But just as Lyra’s love had drawn him back from past the final door before, so this time Lanre’s power forced him to return from sweet oblivion. His new-won power burned him back into his body, forcing him to live.
Selitos looked at Lanre and understood all. Before the power of his sight, these things hung like dark tapestries in the air about Lanre’s shaking form.
“I can kill you,” Selitos said, then looked away from Lanre’s expression suddenly hopeful. “For an hour, or a day. But you would return, pulled like iron to a loden-stone. Your name burns with the power in you. I can no more extinguish it than I could throw a stone and strike down the moon.”
Lanre’s shoulders bowed. “I had hoped,” he said simply. “But I knew the truth. I am no longer the Lanre you knew. Mine is a new and terrible name. I am Haliax and no door can bar my passing. All is lost to me, no Lyra, no sweet escape of sleep, no blissful forgetfulness, even madness is beyond me. Death itself is an open doorway to my power. There is no escape. I have only the hope of oblivion after everything is gone and the Aleu fall nameless from the sky.” And as he said this Lanre hid his face in his hands, and his body shook with silent, racking sobs.
Selitos looked out on the land below and felt a small spark of hope. Six plumes of smoke rose from the land below. Myr Tariniel was gone, and six cities destroyed. But that meant all was not lost. One city still remained… .
In spite of all that had happened, Selitos looked at Lanre with pity, and when he spoke it was with sadness in his voice. “Is there nothing then? No hope?” He lay one hand on Lanre’s arm. “There is sweetness in life. Even after all of this, I will help you look for it. If you will try.”
“No,” said Lanre. He stood to his full height, his face regal behind the lines of grief. “There is nothing sweet. I will sow salt, lest the bitter weeds grow.”
“I am sorry,” Selitos said, and stood upright as well.
Then Selitos spoke in a great voice, “Never before has my sight been clouded. I failed to see the truth inside your heart.”
Selitos drew a deep breath. “By my eye I was deceived, never again… .” He raised the stone and drove its needle point into his own eye. His scream echoed among the rocks as he fell to his knees gasping. “May I never again be so blind.”
A great silence descended, and the fetters of enchantment fell away from Selitos. He cast the stone at Lanre’s feet and said, “By the power of my own blood I bind you. By your own name let you be accursed.”
Selitos spoke the long name that lay in Lanre’s heart, and at the sound of it the sun grew dark and wind tore stones from the mountainside.
Then Selitos spoke, “This is my doom upon you. May your face be always held in shadow, black as the toppled towers of my beloved Myr Tariniel.
“This is my doom upon you. Your own name will be turned against you, that you shall have no peace.
“This is my doom upon you and all who follow you. May it last until the world ends and the Aleu fall nameless from the sky.”
Selitos watched as a darkness gathered about Lanre. Soon nothing could be seen of his handsome features, only a vague impression of nose and mouth and eyes. All the rest was shadow, black and seamless.
Then Selitos stood and said, “You have beaten me once through guile, but never again. Now I see truer than before and my power is upon me. I cannot kill you, but I can send you from this place. Begone! The sight of you is all the fouler, knowing that you once were fair.”
But even as he spoke them, the words were bitter in his mouth. Lanre, his face in shadow darker than a starless night, was blown away like smoke upon the wind.
Then Selitos bowed his head and wept hot tears of blood upon the earth.
It wasn’t until Skarpi stopped speaking that I noticed how lost in the story I had become. He tilted his head back and drained the last of the wine from his wide clay cup. He turned it upside-down and set it on the bar with a dull thump of finality.
There was a small clamor of questions, comments, pleas, and thanks from children who had remained still as stones throughout the story. Skarpi made a small gesture to the barkeep who set out a mug of beer as the children began to trickle out onto the street.
I waited until the last of them had left before I approached him. He turned those diamond-blue eyes on me and I stammered.
