by Kate Elliott
Because you can see the truth.
Yet truth is not so easy to discern. Emotion twists memory; folk convince themselves of what they want to be true. They hide behind layers of self-deceit, not all of which are easily penetrated even by one who possesses a second heart and a third eye.
She did not trust herself to so casually wield the power of life and death over others while remaining convinced she was right. She did not trust anyone who did.
“Osya. Bring road tokens, enough for all who are prisoner here to depart unmolested. Then release all the prisoners except for the one who murdered the old man. Do not try to pass off false tokens as true ones, for I’ll know the difference. After the prisoners have walked free, ring the town’s summoning bell.”
It was all she could do, and in the end the angry young man who had lost his claim chose to depart, helping the young woman carry her sick cousin. He alone thanked her; the rest fled without a word.
After they were gone, Marit led Warning into the main square, where she mounted and waited as the bell rang once, twice, and thrice. Folk approached in twos and threes in a stuttering stumble, fearful of her presence in a way that disturbed her so mightily she could not look at it squarely for it would make her consider what the Guardians had become in their eyes: not guardians of justice but “holy ones” who demanded obeisance.
It was foul. Obscene.
It was easy to recognize the members of the town council, replete in fine clothing and shiny ornament. They strutted until they marked her bone-white cloak; then they cowered with heads bowed. When she drew her sword, the assembly trembled like leaves battered in a storm.
“Look at me,” she said, indicating each member of the council.
Amazingly, they first glanced toward the tallest man among them, who was also the most sleek, well-cared-for, and puffed up.
“Look at me, or be known as criminals because you fear my gaze.”
She might have enjoyed the thrill of anger assuaged by their cringing fear and abject obedience now that they faced her sword, whose blade can cut death out of life, but she did not want to think she had anything in common with people such as this.
“First you, Master Forren.”
“I am entitled—!”
Such a rush of self-important impatience frothed in his mind: He had done nothing wrong! The girl had encouraged him with her simpering glances and coy refusals. She was a cheap piece of rubbish, cadging drinks off visiting merchants and begging for a rich man to toss her a few vey. Was it wrong of him to demand something in return? As for the man who had murdered his nephew! He had claimed mineral rights that properly belonged to Forren; the town was given to him in its entirety to oversee in the name of the holy one’s arkhons out of Wedrewe. How could Forren be blamed for exercising the rights given to him?
Who was this cloak to say nay to him? She might be unclean herself!
It is not easy to shame those who are sure of their own shamelessness.
He spoke the truth, but so twisted in his own mind it was no longer a meaningful truth; he could not see the difference.
Marit had never been as stunned in her life, not even at the moment of her death, when the dagger plunged up under her ribs. All that she, as a reeve, had flown for, had worked for, had believed in: justice, the assizes court, the temples and their offerings, truth. In this man’s mind, hers was the dream and the lie, and his was the reality: The land was peaceful under the supervision of the holy ones and their arkhons at Wedrewe. His prosperity was all that mattered.
“You are not entitled by the law as written on Law Rock,” she answered him.
“The old ways brought disruption and crime! We are better served by our new statutes.”
“Some are better served, while many are served ill. Enough!” He shut up, as she meant him to do. Yet she had no power where folk did not recognize her authority. Fortunately, ironically, she could still lie. “I will return here in a month’s time to stand again over your assizes. Act justly, and you will have no reason to fear me.”
She sheathed her sword and urged Warning up. Wings spread, the mare jolted into a trot, found the paths of air, and galloped into the sky as the crowd ducked. Anger and despair smothered her, and then she clawed free. She could not overturn all that had gone wrong. She had to do one thing at a time, within the tiny sphere she could control. As she flew past the inner palisade she began to look for the lad named Peri.
She spotted him on the road running northeast. At each town where an inn boasted stables, he displayed a token that bought him a meal, a rest, and a horse; it was an efficient system, and he always got good mounts. He rode on oblivious of her presence. Folk on the ground might feel the tremor of her passage much as they felt the bluster and pressure of wind, but as long as she remained in the air their eye was not drawn to her; the movement of Warning’s wings did not alert them.
