by Ginn Hale
“Mine,” Ji responded. “So try not to waste it.”
John watched Tanash crack the wax seal of her vial. She dipped in a small brush and painted the dark, sticky blood over her carved bone. John followed her example. The blood lay on the surface of the bone momentarily. Then it soaked in, leaving only a faint pink stain behind. A tiny vibration shuddered through the bone. It trembled against John’s palm.
While Ji directed a young girl in carving her charm, John waited for further instruction. Tanash dragged her stool closer to his. She glanced at his charm briefly, then returned to her obtrusive study of John’s neck.
Did someone bite you? Tanash carefully formed the signs with her right hand.
John felt his skin go warm. Kansa snapped her fingers at Tanash, and once she had the younger girl’s attention, made several fast signs. John recognized the signs for Ravishan’s name and the animal symbol that indicated himself. Tanash scowled at Kansa. In response Kansa rolled her eyes and then gave John a look of commiseration.
No one asked you, Tanash signed back. Kansa shrugged and turned back to her charm.
“What did she say?” John asked quietly.
“Nothing worth repeating,” Tanash said. “She’s always accusing other people of being obscene, but I think she’s the one with a filthy mind.”
John turned his charm in his hands, wondering if Kansa’s comments had been defamatory or merely accurate.
“Ushiri Ravishan is handsome, isn’t he?” Tanash asked very quietly.
“Yes, he is,” John said. He knew it was useless to hope that Tanash wouldn’t have a crush on Ravishan.
Tanash frowned down at her delicate hands. She picked up a bone carving knife and then put it back down.
“He’s in love with you, isn’t he?” Tanash asked.
John paused before responding. He didn’t want to destroy her adolescent dreams, but deceiving her wouldn’t be a kindness either.
“Yes,” John said quietly.
“Do you…” Tanash flushed a little. “Does it bother you?”
“What?” John was suddenly aware that the other girls were listening in.
“You’re still friendly with him anyway,” Tanash said.
“Of course I am. I’m in love with him too.”
“Really?” Tanash broke into a wide, enthusiastic grin.
“Yes.”
“That’s so romantic.” Tanash scooted even closer to him. “Have you kissed him?”
John wished the ground would swallow him up, but checked himself, fearing that he might actually be able to make that happen. Keeping his eyes on his charm, he murmured, “Yes. We’ve kissed. We’ve kissed a lot.”
At this, he thought he heard Kansa snicker. It was ridiculous, but John felt a hot blush spreading across his face.
“Now.” Ji’s voice carried through the room and echoed slightly. “You have only to give a spark of power to the charms and they should each rise and point to true north. Too little power and they will not move. Too much and you could burn through your charm.”
Ji invited her students to the front of the room, where she had scratched a circle of protective wards into the floor, so that they could test their work.
Kansa went first. She laid her charm down in the circle and made the sign of awakening over it. The carved bone rose gracefully into the air, coming to hover just above Kansa’s palm. The bone spun once and then stilled. Its sharpened tip pointed perfectly north.
“Excellent,” Ji said.
Kansa smiled and removed her charm from the confines of Ji’s wards. Other students were less fortunate. Their charms jerked weakly across the floor or soared up and whirled ceaselessly. Many didn’t move at all. Ji offered advice to each of the girls. The charm Tanash created whipped around in tight loops. Tanash glared at it intently. Dipping and jerking, the charm lifted off the floor. At last it hovered up to the height of Tanash’s hand and stabilized with the tip pointing east.
“Close,” Ji said. “Check your carvings and perhaps focus a little more and chat a little less.”
Eventually John’s turn came. He placed his charm in the center of Ji’s wards and signed it awake. Instantly, white fire gushed up over the bone. The flames arced high and crashed into the ceiling. Heat rolled off the burning charm in waves. Kansa lunged forward and threw a dish of water over it. The water seared to steam, leaving the charm still burning. The acrid smell of burning blood engulfed the room.
