by Ginn Hale
“Are you serious about serving me?” Jath’ibaye asked.
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t, would I?” Kahlil replied. “It’s not as though I couldn’t leave this ship under my own power.”
Jath’ibaye simply responded with an unconvinced expression.
“I chose to stop the assassination at the Bell Dance against my commander’s direct orders so that I could protect you and recover the yasi’halaun.” Kahlil saw Jath’ibaye was about to make a reply. He went on quickly, “I followed you across the worlds, twice. I am bound to you. I have known since I was a boy that I would be with you. So there’s no point in denying me. And please don’t try offering me some new existence on a taye farm. I know what kind of man I am and what kind of life I’m made for. I was chosen and consecrated to be the guardian of a god, not a goat herder!” The words came out with more force than Kahlil had expected. Jath’ibaye seemed as taken aback as Kahlil was by his outburst.
“All right,” he said at last. “But if you are going to serve me, you have to understand that things beyond Vundomu are not like they are in the rest of the world. It’s dangerous.”
“Well, my life up to this point has been nothing but gentility and peace, but I’ll try to adapt the best I can,” Kahlil commented.
Jath’ibaye frowned at his sarcasm and Kahlil didn’t continue.
“Your life and the lives of others may depend on absolute obedience.” Jath’ibaye gave him a hard, direct stare. “That has never been your strong point.”
“I’m obedient!” Kahlil protested, but he immediately realized that he was lying and they both knew it. If he had been obedient, he wouldn’t have disobeyed Alidas. When Umbhra’ibaye had been about to fall, he wouldn’t have secretly crossed back to Basawar to rescue his sister. In his youth, he wouldn’t have gone to Candle Alley again and again.
“I can be obedient when required,” Kahlil amended.
“You will have to be.” Jath’ibaye leaned slightly forward, still staring straight into Kahlil’s eyes. “I need you to swear that you will obey me, no matter what. When I give you an order, you must obey it.”
Kahlil didn’t think he had ever seen a man look so serious. The air felt electrified by Jath’ibaye’s will. And Kahlil thought he could understand why his compliance would matter so much.
Unlike himself, Jath’ibaye had led armies to war. He had had to order men to their deaths. The freedom of all the Fai’daum had depended on those orders being carried out. If there was another war, Jath’ibaye would have no use for a rogue agent, no matter how talented.
“I swear,” Kahlil said.
Jath’ibaye slouched back and sighed. Kahlil wondered if he had been holding his breath.
“Good,” Jath’ibaye said. “Then I have work for you.”
“Just give me a name and I will give you a corpse.” Kahlil prepared himself to hear the name: Fikiri.
“This book.” Jath’ibaye pointed to the two volumes on the desk.
Kahlil carefully lifted the ancient, brittle tome. Cautiously he opened the cover. The writing inside was Payshmura script but in an archaic form. It took him a while to read the page. It appeared to be an old botanical guide.
“You want me to get rid of this book? I guess I can see why. I can’t stand this old-fashioned writing either.”
“I want you to translate it. It’s written in a dialect I can barely understand,” Jath’ibaye said. “Ji doesn’t know how to read it either. We think it’s an archaic style of writing. I need you to go through and keep a list of the unfamiliar or new plants mentioned in it.”
“You’re joking,” Kahlil said. “Anyone could do this. Don’t you want me to go after-–”
“Obedience. Remember?” Jath’ibaye gave him a hard smile, but there was an amused tone to his voice.
Kahlil scowled sullenly down at the book. He couldn’t have devised a more appropriate punishment for his own insolence if he had tried.
“And this isn’t work just anyone could do.” Jath’ibaye’s tone softened slightly. “There’s almost no one left who can read Payshmura writings. Even those of us who can read them often can’t understand the dialectical ones.” Jath’ibaye stood and walked to the door. “Feel free to make yourself at home in here.”
“Is this some kind of a test?”
“You can think of it that way if you like. But the information in those books really is of great importance to me.” As Jath’ibaye spoke, a shadow of sorrow drifted across his expression. “You’ll be in harm’s way soon enough, Kyle. There’s no need to rush into it.”
“I know, I know.” Kahlil bowed his head over the book. “I just don’t want all my life to have been for nothing.”
“None of us do,” Jath’ibaye said. “But that’s no reason to throw yourself away.”
A strange cold breeze whipped through the room and Kahlil’s head came up in alarm, but it was only a draft from the open door. Jath’ibaye stepped out and the door fell closed behind him.
Kahlil gazed at the door for several moments. He could easily pass through it. If he wanted, he could be in Vundomu in a matter of seconds or even travel beyond that to find Fikiri. Kahlil felt the temptation strongly, but he hadn’t yet recovered his full strength and more importantly he’d given his word. In any case, Jath’ibaye was probably right about opportunities for future battles. With the gaun’im raising armies he’d soon have more than his share.
Kahlil stretched out on the bed and opened the book. He only made it through three pages before he was dozing, doodling, and absently wondering how Jath’ibaye had come to know him so well.
