by Ginn Hale
Jath’ibaye’s face had gone pale. Perhaps he was not as completely recovered from the poison as Kahlil had first assumed.
“It was a long time ago,” Jath’ibaye said slowly. “But yes, I remember. In Nayeshi, you bore the black Prayerscars of the ordained Kahlil.”
“There was something else. Two red scars across my mouth, but now they’re hardly there at all.” Kahlil traced the surface of his cheek where the scars should have been.
“And you don’t know why the scars are missing?” Jath’ibaye asked.
“I have no idea,” Kahlil admitted. He fought to keep his frustration from sounding in his voice. “I don’t understand where they’ve gone, but I know they were there. I remember the afternoon it…” Kahlil couldn’t bring himself to admit how the scars had come about. He glanced to Jath’ibaye.
There was a strange tension to Jath’ibaye’s expression, as if he were suppressing some violent pain. He really wasn’t well yet, Kahlil realized. He should let him go and rest. Kahlil nearly said as much, but Jath’ibaye spoke first.
“Do you have any idea of what affected you?” Jath’ibaye asked the question carefully, but Kahlil just shook his head.
“I understand that the world I left behind when I traveled to Nayeshi isn’t the same one I’ve returned to...But I shouldn’t have been changed…I don’t know. Perhaps the issusha’im did something before Umbhra’ibaye was destroyed,” Kahlil offered, though he had no idea what they could have done that would have changed him like this.
“I don’t think so…I don’t know,” Jath’ibaye said quickly, without meeting Kahlil’s gaze. “There’s something Ji asked me to take care of below deck. I’d better deal with it while I’m still thinking of it. Will you excuse me?”
“Sure,” Kahlil said. The announcement came so abruptly that Kahlil doubted its validity.
“We’ll talk again later.” Jath’ibaye disappeared below decks.
Kahlil wondered which of the things that he had said had disturbed Jath’ibaye so much. Perhaps Jath’ibaye had simply grown tired of the whole rambling discussion. It certainly hadn’t gone the way Kahlil had intended.
He looked back down at the two currents slipping past one another. The waters looked rougher than before. Tiny white crests churned and crashed.
Perhaps Jath’ibaye’s sudden departure had nothing to do with him at all. He had looked so unwell. Suddenly Kahlil wondered how difficult it was for Jath’ibaye to restrain his power. Did it hurt him to hold back that immense destructive force in order to turn a single current in the river?
It was more than a little egotistical to assume that Jath’ibaye’s every reaction had to do with him. The man had the entire Gaunsho’im Council to contend with. He had a river to master and enemies like Fikiri to consider. Jath’ibaye’s thoughts had probably been miles away throughout most of their conversation.
Kahlil himself worried about the armies currently on the move. He scowled at the jagged mountains looming on the northern horizon. Distantly, he remembered the vast, walled garrison of Vundomu. That would have been decades ago. How well fortified was it now? How well could it withstand the onslaught of the gaunsho’im’s unified forces?
He considered moving through the Gray Space and seeing Vundomu for himself. But his sudden appearance would probably cause alarm. It was wiser to wait and arrive with Jath’ibaye, assuming Jath’ibaye still wanted his services.
The idea of Jath’ibaye refusing him felt both absurd and terrifying—and he couldn’t quite understand why except that he had endured so much and come so far to reach this point that he couldn’t bear the prospect of it all having been for nothing. He’d crossed two worlds and nearly died just to find John. And now that they were together, it felt as though he had at last found his place.
And yet when they’d stood speaking there’d been something so uneasy about Jath’ibaye’s manner that it shook Kahlil’s confidence.
He scowled at the dark, disorienting waters swirling in the wake of Jath’ibaye’s ship.
Better not to brood about what he couldn’t understand, Kahlil decided.
Instead, Kahlil turned his attention to the three ship hands working on deck. One of them was a young woman; the other two, men in their twenties. All wore knit caps, dull red coats and thick pants cut from oiled leather. Despite the chill in the air, none of them seemed displeased to be out in the open. While they worked, mending fishing nets, they talked among themselves.
