prayer bells, ringing low and deep, or the crack of tahldi butting antlers. Instead, there came the shouts of a paperboy calling out the morning headlines. He was in the Lisam house in the runners’ barrack.

  Kahlil’s back was bruised and his right leg ached. He could hear other men around him getting up. Knees creaked. There were rough coughs and groggy yawns.

  Outside the window, the paperboy continued his spiel. Kahlil heard the boy shout Jath’ibaye’s name. Doubtless, the papers were announcing his arrival. Kahlil sighed. It was old news to him.

  Kahlil rose cautiously, testing his weight on his injured leg. His ankle throbbed but it held him.

  “Out of bed, lazy men, the world awaits!” Fensal hurled aside the canvas curtain that separated his and Kahlil’s beds. His brown hair was wild and uncombed. He wore only a pair of half-laced underpants. He pounced onto Kahlil’s empty bed and then swept apart the canvas panels on the opposite side and attacked the runner in the bed beyond Kahlil’s. The other man was unfortunate enough to still have been sleeping.

  Fensal hammered the other man with his pillow until the man feebly fought back. Once satisfied that the runner was awake, Fensal moved on to the next bed, eventually making his way around to all sixteen beds.

  Kahlil didn’t think there had ever been a time in his life when he had been as wildly energetic as Fensal. Of course, he couldn’t remember most of his life, so he couldn’t be certain. But he knew that even if he had possessed as much raw energy as Fensal, he wouldn’t have used it in the same manner.

  “Today is the day!” Fensal bounced up and down on a bed and then bounded to the center of the room. “Today, the streets will be packed with other runners. They will try to take our hills. They will clog our back streets and try to run us off the road. Will we let them?” Fensal struck a dramatic pose. “No, my brothers! We will run them down. We will crush them and pass them on every incline!”

  Some of the runners clapped. Others laughed. Three or four howled in wild agreement, egging Fensal on.

  “Remember,” Fensal gazed out at the empty space above the door as if he were a saint receiving a divine vision, “Jath’ibaye’s runners will be out there too, witnessing the battles, attacking the weak. We must not fail. For the honor of the Lisam house! For the honor of our beautiful machines! We will overcome all obstacles!”

  Several of the youngest runners were already on their feet, enlivened by the speech. Fensal beamed. Kahlil clapped along with most of the older runners. Fensal bowed and then strode back to his bed. He picked his pants up from the floor and stuck his legs into them with the resolute expression of a rashan fastening his gauntlets.

  Kahlil gathered his own clothes off the wall pegs above his bed and started for the bathroom, slightly favoring his hurt knee. The new bruises stood out clearly on his pale skin and it didn’t take long for Fensal to notice the injury.

  “You hurt your leg?”

  “I fell.”

  “Did your bicycle take much damage?” Fensal asked.

  “I wasn’t riding it at the time.”

  “Oh...” Fensal screwed up his face at the thought, as if it were an inconceivable event. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

  Kahlil turned back towards the bathroom.

  “Be careful out there today,” Fensal added from behind him.

  He guessed that Fensal might someday grow up to be a decent leader for the Lisam runners; maybe in ten or twelve years, when he had mellowed. He certainly had enough love for the work and skill at it. Right now, he was still too inexperienced at reading the men around him. He could inspire them and impress them, but he rarely had any insight into the subtleties of their minds.

  Fensal was no Alidas, but then maybe he didn’t need to be. He delivered packages, not death sentences.

  Kahlil shouldered his way in past the other runners into the bathroom and found an unoccupied washbasin. Steam condensed on the tiled walls. Kahlil splashed hot water over his face. A moment later his skin was cold again. Spring still hadn’t warmed the morning air.

  He opened his shaving kit. The razor would need sharpening again soon. Maybe he would have time to do it after the Bell Dance. The razor would probably keep its edge for three more shaves. Kahlil turned the straight blade in his hand, watching the light turn from a dull glow to a hard white gleam at the edge.

  The razor wasn’t important and for that reason Kahlil focused on it. The edge of his razor, the smell of the soap, the roughness of his towel—he conce
ntrated on small things. Details.

  The feel of the air this morning was cold and crisp with the sting of frost. The roads would be slippery.

  Kahlil went through the motions of the morning—washing, dressing, eating, and taking his orders—in a sanctuary of minutiae. It kept him calm.