She followed him north, over the Liya Pass, into Herelia.
22
“DO YOU LIKE flying?” The reeve, Miyara, shouted to be heard above the bluster of the wind.
Mai laughed, nervously, it was true, but also because the journey was so astounding. The sea lay behind them. The sun rode aloft. The land looked so different a place from up here. The steep ravines and ridges had a beauty that a person struggling to cross on foot could never see. The mountains spread in majesty into the southwest, and from the height, Mai saw how many more peaks marched away into an unknown distance. Clouds made turbulent pools of gray in the blue sky where they had caught on summits. A strange pattern glimmered on a saddle-backed ridge, but it was only a trick of the light on bare rock.
Mai recognized the steep-sided valley carved into high slopes and the stark cliff where the land plunged away into a mighty ravine. Water spilled down the cliff face, the air broken by rainbows, and mist teased Mai’s feet as they battled against a current of air and banked in over thick forest to land in the clearing.
The glade was empty but for the two platforms, canvas walls tied down tight now that no one lived here. Miyara helped Mai unhook herself and the big wicker chest she’d brought. As soon as Anji and the baby were free of the young reeve, Siras, the two reeves signaled and left, the eagles’ huge wings casting shadows over the downy grass. Mai lugged the wicker chest over to the smaller platform.
“You’re sure the reeves have no idea Hari might be hiding here?” Mai asked as Anji strolled up, his hand on Atani’s black hair. The baby was awake, watchful, content.
“Only Miyara, because she led him here.” Anji scanned the clearing for signs of movement. “I’ve asked the reeves to stay out of the valley for the time being. I told them we must make privately all the necessary holy offerings in thanks for the boy’s safe delivery to ensure he is not contaminated by demons.”
“That’s not how the Merciful One is worshiped, in private, shutting out others.”
“They don’t know that. Mai, it’s necessary to keep your uncle a secret, isn’t it? Besides Miyara, only Tuvi, Sengel, Toughid, and Priya know.”
“Sheyshi was asleep. I didn’t even tell Miravia.”
“No one must know, not if we are to keep him safe. You understand the cloaks can see into our thoughts—”
“Into mine, and theirs. Not into yours.”
“You make my argument for me.” He untied the web of straps and cloth that had bound Atani against his chest and handed the baby to her. “We’ll come up every month on Wakened Ox, that being the day of his birth according to the calendar kept by the clerks of Sapanasu, a reasonable time to make a thanksgiving offering.”
“Three months today,” said Mai with a satisfied sigh as she bound sling and plump baby against her hip.
“Although in truth just over four passages of the moon have gone by. The calendar here makes little sense to me. Why shouldn’t each new moon begin a new month, as it does among the Qin? That’s the simplest—”
“Anji.” She touched his arm. “What if he’s not here?”
Anji
shrugged. “We’ll perform the offering we told the reeves we came to perform. If he chooses to reveal himself, we’ll know he has listened to your wise advice. If not, it is out of our hands.”
He hoisted the wicker chest to one shoulder and began walking. His sword swayed at his hip; he had a knife tucked into each boot. She had her own pair of knives, bound at her back where they would not get in her way. She wrapped a shawl tightly around her shoulders as they passed from sunny glade onto shadowed path. The season of flowers and fruit had faded, but a few flowers lingered. She paused along the half-overgrown trail to cut stems and blooms and sprays until she had a respectable offering bouquet. Atani reached with his free hand for the bright colors. Anji paused, listening, but only birds sang, insects whirred, foliage rustled beneath unseen scrabbling claws.
They reached the waterfall and pool, the ruins at peace in the cold air. A tremulous wind spun leaves over the rippling water. The flow of water did not pound so hard; the rim of the water’s edge was low, exposing a rocky shelf. Anji deposited the wicker chest on a remnant wall as she walked along the ledge into the womb of the cave behind. The curtain of falling wall had thinned enough that she needed no light to see the altar and a recent offering of flowers, petals scattered by animals and wind. Someone had been here, not long ago.