It took Kahlil a moment to recall their names. Ji had introduced the entire crew to him two days ago, but he’d been dazed and exhausted at the time. Still, when the young woman glanced up at him and smiled, he recalled that her name was Besh’anya. Her curvaceous figure and thick black hair reminded him of one of the cooks he’d met in the Lisam house, though her expression struck him as far more inquisitive. The man beside her was Piam—the earlier introductions were coming back to him now. Piam couldn’t have been much past twenty, but his thick black beard made him look older. The second man bore the light hair and skin of an Eastern ancestry and Kahlil’s gaze lingered upon him the longest for that. He was called Chyemon. Despite the difference in their coloring, Chyemon’s fine features resembled Besh’anya’s closely enough that Kahlil couldn’t help but think that they were siblings.
They had all seemed friendly enough when they had been introduced. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to sound them out. At the very least he might learn more about Vundomu.
As he approached the group, Besh’anya waved. The other two looked up to him and offered friendly smiles. He caught the smell of oil from their coats and wool from the clothes beneath. Their cheeks, noses, and ears had gone red from the wind and cold.
“It’s chilly today, isn’t it?” Kahlil asked.
Piam nodded. “It’ll get colder still. We’ll be seeing snow by tomorrow morning.”
“The worst of the winter’s passed though, even in Vundomu.” Chyemon shifted the netting through his callused hands, looking for frayed fibers. The sharp smell of fish drifted up. “You shouldn’t have to get much colder.”
“That’s good,” he said a little absently. Across both worlds the discussion of the weather seem a universal opener into wider-ranging conversations. He supposed it was because even complete strangers at least shared the surrounding temperatures and winds.
“Ji says you’re from the fallen church,” Besh’anya remarked.
“I was trained by the Payshmura priests at Rathal’pesha.” Kahlil still felt strange admitting that. He’d hidden his identity for so many years. Now there was no point. The Payshmura had been destroyed twenty-seven years before. These ship hands wouldn’t have even been born when Kahlil had crossed through the Great Gate into Nayeshi.
“You don’t look that old.” Besh’anya studied Kahlil’s face.
“No, I suppose I don’t,” Kahlil replied. He was, in fact, only in his early thirties. He simply hadn’t lived through all the years that had passed here in Basawar since the time he had been born and now. He doubted that the ship hands would understand that. So, he didn’t attempt an explanation. “I imagine the northlands have changed quite a lot in the last thirty years.”
“Since the fall of the old church?” Piam ran his hand over his beard. The motion wasn’t quite natural. Kahlil thought that it was probably a gesture that Piam was attempting to cultivate into a habit.
“My grandmother traveled to Amura’taye when she was a girl—before the fall, you know,” Piam went on. “She said that everything was different then. You could take a train almost all the way there. The great chasm hadn’t expanded from the east yet. And you didn’t have to watch for hungry bones, either. The dead stayed down back then.”
“So they say,” Besh’anya commented. “The old church raised the bones even back then, didn’t they?” She addressed her question to Kahlil. Her brother Chyemon glanced to him as well but said nothing.
“The issusha’im, you mean?” Kahlil asked. He couldn’t imagine what else they coul
d be talking about. He had never heard of them being called ‘hungry bones’ though.
“Yes, the women they flayed and kept alive,” Besh’anya said. “Ji was one of them, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” Kahlil said, though he thought that perhaps he had known that.
“She escaped and had to hide in the body of a dog to keep the priests from finding her. That was in the early days of the revolution, when the Fai’daum were still without a homeland.”
The other two men nodded. This was obviously something they expected everyone to know. Kahlil’s own knowledge of the Fai’daum’s early history was limited to the monasteries they had burned and the tithes they had stolen from caravans.
“That was a little before even my time,” Kahlil said.
“It was terrible back then,” Besh’anya told him. “They burned people alive.”
Kahlil just nodded. He was far more familiar with that than he would have wanted any of these three to know.
“Were you at the Battle of Vundomu?” Chyemon asked with boyish shyness. Kahlil couldn’t help but like how easily his fair skin betrayed a faint blush. It reminded him just a little of John when he’d been quite young.