John stamped on the charm, smothering it with his boot as he silently drew the power of it back into himself. Smoke rolled up over him. He choked and coughed.
Ji shoved the door open. Students rushed out into the corridor, gasping. John crushed the last of the flames and staggered after them.
“Hold the door open. Let the smoke clear,” Ji said. She sat on the floor in the hall. John sank down to the floor beside her, leaning back against the door to prop it open.
The rest of the students slumped against the hallway walls. Tanash coughed and waved weakly to John. Kansa glared at him reproachfully.
“That could have gone better,” John murmured.
“It could have been worse.” Ji swished her tail, fanning the still air around her. “Though I don’t think the room will be any use for lessons until tomorrow. You all might as well go and have an early lunch. Jahn, you stay. I want to talk to you about the commands you carved.”
While the girls trailed away, John surveyed the training room. Pale, hazy smoke hung in the air. A black scorched circle marked the perimeter of Ji’s wards.
“You seem distracted today,” she remarked.
“Sorry,” John replied.
“If you can’t concentrate, you shouldn’t be performing spells. Your power is too immense to be released unrestrained.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Ji shook her head. “This is the third time I’m going to have to call a mason in.”
John simply bowed his head in shame.
“So, what’s distracting you so badly?” Ji asked.
“Ushiri Fikiri,” John said.
“Yes, he mentioned that you and he had a history.”
“Is he here?” John could hear the alarm in his own voice. He didn’t know if he was ready to meet Fikiri just yet. He wasn’t sure he could predict his own reactions to the young man, much less Fikiri’s reactions to him.
They had done such harm to each other.
“He was, but only for a few hours last night. Sabir is using him as a messenger.” Ji lifted her gaze and John could see her searching his face for any reaction. “He said that you hated him and that you might want to kill him.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Yes. Though, it required a little fathi to get the truth from him.” Ji cocked her head. “He blames you for his mother’s death, you know.”
“It was my fault,” John said. Lady Bousim had been so kind to him as well as to Laurie and Bill. She hadn’t deserved to burn. John closed his eyes against the inadvertent memory of the sound of her piercing screams.
“Jahn,” Ji said. “Let me tell you what I told Ushiri Fikiri. You did not kill Lady Bousim. The Payshmura murdered her. They are your enemy, not him.”
John nodded, but the churning feeling of guilt still gnawed at him.
“And what you feel Ushiri Fikiri did to you,” Ji went on, “that, too, was the work of the Payshmura. He didn’t condemn you to burn. They did.”
But Fikiri had arranged it. John started to say as much but then stopped himself.
“You want me to forgive Fikiri?” John asked.
“I doubt either of you will ever forgive each other,” Ji replied. “But I need you both to put the past behind you. The Fai’daum can’t accommodate either of your vendettas. Do you understand me?”
“I do.” John knew winning this war mattered far more than finding redress for his personal losses. He understood that, but he wondered if Fikiri did as well.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to try to kill
Fikiri,” John said. “I just don’t trust him.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“Do you trust him?” John asked.
Ji lapsed into silence. Her ears flicked as though her thoughts were annoying insects. John relaxed against the door. His throat felt dry. Absently, he stroked Ji’s shoulder.
She glanced up at him. John removed his hand immediately.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right, Jahn.” Ji shrugged. “You have a kind touch and my back itches.”
John scratched Ji’s back.
Ji stretched into his efforts. Then she said, “When Umbhra’ibaye falls, Fikiri will be there. I have seen him and I have seen Ravishan.” Her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to focus on something far out of sight. “But I have seen many things. The future turns and changes like a cloud caught in the wind. It could move in many directions. But there are always ruins. And no matter what, I always see Ravishan and Fikiri in those ruins.”
“But what does that mean?”
“If I knew that, I would have won this war already,” Ji replied.
“So we march south and hope for the best?”