  Terrible plans were in motion. Right at this moment Nanvess Bousim had men searching for him. His black knife, the yasi’halaun, had fallen into the hands of a sorcerer. In three days Jath’ibaye’s murder would probably start a war. And worst yet, the Great Gates could tear the world to pieces.

  The relative dullness of his razor didn’t matter. It wouldn’t save or destroy a single life, so Kahlil put the reality of it between himself and overwhelming dread.

  The other runners at the table oozed excitement. They devoured mountains of weasel eggs and baited each other over their cycling prowess. Fensal had worked them up with the promise of races later in the day. The runners swapped duties and negotiated routes to ensure that they got done with their deliveries early enough to join the races against runners from other houses. The rare opportunity to challenge Jath’ibaye’s runners elicited particular excitement.

  “Nam’s fast,” Fensal was saying, “but I’m fearless. This year he’s going to be tasting my dust all the way back to Vundomu.”

  Desh’oun wouldn’t have approved of any of this. But then, he was far too busy to pay attention to the petty rivalries of the house runners. Meals had to be prepared and guest rooms readied before the Bell Dance. All morning Kahlil only caught a single glimpse of Desh’oun. The gaunt man had stalked past their open door and disappeared down a hallway. Yu’mir and another kitchen girl hurried behind him, their arms full of linens and bedding.

  For the people around him this was a hard, exciting, busy day. Their disasters, if they had any, would involve burned meats or dropped packages or stains that might never come out.

  For him, there were assassinations and blood-fed black knives. There was Nayeshi and the soundless corridors of the Gray Space. His life was so different from theirs. He couldn’t imagine even attempting to explain it to them, much less commiserating.

  Kahlil chewed his roll. It was almost too sweet. He stared down at his bread knife, and in spite of his efforts to avoid disturbing thoughts, Jath’ibaye’s angry face came unbidden into his mind.

  Kahlil knew that face. Even in the dark he had recognized it. It was face of the man who stood over him in his nightmares. It was the face in the photograph he had been carrying when he had first reached Nurjima. The moment Kahlil had looked up and seen the man, Kahlil had known he was Jath’ibaye.

  And Jath’ibaye had known him as well. It had been the first time anyone in this world had looked at him with complete recognition. He knew so little about himself that he found it disquieting to think that someone else could know more.

  The knot in his stomach began to twist again. He wasn’t going to be eating anything more. He needed to get to work. Only three days remained until the Bell Dance. He needed to report to Alidas.

  “I better get going.” Kahlil pushed his plate aside and stood.

  Fensal looked up from his meal. “You’re clear on the new routes?”

  “Red Row, Bakers’ Hill, and Five Fountains.” Kahlil picked up his coat and pulled it on.

  “Perfect. Get done as fast as you can. The races will start at four up on Black Hill.” Fensal grinned in pure delight.

  Kahlil nodded and left. He’d already loaded his share of the packages into the basket of his bicycle and tucked letters into his satchel. He delivered them quickly. Fensal would have been proud, he thought, and a little astonished to see the unorthodox shortcuts he took.

  Once the letters were out of the way he locked up his bicycle at a soup house and slipped into the alley behind the building. He closed his eyes and immediately the colorless, silent Gray Space opened before him.

  Moments later he was at the black door behind the bone carver’s shop. He could have simply passed through the door, but he didn’t want to. Instead he stepped out of the Gray Space. The smell of the air in the cramped streets of the Redbrick District was choking compared to what he had grown accustomed to at the Lisam Palace. In the middle of the day few people were out on the street, yet the odor of the surroundings attested to their overwhelming presence here, human sweat and urine matched by the scents of animal carcasses and rendering vats.

  People shouted between the narrow brick buildings. The low, deep pounding of work hammers throbbed through the air, and above that Kahlil could discern the high screeching of butcher saws scraping into bones.

  Kahlil knocked on the door. After no response came, he took out the key Alidas had given him and let himself in.

  He’d expected the rooms to be as austere as those that Alidas occupied in the Bousim barrack, but these were far different. The space itself was smaller and colder. Framed pictures of tahldi and their riders hung on the plaster walls. Most of the pictures looked old and faded and the only face Kahlil recognized in any of them was that of Alidas himself.

  A red embroidered carpet covered the floor and the two chairs in the first room were large and padded with dull red cushions. The greatest difference, however, was the sheer number of books. There had to be hundreds of them, packed into bookshelves and piled onto Alidas’ desk, even stacked on the floor.