“Yes,” Kahlil answered automatically, though he immediately realized that he couldn’t have been there. By the time Vundomu had fallen he would have already been in Nayeshi. And yet he could almost see it in his mind. The huge black walls tore themselves open. Steam and flames burst up as tracks of machinery twisted apart. Metal screamed and the heat of raging fires distorted the sky. His heart raced as he thought of it, as he remembered Jahn’s pale form against the rolling walls of black smoke.
“Jath’ibaye conquered an army in a day,” Chyemon said. “I wish I could have seen it.”
“There was too much smoke for anyone to see anything, really.” Kahlil didn’t want to say any more about it. Hundreds of men had been killed. Crushed, burned, suffocated bodies had littered the shattered rubble of every street. The fires had burned for days. In the midst of the memory, Kahlil suddenly wondered how he could know all this. Had Alidas told him about it? Had he read it in a history book? Had he just imagined it in some fever dream?
Already the memories receded from him.
“Ji always says that battles are in the moment and not in the retelling,” Besh’anya said.
Piam nodded. Chyemon seemed disappointed at the turn of the conversation. Clearly he had been hoping to hear a detailed account of the conquest.
“Is it true you can walk through walls like the devil Fikiri?” Chyemon asked.
“A little better than Fikiri, I think.” Kahlil couldn’t suppress the arrogance in his tone.
Chyemon grinned at this. “Are you going to kill him?”
“That would depend on what Jath’ibaye wishes.” Kahlil shoved his hands into his pockets.
“But you could?” Chyemon asked.
Kahlil considered the brutal force Fikiri had wielded as he tore through the Gray Space. Noise and flames had burst through the air. He had used Eastern sorcery as well, manipulating fluid as if it were his own flesh. Fikiri was no drunken clumsy murderer; he possessed skills that matched or perhaps even exceeded Kahlil’s own.
And yet some deep part of him revolted against the thought of Fikiri ever besting him in battle. He was the Kahlil. Fikiri was just a treacherous coward.
“If he needs killing, then I’ll kill him,” Kahlil stated.
Chyemon gazed at him with open awe. Piam and Besh’anya, however, looked simultaneously troubled and hopeful.
“Ji says that you were nearly made the Kahlil, the Payshmura’s god slayer,” Chyemon added, as if Kahlil could not have known what the word meant.
“Yes,” Kahlil replied. One of Chyemon’s words lingered with him: nearly. Why would Ji say that he had ‘nearly’ been made Kahlil? He was Kahlil. Even without the Prayerscars, he knew that he had been.
He still was.
“I bet you know battle forms that no one can beat,” Chyemon went on. “Ancient attacks that were lost with the Payshmura—you probably know them all.”
Chyemon’s obvious eagerness to worship him struck Kahlil as both flattering and discomfiting. Who knew what kind of stories had cropped up about the ushiri’im and the Kahlil since the fall of the Payshmura Church? He didn’t want Chyemon, or anyone here, to take him for more than he was.
“No matter how well I might have been trained,” Kahlil said, “it would still just take one well-placed bullet outside of the Gray Space to take me out.”
“But you said you could kill Fikiri.” Chyemon’s smile suddenly faded.
“I can. He’s as human as I am. For every man it just takes one bullet.”
“But it has to hit him.” Besh’anya’s young face was grim. “Plenty of guards and kahlirash’im have tried.”
“He’s like a ghost, passing through walls and locked doors. He takes whomever he pleases, kills anyone he wants.” Piam lowered his voice as if just talking about Fikiri might summon him. “Nothing touches him.”
Kahlil plainly saw the fear written in all three of their faces and he regretted his earlier insistence on realism. These three young people wanted a hero who would inspire them to keep fighting against the monster that Fikiri had become. Chyemon, at least, had apparently hoped that Kahlil would be that hero. Kahlil’s disdain for Fikiri returned to him like an instinct and with it came a strange feeling of audacity.
