“I can’t just hide from him.”
Talking to Fana was hard work. Jessica looked for a watch on her wrist, found none. Day or night, what did it matter? This world was the dream, this place without clocks where time fled and peeled everyone away.
Kira should be up by now. Time to knock on her door and see if she was dressed. Since Kira had turned five, she preferred to dress herself. David was going to drive them to Metro Zoo in the minivan after they picked up her mother from church. Jessica could almost taste the cheesy arepas at the concessions stand. Her mouth watered. Kira loved arepas!
“Mom, don’t,” Fana said. “Forget your ghosts for now.”
A surge of anger made the edges of the room sharp and clear. Jessica stepped closer to Fana, almost lashed out to slap her daughter’s face. Maybe she was only afraid to hit her, because she wanted the contact so badly that her fingers were unsteady.
“You stay out of my damn head!” Jessica said between gritted teeth.
Fana’s face gave way to a tiny, childlike alarm. How could Fana stand against Michel if she couldn’t control her impulses at home?
“I’m sorry,” Fana said. “I didn’t mean to …”
“You better learn how to keep out of places you don’t belong,” Jessica said. “You hear me? Learn fast. Screw around with anyone else you want—but not me. And not your father.”
“Dad doesn’t need you to speak for him. He isn’t the one who’s hiding.”
The slap came before Jessica realized her hand had flown free. Fana’s cheek rang brightly beneath Jessica’s palm. The old cliché was true: the slap hurt her more than Fana. Once, there might have been tears from both of them. One of them. But their locked eyes were mirrors, dry as bones. Fana’s hand brushed her cheek, as if to wipe away a gnat.
“I’m very sorry,” Fana said, as placid as her teacher. The deeper Teka took Fana into her mind’s ocean, the more she sounded like she was reciting lines from a script. “I didn’t mean to trip over your feelings about Dad.”
“Stay out of my head,” Jessica said. “Find your way back into yours.”
Fana breathed a small sigh, a rare display of impatience. “Like I said, I wanted to tell you first. I’m going to Michel. I’ll have guards, so I won’t go alone. I’d like you and Dad to come, but that’s your decision.”
Jessica closed her eyes, withering at the mention of guards. What could guards do?
This is not my child, she told herself, the mantra that had helped her survive the night of bees and shadows. Back when being Fana’s mother was all the power she needed to save her.
When Jessica opened her eyes again, Fana was gone.
Kira’s door waited for her, halfway open. Kira’s cheerful, melodic voice was singing “Stormy Weather.” Her daughter’s unspoiled voice invited her inside.
Fifteen
Dawit waited for a challenger in the Circle.
Berhanu and Fasilidas sometimes sparred with him, but they were tending to Fana. Besides, Dawit had faced them too often in the woods of their lost Washington colony. They had physical weaknesses—Dawit was faster than most of his Brothers—but their mind arts made them nearly impossible to best because they predicted his movements.
Worse, Berhanu’s mind was strong enough to deflect blows! He was a menace.
But their tutelage had sharpened him. Dawit had improved his mind as quickly through fighting as he had by meditating with Fana while she guided him. He needed no less focus in the Circle. His patience had been decimated in the mortal world, but he was learning again. His senses must be sharp for what lay ahead.
But Dawit was an outsider, invisible. Even Brothers who would take pleasure in dismembering him did not honor him in the Circle. To his Brothers, he and Fana had split the colony apart and brought a wolf to their doorstep, and Dawit couldn’t claim otherwise.
Dawit stood at the Circle’s center, waiting in the bright ring of light. After five hundred years, wearing a mask in the Circle was only a tradition. They knew one another too well. Their bodies were static, resisting new muscle or fat, so they easily recognized one another despite the semisheer, skintight white masks that hid their faces and eyes. Originally, Khaldun had used the masks to train them to fight without personal animus; rage should not guide them, he said. But, like everything else in the Lalibela Colony, the practice had outlived its inspiration.
“What a heartbreaking sight!” the voice boomed from the darkness behind him. “A bride all dressed up, left alone at the altar. And quite comely! Was your father’s dowry so meager?”
Dawit smiled inside his mask. Not only did he have an opponent—but one of his most reliable, and the Brother he loved most. When had Mahmoud returned to the colony?