  Kahlil picked one up. The cover was tattered and stained but otherwise unmarked. Kahlil flipped it open and read:

  Down the cold hill

  Alone in the meadow

  She waits for him still

  An unknowing widow

  Clearly a book of old southern poems. The next book in the stack turned out to be a history of the seven gaun’im families, containing a profusion of maps and line drawings of famous leaders. Beneath that lay a slim volume of medicinal plants. Kahlil had never heard of or seen many of them.

  Most of the books on the shelves were older and a few that Kahlil flipped through had been dedicated to people other than Alidas. Kahlil guessed Alidas had gathered them throughout his travels as a rashan and bought most of them used.

  The first room adjoined two smaller rooms: a cramped bathroom and a bedroom just large enough for a bed and a dresser. Kahlil sat down on the bed.

  It felt good to get off his feet. He hadn’t gotten much rest last night. Briefly, he entertained the idea of lying back and sleeping here. He knew it was foolish but he felt safe in Alidas’ rooms. He could have easily lain back and napped until Alidas returned home.

  But it could be days before Alidas arrived and he hadn’t come here to sleep. He had to inform Alidas of Nanvess’ involvement in the assassination plan as well as Nanvess’ order to find and kill him. Kahlil frowned at the blank plaster wall. If the Bousim house wanted Kahlil dead, then Alidas’ position could become difficult.

  Still, it was his duty to Alidas to inform him.

  In the desk in the main room Kahlil found a pen, root ink, and paper. There were ledgers and what looked like a diary. Kahlil didn’t disturb either, though they tempted him fiercely. If Alidas hadn’t given him the key to his rooms, Kahlil might have read them. But something about the trust in offering that key made Kahlil want to be worthy of it.

  He wrote a brief report of what he had seen the previous night in Ourath’s chambers. He considered describing his encounter with Jath’ibaye but then decided against it. He’d only inform Alidas about Nanvess because that concerned Alidas directly. Kahlil set the note aside to dry.

  On a second piece of paper he wrote:

  I came by but you were out. I read a little in your book of poems. The one on page thirty-four was particularly insightful. If you read it, tell me what you think of it— Kyle’insira.

  He lay the second note down on the desk in plain view. The ink on the first note had already dried so Kahlil folded it into quarters and slid it inside the book of poems. After that, he had no further excuse for lingering in Alidas’ rooms so he let himself out. It was already afternoon
. Fensal would be expecting him back.

  Less than an hour later, Kahlil pedaled up to the kitchen courtyard of the Lisam Palace. The bicycle racks were almost empty. He locked up his own and then let himself into the kitchen’s backdoor.

  The heat and smell of roasting meats wafted over him. Most of the women working at the long wooden tables didn’t bother to do more than glance up as he came in. They were far too busy, rolling out fine crusts and mixing fragrant batters. Yu’mir, though, caught his eye and beckoned him over. Flour dusted her brown hair and Kahlil thought there must have been some on her face as well. She looked terribly pale.

  “Watch his hands. They’re fast,” another woman commented as Kahlil walked past. Kahlil glanced back and recognized the freckled woman from the night before. He winked at her and she gave him a playfully menacing look.

  “You can flirt later.” Yu’mir stepped forward and caught his arm. “Right now I need to speak to you.”

  Kahlil glanced down at her. He had spent so little of his life near women that at times he forgot how small they could be. Her hand didn’t even enclose his wrist.

  Kyle allowed her to pull him to the far side of the kitchen. The smell of blue leaf and other winter herbs was stronger here. He guessed that the locked cupboard next to him was full of precious spices. It was the coolest and darkest area in the entire kitchen.

  “So, what’s for—” Kahlil began but Yu’mir cut him off.

  “Is Fensal holding his stupid races today?” Yu’mir whispered.

  “Why?” Kahlil asked.

  “Because Desh’oun has two packages that he wanted Fensal to deliver and I can’t find him anywhere.”

  “I can’t really say.” Kahlil made his best noncommittal reply.

  “He’s out racing, isn’t he?” Yu’mir’s expression of annoyance shifted to anxiety. “Desh’oun will fire him if he finds out.”

  “Don’t tell him then.”

  “There are still the packages,” Yu’mir replied. “I can’t just throw them away and pretend that they never existed. They’re important.”