“Anything Fikiri can do, I can do to him,” Kahlil said. Then, to prove it, Kahlil flicked his fingers apart and sliced open the Gray Space. He stepped through Piam and emerged just behind Chyemon.
“And I’m much quieter than he is,” Kahlil added.
All three of the ship hands spun around to look at Kahlil. This time the awe and admiration on all their faces was evident. A breathless laugh escaped from Besh’anya. Piam stared at Kahlil wide eyed while Chyemon grinned like a delighted child.
“You did it,” Chyemon gasped. “Just like that.”
“Just like that,” Kahlil agreed.
“You were silent.” Besh’anya smiled. “The devil won’t even hear you coming.”
“Can you do it again?” Piam asked.
“Yes, can you?” Chyemon chimed in.
“Sure, but I think it might disturb Jath’ibaye if I move too many times.” Kahlil belatedly recalled how he had first been ripped from the Gray Space when Jath’ibaye had mistaken his movements for Fikiri’s. Only an instant later Jath’ibaye bounded up from below decks. His expression was one of utter fury. He pivoted, searching the deck, and then stopped, catching sight of Kahlil’s guilty expression.
“Sorry,” Kahlil called. “That was me.”
Jath’ibaye frowned at him, but the anger was already fading from his expression. When he had burst up from the stairs, he had looked ready to kill. Now he just appeared vaguely annoyed. He crossed the deck to meet Kahlil and the three ship hands.
“You should probably warn me if you’re going to be opening the Gray Space,” Jath’ibaye informed him somewhat tersely.
“I’ll remember that in the future.”
Jath’ibaye glanced between the ship hands, their netting and Kahlil curiously.
“So, what exactly were you doing?” Jath’ibaye asked.
Apparently, he expected Kahlil to have a good reason for opening the Gray Space. Kahlil doubted that Jath’ibaye considered improving morale by showing off to be adequate cause. Kahlil leaned against the ship’s railing and gave a rebellious shrug.
“Just killing time until you give me something useful to do. Assuming that you want to accept a man with my unique skills into your household, that is.”
“I see.” Jath’ibaye’s bright blue eyes narrowed. A feeling of deep familiarity washed through Kahlil as he smiled into Jath’ibaye’s rising vexation. All three of Kahlil’s new acquaintances immediately made themselves very busy with their nets. He couldn’t blame them, but he couldn’t resist riling Jath’ibaye either.
“I to
ld you I was bored,” Kahlil added.
“Yes, you did.”
“Idle hands, devil’s workshop,” Kahlil repeated the saying from Nayeshi. Jath’ibaye gave him a slightly puzzled look, then just shook his head.
“Come on, then. As it happens I do have a use for a man of your unique skills.” Jath’ibaye turned sharply and strode toward the ship’s stern. Kahlil gave the astonished ship hands a brief wave and then hurried after. He half expected Jath’ibaye to lead him below deck and hand him over to the ship’s cook for scullery duty. But anything was better than just pacing the deck, letting directionless anxiety fill him.
Jath’ibaye led Kahlil back to the cabins above deck in the quarter gallery. He unlocked a heavy black door and held it open for Kahlil. After they were both inside, Jath’ibaye allowed the door to fall closed behind them.
The cabin was small, particularly with both himself and Jath’ibaye in it. Kahlil stepped back and felt his leg bump into the edge of a bed. A desk, locked cabinets and a simple bed had been bolted to the floor. Between the bars of the cabinet doors Kahlil could see glass cases of soil and seedling plants. A large book sat on the desk along with several rolls of bandages. Loose pages of another book lay on the bed. Rumpled white blankets were thrown across the mattress without any regard for appearance. Despite the cramped space and disheveled state of the room, the air smelled rich and sweet, like a garden.
Kahlil knew at once that this had to be Jath’ibaye’s private cabin.
“Have a seat,” Jath’ibaye told him. “The bed or the chair. It doesn’t matter.”
Kahlil sat back on the bed. Jath’ibaye took the chair, turned it around backward, and sat straddling it with his arms crossed over the chair back. It was an assured, modern position and the very first Kahlil had observed that betrayed Jath’ibaye’s early life in Nayeshi.