“I’m too high-spirited, I think,” Dawit said. “I castrate every groom-to-be.”
Mahmoud’s laugh was hearty as always, echoing in the empty upper circle, where spectators might gather to watch the matches. The Circle always reminded Dawit of a beehive.
Mahmoud strode to the Circle’s periphery. He was already dressed for combat, in a matching white lambskin waistcloth. Mahmoud was masked, but even if Dawit had not known Mahmoud’s voice, the olive skin and onyx ponytail would have betrayed him. Like him, Mahmoud was most at home in a fight.
Mahmoud carried a carved mahogany staff in each hand, tossing one to Dawit, who snatched it from the air. Dawit closed his fingers around the staff, a tight grip. The challenger chose the initial weapon—but he would choose the next one, as the winner.
Mahmoud removed his mask with a swift gesture, and Dawit followed his example. Good. He had questions for Mahmoud, and there would be no thought of conversation once Mahmoud entered the Circle.
Dawit could remember few times when Mahmoud’s beard had been so full. Dawit would never tell him so, but he looked like Khaldun.
“How goes the search?” Dawit said, the customary greeting to a Searcher.
Mahmoud’s grim sneer made Dawit wish he had chosen another greeting.
“How fares the father of the bride?” Mahmoud said.
Touché.
Mahmoud had been in Khaldun’s disciplined cadre of Searchers who were responsible for bringing home Brothers who had stayed upworld too long. In flight from Mahmoud, Dawit had suffered a living death when he lost his old life in Miami. Dawit refused to blame Mahmoud for that heartache—he had made the choice to love a mortal woman and try to pass Kira the Blood—but Jessica might never forgive either of them.
No small miracle that he counted Mahmoud as either a friend or a Brother.
“Michel has unleashed a plague,” Dawit said.
“Oh, I know well what he has unleashed,” Mahmoud said, chuckling.
Dawit’s back went rigid. He probed at Mahmoud, but his friend’s thoughts were hidden. He did not believe Mahmoud had a hand in the infection, but Mahmoud had surprised him before. “You know this how, Brother?”
A sarcastic smile. “As you reminded me, Dawit, I am a Searcher. It is my duty to know. There are twenty-two of us upworld. The monkeys are lucky that only ten have gone to Michel. Always bearing gifts, I might add. One of those gifts was a plague.”
Ten! Dawit had suspected that Wendimu and Alem were with Michel, given their long tutelage in the House of Science and their vocal disdain for mortals, but so many others?
“You jest,” Dawit said.
“I never jest so near the Circle. It’s the worst of luck.”
“But Teka has perceived nothing of it. Or Fana.”
“Teka!” Mahmoud laughed like a schoolboy. “Michel protects them, Dawit. Teka is blinded to Michel. And Fana apparently shares her teacher’s blindness.”
“Yet, you see more.” Skepticism soured Dawit’s voice. Mahmoud’s mind arts were crude, beyond masking and basic projection. Where would Mahmoud gain the insight? Dawit tried another probe, failing again. Mahmoud did not want his thoughts known, even to a friend.
“Wendimu tried to recruit me,” Mahmoud said. “He couldn’t
contain his glee over the disease. ‘The Cleansing has begun!’ He expects me to join him at Shangri-la any day.”
Mahmoud’s silenced thoughts worried Dawit. The mask for the Circle was only a costume; cloaked thoughts were far more troublesome.
“Will you join them?” Dawit said.
Mahmoud shrugged. “Michel’s plans for the monkeys don’t disturb my sleep. But why would I lie with that pompous tyrant? Wendimu! All of them are fools eager to give up their minds to another, hoping to find Khaldun again.” In one breath, he condemned both Michel and the two-thousand-year-old man who had created the Life Colony.
Once, Khaldun had been their God.
Khaldun’s offenses were myriad: he had built the Life Colony out of a selfish wish to have captive students. He had used his advanced mind arts to keep them placid in the Lalibela Colony, denying them their rights to the world above. He had spawned a second family of immortals, never revealing that there were others like Michel who might challenge them.