“Thank you. I wanted to thank you. My father would have loved that story. It’s the …” I broke off. “I wanted to give you this.” I brought out an iron halfpenny. “I didn’t know what was going on, so I didn’t pay.” My voice seemed rusty. This was probably more than I had spoken in a month.
He looked closely at me. “Here are the rules,” he said, ticking them off on his gnarled fingers. “One: don’t talk while I’m talking. Two: give a small coin, if you have it to spare.”
He looked at the ha’penny on the bar.
Not wanting to admit how much I needed it, I sought for something else to say. “Do you know many stories?”
He smiled, and the network of lines that crossed his face turned to make themselves part of that smile. “I only know one story. But oftentimes small pieces seem to be stories themselves.” He took a drink. “It’s growing all around us. In the manor houses of the Cealdim and in the workshops of the Cealdar, over the Stormwal in the great sand sea. In the low stone houses of the Adem, full of silent conversation. And sometimes.” He smiled. “Sometimes the story is growing in squalid backstreet bars, Dockside in Tarbean.” His bright eyes looked deep into me, as if I were a book that he could read.
“There’s no good story that doesn’t touch the truth,” I said, repeating something my father used to say, mostly to fill the silence. It felt strange talking to someone again, strange but good. “There’s as much truth here as anywhere, I suppose. It’s too bad, the world could do with a little less truth and a little more …” I trailed off, not knowing what I wanted more of. I looked down at my hands and found myself wishing they were cleaner.
He slid the halfpenny toward me. I picked it up and he smiled. His rough hand lit lightly as a bird on my shoulder. “Every day except Mourning. Sixth bell, more or less.”
I started to leave, then stopped. “Is it true? The story.” I made an inarticulate gesture. “The part you told today?”
“All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”
“My father used to say the same thing.” As soon as I mentioned him a confusing welter of emotions rose up in me. Only when I saw Skarpi’s eyes following me did I realize I was backing nervously toward the exit. I stopped and forced myself to turn and walk out the door. “I’ll be here, if I can.”
I heard the smile in his voice behind me. “I know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
His Eyes Unveiled
I left the bar smiling, unmindful of the fact that I was still Dockside and in danger. I felt buoyant knowing I would have the chance to hear another story soon. It had been a long time since I had looked forward to anything. I went back to my street corner and proceeded to waste three hours begging, not gaining so much as a thin shim for my efforts. Even this failed to dampen my spirits. Tomorrow was Mourning, but the day after there would be stories!
But as I sat there, I felt a vague unease creep over me. A feeling that I was forgetting something impinged on my too-rare happiness. I tried to ignore it, but it stayed with me all day and into the next, like a mosquito I couldn’t see, let alone swat. By the end of the day, I was certain I had forgotten something. Something about the story Skarpi had told.
It is easy for you to see, no doubt, hearing the story like this, conveniently arranged and narrated. Keep in mind that I had been living like an animal in Tarbean for nearly three years. Pieces of my mind were still asleep, and my painfu
l memories had been gathering dust behind the door of forgetfulness. I had grown used to avoiding them, the same way a cripple keeps weight off an injured leg.
Luck smiled on me the next day, and I managed to steal a bundle of rags off the back of a wagon and sell them to a ragman for four iron pennies. Too hungry to worry about tomorrow, I bought a thick slice of cheese and a warm sausage, then a whole loaf of fresh bread and a warm apple tart. Finally, on a whim, I went to the back door of the nearby inn and spent my final penny on a mug of strong beer.
I sat on the steps of a bakery across the street from the inn and watched people coming and going as I enjoyed my best meal in months. Soon twilight faded into darkness and my head began to spin pleasantly from the beer. But as the food settled in my belly, the nagging sensation returned, stronger than before. I frowned, irritated that something would spoil an otherwise perfect day.
Night deepened until the inn across the street stood in a pool of light. A few women hovered near the doorway to the inn. They murmured in low voices and gave knowing looks to the men who walked past.