“You do not go south,” Ji said. “It is too dangerous for you to go to the south.”
“Why?” John asked.
“Because of what you are,” Ji said. “The Great Gate is at Umbhra’ibaye and it knows you. It was created to awaken to your blood. If that happens, all of Basawar could be lost.”
“But I won’t open the Great Gate,” John said.
“You may not mean to, but it would respond to you. It has been fed with the blood of nothing but Rifters. It is nearly a living thing now and it has already awoken to your presence once before.”
John recalled the slabs of broken yellow stones littering the forest. “You mean when I crossed from Nayeshi?”
“Yes, even broken, it opened for you,” Ji replied. “If you wanted it to open for you now, it would. And I think that you could not keep yourself from wanting it to open.”
“Of course not,” John said. “I want to go home. After this is all over I’m going to take Laurie and Ravishan home with me.”
Ji stiffened beneath his hand.
“If you do, you may well kill those of us who remain here.”
“What? No!” John objected.
“You must have felt how weak this world is, Jahn. Haven’t you wondered why?” Ji asked. But when John was silent, she went on, “When the Great Gate opens, life bleeds from this world. Basawar trembles on the brink of destruction every time the Great Gate is used. That was the cause of the war between the Eastern Kingdom and the Payshmura. Our queens wanted the Great Gate destroyed.”
“But the Great Gate has been opened before. Ten times. Basawar is still…fine.” But John knew that wasn’t true. He’d felt the starved sickness of the land. He knew from records that the air had grown thin. The soil no longer produced the quantities of food it once had. Each time the land recovered, but not for centuries, and it had never returned to its natural fertility.
“What if I didn’t leave right away? What if I waited five or even ten years?”
“In a hundred years it would still be too soon,” Ji said.
“If I only opened them for an instant…” John suggested.
“It is not worth the risk.” Ji shook her head. “I wish I could show you what I have seen, Jahn. First there will be the killing wind, a suffocating storm that chokes every living thing it touches. Entire cities will die in a night. The sea will be thick with the stench of rotting creatures. Then the lands will waste. First orchards and fields will wither away, then even the wild grasses and weeds. If something survives, I do not see it.”
She was describing a world in the last throes of hypoxia and drained of nitrogen. John knew that at once, but he didn’t want to believe it. “But you’re not sure it will happen. You said that the visions change.”
“My visions do change,” Ji replied, “but only because the actions that cause them change. If the Great Gate continues to be used, then it will destroy Basawar. For the sake of this world the Great Gate must be broken before it can be opened again.”
John bowed his head down against his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut.
He wanted to go home.
The promise of returning had kept him going. It had fueled his every decision since he had arrived here. He had been able to endure beatings and humiliation because he had known that someday, somehow, all of this would be over and he would arrive back at home.
When he got home, he’d eat tacos so spicy that his eyes would water. He’d watch television and drink cheap beer. He’d speak English loudly. He’d do things he’d never done before. He’d take Ravishan dancing and they would stay out all night.
He would take Laurie home. He’d put flowers on Bill’s memorial. He would forget about Basawar, about burning bodies, about the Rifter.
Tears welled in John’s eyes. He had to fight to keep from crying. How could he be so petty and pathetic? Countless lives were at stake. An entire world stood to be lost. And all he could think of was how much he wanted to go home.
Ji nuzzled his leg with her cold nose. John stroked her head and shoulders as if she were a real dog. He took a deep breath and concentrated on the calm perfection of the stone surrounding him. If he wanted to, he could go. He was the Rifter and not even Ji could stop him. The Great Gate would awaken to him. He could go home.
Sheltered beneath the vaults of stone, John could feel the hundreds of men and women living in the Warren. Little black goats scampered across the stone streets. Shepherd boys chased them. He didn’t know most of these people, and yet he felt them, as he felt the earth and air around him. How many of them would he sacrifice for his own happiness? Two? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?
An entire world?