Yet the living guardians of the cave, whose shimmering blue threads had graced Atani’s birth, were nowhere in evidence. Had they died?
She shuddered, stroking Atani’s soft hair. As frightened as she had been at first, she had come to feel their presence in this holy place was linked to his well-being. In the songs she had grown up singing, such a child would be blessed by hidden spirits and gifted a spectacular destiny, or a brave death, depending on the story’s end. Now, she felt unprotected as she knelt before the altar stone and its humble carven image of the Merciful One, as she laid her offering of flowers and chanted the prayers for thanksgiving. Anji came up behind her as she finished. But for the falling water, silence surrounded them. Sunlight winked on the dark mirror of the pool. A twig floated like a boat on the waters of eternity.
“Mai?”
That was Hari’s voice!
She jumped up, but Anji stopped her from rushing outside. He indicated the baby. At first, she did not understand his intent; then she did.
“Uncle Hari, is that you?” she called as she unwound the cloth and transferred the infant to his father with a quick kiss to his unclouded forehead. Anji took him firmly, protectively. Mai hurried outside.
A man stood in the shadow of the cliff looking exactly like her beloved Uncle Hari except for his weary expression and the terrible cloak draped around him, worse than chains for being of such a beautiful weave. She looked him straight in the eye, and the tumult of her own thoughts and worries spilled so fast and hard that she stumbled as though she had been slapped.
“He hit you!” Hari cried. “Just as your father used to—”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
Hari withdrew his reaching hand as if he were poison. “Tell me he treats you well.”
She found her footing and walked over to the wicker chest. “I am perfectly well! There was a day’s misunderstanding, it’s true, but you must not think—I am my own mistress, here. I am Anji’s wife, of course, but I am not only that.” She fumbled with the cords, fixing her gaze on this task so she would not look at his troubled eyes. Why was her heart racing so? What was she afraid of? “Sit with me, Uncle Hari. I’ll brew tea. There’s a fire pit here that we became accustomed to using. Here is kindling and a flint.”
Abruptly, she understood her fear, and tears began to fall. “I was so afraid you would not be here!”
Blessed be the holy one for the mercy of simple tasks, for it was possible to lay a fire and get it burning while you wept.
He sank down on the wall, not close enough to touch. “Where else am I welcome, Mai? You are the only home I have.”
She wiped her running nose with the back of a hand. “Look at me! Just like Ti, a spouting teakettle, neh?”
“Do you miss Kartu Town?” he asked softly.
Everything she needed was in the chest: a tripod to angle over the fire from which to hang the little kettle in which to boil water, bowls to drink from, a straining spoon, the tea leaves blended by Miravia from different varieties. She need only dip water from the sparkling cold pool where its last ripples lapped the rocks.
“I miss Ti. And Mei—my twin! How it pains me I will never see him again! But no, Uncle. I don’t miss Kartu Town. If I never went back there I would be sorry not to see my brother and sister-cousin, whom I love, but otherwise I am content here.” She looked up, feeling he needed the reassurance of seeing that she spoke the truth. Yet this time there was a gentle sweetness in the exchange, as if her openness lessened the assault of his gaze. Maybe it was fear that hurt you most; maybe those who caused the most pain to others sought that fear and fed on it.
His smile faded as he looked away. “You have always had the gift of being content, Mai. It is a more precious treasure than gold or silk.”
She fussed with the kettle, the firewood, the straining spoon, but in the end she must speak the question she most needed an answer to.
“Have you decided anything, Uncle?” At his ominous silence, she hurried on. “You need decide nothing, of course. You can just rest here. Tell me of your day. Or of some beautiful place in the Hundred you have seen. Or we can talk of anything you wish—the tea, if you like, or the weather, or this fine silk I am wearing, for I will have you know that I have more silk now than we ever had in the Mei clan, so much I must force my hirelings to wear it to their festivals since there is no real purpose in hoarding silk if you do not mean to display its beauty!”