I drank off the last of the beer and was about to cross the street and return the mug when I saw a flicker of torchlight approaching. Looking down the street, I saw the distinctive grey of a Tehlin priest and decided to wait until he had passed. Drunk on Mourning and just recently a thief, I guessed the less contact I had with the clergy the better off I’d be.
He was hooded, and the torch he carried was between us, so I couldn’t see his face. He approached the group of nearby women and there was a low murmur of discussion. I heard the distinctive chink of coins and sunk further into the shadow of the doorway.
The Tehlin turned and headed back the way he had come. I remained still, not wanting to draw his attention, not wanting to have to run for safety while my head was spinning. This time, however, the torch was not between us. When he turned to look in my direction, I could see nothing of his face, only darkness under the cowl of his hood, only shadow.
He continued on his way, unaware of my presence, or uncaring. But I stayed where I was, unable to move. The image of the hooded man, his face hidden in shadow, had thrown open a door in my mind and memories were spilling out. I was remembering a man with empty eyes and a smile from a nightmare, remembering the blood on his sword. Cinder, his voice like a chill wind: “Is this your parent’s fire?”
Not him, the man behind him. The quiet one who had sat beside the fire. The man whose face was hidden in shadow. Haliax. This had been the half-remembered thing hovering on the edge of my awareness since I had heard Skarpi’s story.
I ran to the rooftops and wrapped myself in my rag blanket. Pieces of story and memory slowly fit together. I began to admit impossible truths to myself. The Chandrian were real. Haliax was real. If the story Skarpi had told was true, then Lanre and Haliax were the same person. The Chandrian had killed my parents, my whole troupe. Why?
Other memories bubbled to the surface of my mind. I saw the man with black eyes, Cinder, kneeling in front of me. His face expressionless, his voice sharp and cold. “Someone’s parents,” he had said, “have been singing entirely the wrong sort of songs.”
They had killed my parents for gathering stories about them. They had killed my whole troupe over a song. I sat awake all night with little more than these thoughts running through my head. Slowly I came to realize them as the truth.
What did I do then? Did I swear I would find them, kill them all for what they had done? Perhaps. But even if I did, I knew in my heart it was impossible. Tarbean had taught me hard practicality. Kill the Chandrian? Kill Lanre? How could I even begin? I would have more luck trying to steal the moon. At least I knew where to look for the moon at night.
But there was one thing I could do. Tomorrow I would ask Skarpi for the real truth behind his stories. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had. Revenge might be beyond me, at least for now. But I still had a hope of knowing the truth.
I held tight to that hope through the dark hours of night, until the sun rose and I fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Tehlu’s Watchful Eyes
The next day I came blearily awake to the sound of the hour being struck. I counted four bells, but didn’t know how many I might have slept through. I blinked the sleep from my eyes and tried to gauge the time from the position of the sun. About sixth bell. Skarpi would be starting his story now.
I ran through the streets. My bare feet slapped on rough cobbles, splashing through puddles and taking shortcuts through alleyways. Everything became a blur around me as I pulled in great lungfuls of the damp, stagnant, city air.
I almost burst into the Half-Mast at a dead run and settled in against the back wall by the door. I dimly realized there were more people in the inn than usual this early in the evening. Then Skarpi’s story pulled me in and I could do nothing but listen to his deep rolling voice and watch his sparkling eyes.
“… Selitos One-Eye stood forward and said, “Lord, if I do this thing will I be given the power to avenge the loss of the shining city? Can I confound the plots of Lanre and his Chandrian who killed the innocent and burned my beloved Myr Tariniel?”
Aleph said, “No. All personal things must be set aside, and you must punish or reward only what you yourself witness from this day forth.”
Selitos bowed his head. “I am sorry, but my heart says to me I must try to stop these things before they are done, not wait and punish later.”
Some of the Ruach murmured agreement with Selitos and went to stand with him, for they remembered Myr Tariniel and were filled with rage and hurt at Lanre’s betrayal.