No, he had happiness. He had it here, with Ravishan. He didn’t have Mexican food or television or even a flushing toilet, but he still had happiness.
John wiped his eyes. “So, I won’t go south. What should I do then?”
“We will need you to keep the ushiri’im occupied in the north,” Ji said quietly. “We don’t want them to guess that we are mobilizing in the south.”
John nodded.
Ji considered him with a sympathetic animal gaze. John stroked her head. He felt childish doing it, knowing that she was nothing like the dog he’d owned as a boy; still he petted her and took comfort in the distant memory.
“It does no good to pine for a place you cannot return to,” Ji told him quietly. “Let it go and look to the life you have here and now. That is all any of us can do.”
•
It wasn’t until late that evening that John actually noticed just how much of Nayeshi he’d already abandoned. He had been doing it unconsciously for years: allowing Basawar words to replace English, forgetting names and places, becoming accustomed to tattooed fingers, carved bones, and a man who stepped out of the empty air into his arms. His memories of the life he’d lived seemed distant now and nearly as unreal as a dream.
That knowledge troubled John but not as much as he would have expected. Still Ravishan noticed the difference.
“You seemed distracted today,” Ravishan commented as they lay close in their bed. Only one lamp remained uncovered; it cast a faint green illumination along the sharp line of Ravishan’s jaw and bare shoulders.
“I’ve just been thinking about things…” John replied and Ravishan gave a soft laugh.
“Yes, I gathered that much. Care to tell me what you’ve been thinking about?”
John wondered if there had been a single discrete moment when the sharp planes and muscular weight of Ravishan’s naked body had ceased to feel foreign lying against his own bare skin. If so, he hadn’t noticed it. He only knew that now, if he lay down alone, the bed felt empty, and when he didn’t hear Ravishan’s voice, the room seemed too quiet.
“If the attack on Umbhra’ibaye is successful, the Fa
i’daum will destroy the Great Gate,” John said at last. “Even if they rescue Loshai, none of us will be able to go to Nayeshi.”
Ravishan lay thoughtfully silent beside him. When he spoke at last, he touched John’s right hand, tracing his callused fingers. “I know Basawar must be cruel compared to Nayeshi. More than anyone, you’ve shown me that things here aren’t the way they should be. But that’s really why we’ve joined the Fai’daum, isn’t it? We’re going to win this war and make Basawar a better land…”
“Yes,” John agreed. He’d always understood as much in principal, but now the genuine difference that the Fai’daum revolution could make seemed to suffuse him like a deep drink of fathi. If Basawar was to be his home for the rest of his life, then he needed to stop sulking about all he’d left behind on Nayeshi and start fighting to make Basawar a place where he and Ravishan and Laurie could live their lives.
Beside him Ravishan sighed heavily.
“I know nothing here can possibly compare to Nayeshi—”
John silenced him with a kiss and then drew back.
“Some things are a lot better actually.”
After that John found a new drive and certainty in his battle practices. He broke through Arren’s attacks with fast, fluid strikes. He punched through Fai’daum knife blades and flicked the shards of steel from his fingers. There would be black bruises across his hand the next morning but that didn’t matter to him while he fought.
At last Arren called him to a halt. Sweat gleamed across Arren’s dark skin.
“There’s nothing more I can teach you in a practice room,” Arren informed him. “You’re ready to fight real enemies outside the Warren.”
From behind, John heard the soft clap of gloved hands. He turned and saw Saimura standing in the doorway. His pale skin was still streaked red from the winter cold outside.
“It will be good to have you with us, when we ride for Gisa,” Saimura told him. “Lafi’shir will officially announce assignments tonight, but I just wanted you to know that you’ll be joining me in Lafi’shir’s elite unit. Once we’ve escorted the munitions to Gisa, we’ll be kicking up trouble all across the north.”
Arren clapped John on the shoulder and beamed at him as if he’d won a prize. But John’s thoughts were of other assignments.