On she chattered, just as she had learned to do selling produce in the market, setting people at ease. It was no easy thing to sit for hours in the market, on slow days and busy days and all the days in between. Folk did love to talk, and talking did pass the time, and for those who were too shy or weary or beset by cares to have anything to say, talking made them feel welcome despite their silence.
She poured hot water and watched it darken as the leaves steeped.
“Did you come alone?” he asked.
His words surprised her. She had thought the cloaks could sense people with their third eye and second heart. “No, Anji came with me. He is praying at the altar.” She called, “Anji! Here is tea.”
He emerged from the cave, his expression carefully polite. The two men eyed each other warily as Anji sat.
“Where is Shai?” Hari asked abruptly, watching Anji. “Has there been news of him?”
Mai looked away.
“Your news is the last news we have had of him,” said Anji. “I will come to you with such news as soon as I have it. If I know where to find you.”
Hari’s wicked smile flashed, but there was a sharpness Mai recognized as bitterness. “So am I trapped here, waiting to hear.”
Mai handed him a cup of hot tea, and he blew on the steaming liquid to cool it.
“Do you know what I miss most?” he added. “Companions. I am alone because I have been created to be alone. I cannot drink and gossip and boast with friends as I was accustomed to do. I am forever cut off from casual intercourse with people. So naturally that is what I miss more than anything.”
His tone made her heart twist with pity. “You always have a home with us, Uncle.”
Hari studied Anji, who had loosened the baby’s wrap to soothe him as Atani started up with a mild fuss. “Tell me, Captain Anji, did you marry my beloved niece Mai merely for her beauty? Or did you know what a treasure you had found?”
Anji met his gaze squarely with a polite smile that told nothing and hid everything. “Naturally any answer I give within the hearing of my wife will have to be cut out of a cloth that will satisfy her. Let me just say she was bold enough to overcharge me at the market while all the other merchants fell over themselves to give away their wares. I admire
d her for that as much as I certainly admired her beauty. Will that answer content you, Uncle Hari?”
“I suppose it must. For like Shai, you are veiled to me.”
Anji hoisted the baby to rest on his shoulder, never shifting his own gaze from Hari’s. “There are many ways to judge the intent of those you face.”
Hari laughed as he violently flung the dregs of the tea bowl to the earth. “Maybe I was just never a careful observer. It is easy to grow accustomed to living off one’s glib tongue and pleasant manners. A young man may be reckless because he wants to impress his friends and in doing so overlook every good warning telling him not to act in such a rash way. Then he may find himself an exile, caught in a cage not of his own devising. Were you ever like that, Captain? Reckless? Rash? Leaping in with both feet onto ground you’d not measured beforehand?”
Anji glanced at Mai and slid the quieting Atani into the crook of his elbow, rocking him gently. “No,” he said calmly, “I don’t suppose I ever was like that.”
• • •
“UNCLE, I KNOW we don’t go to drink at the altars because the other cloaks might be walking the labyrinth, and then they would know where we are. But the horses go. What will happen to us if we don’t drink?”
For several weeks Jothinin and Kirit had been running sweeps in widening circles out from the altar known as Crags, high in the mountain range called Heaven’s Ridge that stretched along the northwestern reaches of the Hundred. Earlier in the day they had made camp at the edge of a pine grove in an isolated mountain valley, its grass not yet whitened by the dry season cold, and released the horses.
“If we don’t drink, we age. Very slowly, it’s true.” He wrapped his cloak more tightly, shivering, although she seemed unaware of the chill wind cutting through their clothes. “When I awakened, I was a rather younger man than you see me now. I traded my youth to hide from my enemies.”
“I don’t like hiding.” Kirit fed sticks into the fire with the intense concentration with which she approached every task, her serious face rarely smiling and yet never quite frowning. “Did the people who were grazing sheep here this morning see us coming and run away?”