And he had created Fana as a mate for Michel! Even if Khaldun himself had stolen the blood of Christ in the burial cave instead of the unnamed Storyteller he always claimed, Dawit was angriest at Khaldun for the treacherous path he had laid out for his child. Had Khaldun allowed him to remain with Jessica in Miami so long only to create Fana? Had Khaldun always planned to sacrifice Dawit’s first child to create his second? What if the madness that had overcome him in Miami had been Khaldun’s doing all along?
He would never truly know.
“If the girl were my daughter,” Mahmoud said, “Michel would be ash.”
Dawit laughed a bitter laugh, though laughter was far from his heart. “If Fana were your daughter, you would never have met her.” He and Mahmoud had sired dozens of nameless, faceless children. “Michel may yet be ash. But I have learned patience, Mahmoud.”
“What you call patience is only enchantment, Dawit. You believe Khaldun’s nonsense in that Letter, a prophecy that ties her to him. When will you free yourself from his lies?”
“Fana believes she’s the best match against him. Her gifts bear it out. Let us see.”
“You’re like the others scurrying to Michel—a believer in search of a prophet!” Mahmoud said. “I never thought I would see you leave your battles to a child.”
Mahmoud’s blows with the staff would carry far less sting than his indictment. Dawit hoped he would not one day wish he had heeded Mahmoud. Fana had unpredictable weaknesses, and Michel’s mind arts far outmatched hers. Yet, she had nearly killed Michel when she saw through his mortal disguise and realized how he had tricked her. Fana could protect herself. He prayed so.
“Where did you see Wendimu?” Dawit said, choosing a softer topic.
“I was looking for Khaldun in caves in Pakistan. A mystic’s dream led me there.” Mahmoud might be more a prisoner to Khaldun than any of their Brothers, fueled by rage as he searched for answers from the man he had once worshipped.
“So remote?” Dawit said. “Wendimu came to lay a trap for you, then.”
Mahmoud twirled his staff and pounded it on the floor with a crack. “I dearly hope so.”
Mahmoud yanked on his mask. He was ready to enter the Circle.
Talking to Mahmoud before the match had been a mistake. Mahmoud’s combat arts sharpened with strong emotions, and his claims of the defections might be a ruse. No weapon was illicit in Mahmoud’s mind. His strategies began well outside the Circle.
“How many have gone to Michel?” Dawait said again, to be certain.
YOU WILL BLEED, BROTHER, Mahmoud’s thought came. Mahmoud bowed low, his chin to his knees. Dawit returned his bow, accepting his challenge.
Their staffs would speak for them.
Time passed slowly in the Circle. It might have been a mortal’s twenty minutes, it might have been an hour. Dawit and Mahmoud glistened with perspiration and blood, grunting beneath each teeth-jarring blow across his shoulders, knees, temples, and knuckles. Dawit’s arms were raw from the effort of absorbing the impacts of Mahmoud’s sure staff.
They blocked more blows than they landed. Mahmoud was Dawit’s mirror.
When Dawit swept left, Mahmoud’s staff was there to meet it. If Dawit ducked and thrust, Mahmoud parried. Neither of them was fluid enough in mind arts to trust mental cues as much as they trusted their eyes, or their years of history in the Circle. They leaped at each other from the large ascending blocks at the Circle’s rear, landing blows as they flew from the perches.
They had fought together too often, either as adversaries in the Circle or allies on the battlefield. At Adwa, the first time they had faced the Sanctus Cruor sect that had birthed Michel, they had used their emptied rifles like staffs, bedazzling mortals with their speed before they split their skulls. They had made a game of it, one hypnotizing an Italian soldier with theatrics while the other swung from behind. Italian Cricket, they had called it.
This match was less a game. Dawit’s hands sopped with perspiration as his staff rang against his palm with each clack. Dawit was attuned to Mahmoud’s darting and ducking, every successful strike a victory to race his heart. Blood ran into his eye from a cut above his forehead, but he barely felt the sting.
Spectators had arrived. Mahmoud was as popular a Circle warrior as Dawit had once been. Above them, hisses signaled displeasure when Dawit struck a blow, and cheerful clucks when Mahmoud bested him. At least a dozen of his Brothers must be in the upper circle.
For the first time since Michel had driven his family from Washington State, Dawit’s spirit sang.
He was home again.