Selitos went to Aleph and knelt before him. “I must refuse, for I cannot forget. But I will oppose him with these faithful Ruach beside me. I see their hearts are pure. We will be called the Amyr in memory of the ruined city. We will confound Lanre and any who follow him. Nothing will prevent us from attaining the greater good.”
Most of the Ruach hung back from Selitos, too. They were afraid, and they did not wish to become involved in great matters.
But Tehlu stood forward saying, “I hold justice foremost in my heart. I will leave this world behind that I might better serve it, serving you.” He knelt before Aleph, his head bowed, his hands open at his sides.
Others came forward. Tall Kirel, who had been burned but left living in the ash of Myr Tariniel. Deah, who had lost two husbands to the fighting, and whose face and mouth and heart were hard and cold as stone. Enlas, who would not carry a sword or eat the flesh of animals, and who no man had ever known to speak hard words. Fair Geisa, who had a hundred suitors in Belen before the walls fell. The first woman to know the unasked-for touch of man.
Lecelte, who laughed easily and often, even when there was woe thick about him. Imet, hardly more than a boy, who never sang and killed swiftly without tears. Ordal, the youngest of them all, who had never seen a thing die, stood bravely before Aleph, her golden hair bright with ribbon. And beside her came Andan, whose face was a mask with burning eyes, whose name meant anger.
They came to Aleph, and he touched them. He touched their hands and eyes and hearts. The last time he touched them there was pain, and wings tore from their backs that they might go where they wished. Wings of fire and shadow. Wings of iron and glass. Wings of stone and blood.
Then Aleph spoke their long names and they were wreathed in a white fire. The fire danced along their wings and they became swift. The fire flickered in their eyes and they saw into the deepest hearts of men. The fire filled their mouths and they sang songs of power. Then the fire settled on their foreheads like silver stars and they became at once righteous and wise and terrible to behold. Then the fire consumed them and they were gone forever from mortal sight.
None but the most powerful can see them, and only then with great difficulty and at great peril. They mete out justice to the world, and Tehlu is the greatest of them all—”
“I have heard enough.” The speaker wasn’t loud, but he may as well have sho
uted. When Skarpi told a story, any interruption was like chewing a grain of sand in a mouthful of bread.
From the back of the room, two men in dark cloaks came toward the bar: one tall and proud, one short and hooded. As they walked I saw a flash of grey robe beneath their cloaks: Tehlin priests. Worse, I saw two other men with armor under their cloaks. I hadn’t seen it while they were sitting, but now that they were moving it was painfully obvious they were church strongmen. Their faces were grim, and the lines of their cloaks spoke of swords to me.
I wasn’t the only one who saw. The children were trickling out the door. The smarter ones tried to appear casual, but some broke into a run before they got outside. Against common sense three children stayed. There was a Cealdish boy with lace on his shirt, a little girl with bare feet, and myself.
“I believe we have all heard enough,” the taller of the two priests said with quiet severity. He was lean, with sunken eyes that smoldered like half hidden coals. A carefully trimmed beard the color of soot sharpened the edges of his knife blade face.
He handed his cloak to the shorter, hooded priest. Underneath he wore the pale grey robe of the Tehlins. Around his neck was a set of silver scales. My heart sunk deep into the pit of my stomach. Not just a priest, but a Justice. I saw the other two children slip out the door.
The Justice spoke, “Under Tehlu’s watchful eye, I charge you with heresy.”
“Witnessed,” said the second priest from within his hood.
The Justice motioned to the mercenaries. “Bind him.”
This the mercenaries did with rough efficiency Skarpi endured the whole thing placidly, without saying a word.
The Justice watched his bodyguard begin to tie Skarpi’s wrists, then turned his body slightly away, as if dismissing the storyteller from his mind. He took a long look around the room, his inspection finally ending with the bald, aproned man behind the bar.
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