Then, the instant of perfection was over. A gong sounded from the edge of the Circle.
“I call a draw!” a voice said. Hagos.
At first, in the fever of battle, Mahmoud didn’t hear the gong’s low call. Dawit ceremoniously dropped his staff, raising his hands, and Mahmoud’s staff stopped its swing only a centimeter from Dawit’s nose. Mahmoud’s control was impressive, as always.
There was loud hissing from above.
“Nonsense!” Mahmoud roared, breathless. He ripped off his mask and strode to Hagos, who stood a head taller. “You’ve no right! Why did you stop the match?”
Matches might last at least a mortal’s day before a restless spectator called a draw. Dawit had strained with every moment, but to his Brothers the match had just begun.
Their traditions were now ghosts, to be honored or ignored as they chose.
Hagos was masked and armed with gloves and slippers fitted with customary seven-inch blades on the backs of his palms and at each big toe. A Gloves and Slippers match meant lost digits, or limbs. Dawit knew that Hagos meant to punish him. Hagos had railed that Dawit’s family should be expelled from the colony.
Hagos’s bald head gleamed in the light from the Circle. When a Life Brother was beheaded, he lost his hair and memories when his head re-formed on the stump. Memories returned with coaxing, but not hair. Hagos had undergone the beheading ritual twice.
Hagos’s eyes smoldered as he stared. “Dawit.” He named his opponent.
“Dawit has no obligation to accept!” Mahmoud said.
“I accept.” Dawit squeezed Mahmoud’s shoulder. “Another day for us, Mahmoud.”
Mahmoud glanced at him with surprise and anger. But he understood. To refuse the match was cowardice, though it was a match Dawit would rather avoid. He and Mahmoud rarely sparred with Gloves and Slippers. But Hagos relished pain, and would relish inflicting it more.
WEAR A COLLAR, Mahmoud whispered to Dawit, his head close to pass the thought.
Dawit left the Circle to suit up in the rows of weapons in a compartment beyond the Circle.
The collection held most handheld weapons except firearms: spears of all lengths, Zulu assegai knives, and dozens of variations of rods, blades, and batons.
The blades in Gloves and Slippers were an alloy created in the House of Science, three times sharper and stronger than carbon steel. Double-edged and serrated. A wondrous w
eapon. Dawit considered a small shield and iron wrist guards, but decided not to carry the extra weight. He would risk Hagos’s blows. He did not glance toward the cumbersome metal neck guard Mahmoud called a collar. He would not give Hagos the satisfaction.
Hagos stood close behind him, breathing hot breath as Dawit fitted on his pointed slippers. His rudeness made Dawit want to kick back and stab him in the gut. In time.
“Will you call your girl-child to protect you?” Hagos taunted.
“Ease your nerves, Brother. We will be alone in the Circle.”
He saw the strong image in Hagos’s mind: crimson oozing from Brother Kaleb’s eyes, nose, and mouth as he lay dead in the pool of blood Fana had drained from him. Fana had acted reflexively; she’d only been three, after all. Kaleb had provoked Fana by attacking Jessica with a sword while a horrified Fana stood witness.
Dawit couldn’t help his glow of pride in the power Fana wielded.
Aside from Khaldun’s Ritual of Death—a mental practice he claimed to have used only twice in a thousand years—Kaleb had been the first with their Blood to die. His Brothers were still smarting from their newfound vulnerability in Fana. But most feared Michel more.
“You have too much hair, Dawit,” Hagos said. “I will see you bald.”
Dawit ignored the taunting as he walked back to the Circle, instead sifting through his memories of Hagos’s past matches so vividly that he could see them. Hagos had great agility and speed, but he was not as ambidextrous as Dawit, or as fast. He favored blows and kicks from his right side. And Hagos was lazy in his mind arts.
Dawit would have to trust his mental skill as much as his eyes, or he might lose his head today. He had no time for a long debilitation. Fana needed him.
At the edge of the Circle, Dawit bowed low to Hagos.
Hagos pushed past his bow, slicing Dawit’s upper right arm on his way, drawing a bright string of blood. Dawit had not been cut so deeply by a knife in years, and the pain startled him, flaring when he flexed his arm.
My Soul to Take Page 15