Chapter Fifty-Four
For three days Kahlil did little other than translate the botanical guide. He rarely left the cabin and he fell asleep often, lulled into unconsciousness by seemingly endless lists of small to middling seeds as well as detailed descriptions of countless earthworms.
Ji called on him twice, inquiring about his health. He assured her that he felt fully mended and she offered him a gaze that was as skeptical as her canine countenance allowed. Strangely, Kahlil found her company deeply soothing. He knew he should have been suspicious of the witch, but some inexplicable instinct made him trust her.
Jath’ibaye returned infrequently, most often to change his bandages. He certainly wasn’t a good conversationalist, but often during their brief exchanges, Kahlil sensed Jath’ibaye making an effort for his sake.
If Jath’ibaye slept, it wasn’t in his own bed. Kahlil soon came to suspect that Jath’ibaye’s bed, like Alidas’ chairs, were only maintained for the comfort of guests.
They at last reached Vundomu just before dawn. Jath’ibaye woke him where he’d passed out, face down in the botanical tome. Embarrassed and still groggy, Kahlil packed up the book and the yasi’halaun, making haste to join Jath’ibaye and the ship hands on the deck as they cleared the last of the locks in the river city of Mahn’illev and made for Vundomu’s port.
The vast fortress straddled the river’s mouth the way that Kahlil remembered it once looming over railroad tracks. In sheer scale it rivaled the jagged mountains surrounding it, but where the cliffs abounded with vegetation, the seven stepped terraces of Vundomu bristled with heavy artillery and godhammers.
For a sleepy instant Kahlil wondered how it could remind him so strongly of both a Nayeshi wedding cake and a warship. Then their clipper passed through the cavernous port entry and was moored among the dozens of other ships in the heavily guarded harbor.
On the dock a small entourage of men and women waited to greet the ship. As Jath’ibaye stepped off the gangway, they crowded around, full of questions and urgency. Kahlil watched Jath’ibaye disappear into their midst, not knowing what to do with himself. Then Ji brushed up against his leg.
“Jath’ibaye has asked me to look after you while he sees to his duties.” Ji gave a slightly annoyed sniff in the direction of the crowd engulfing Jath’ibaye. “More than likely we’ll get to his holdings long before he does. Come, I’ll show
you the way.”
They walked together from the docks up through the predawn streets. Kahlil took in the sights illuminated by flickering gas lamps: carved shop signs advertising tailors, coopers, smiths, weavers and a bounty of other skilled tradesmen. He smelled roasting taye and yeast drifting from bakeries just opening for business and from brewpubs that were perhaps just closing. As they continued up the cobbled street past neat rows of private residences and the odd public bathhouse, Kahlil realized that behind its imposing, fortified walls Vundomu sheltered a thriving little city.
Certainly, it was not the squalid, ignorant mire that so many of the southern newspapers would have led him to believe Vundomu to be.
If he wasn’t mistaken, he thought he even spotted the sign for a public toilet.
“You’ve used a lift before, haven’t you?” Ji asked. She came to a stop in front of a wrought iron grate set into the face of a stone wall. The young girl standing guard in a patched russet coat and dress stifled a yawn at the sight of them. After offering Ji a warm welcome back home, she cranked the grate open to expose the interior of an elevator.
“I think…” Kahlil felt as if his memory stumbled, but then he assured himself that he’d been up numerous escalators and elevators in Nayeshi.
“Yes, several,” he replied belatedly.
“Good. This one will take us straight up to the heights. It should be light enough for you to enjoy the view from the watchtowers in Jath’ibaye’s holdings. We have telescopes, you know.”
She showed her teeth and Kahlil thought it was meant as a smile.
“It seems you have about everything here,” Kahlil commented.
“Indeed,” Ji agreed. “Perhaps that’s why the gaun’im resent us so.”
Ji padded into the elevator and Kahlil followed. The girl cranked the grate back closed.
Though it smelled of veru oil, the lift reminded Kahlil strongly of a service elevator from Nayeshi—large, functional, and filled with redundant safety measures. They rose quickly and Kahlil’s ears popped. Beside him Ji flicked her golden ears.
When they stepped out of the lift, the air felt of frost and smelled like gunpowder. The first golden rays of morning gleamed on the eastern horizon but hadn’t yet reached the very peak of Vundomu where they stood. Unlike the quaint village they’d left on the third terrace, the seventh terrace betrayed Vundomu’s military origins. Here stood archaic-looking barracks, heavily guarded armories and tahldi stables.
As he and Ji passed four stern-faced young men in red uniforms, Kahlil thought he heard a woman calling drills to troops inside a large courtyard. And above a wall, he glimpsed the sharp, dark silhouette of the Temple of the Rifter. He almost expected them to go there. But instead Ji led him farther up along the cracked cobbled street to a large but unassuming three-story stone building.
Two massive watchtowers jutted up from its shingled roof, but otherwise it looked like it could have served as a common hostel. Tahldi snorted and called from the stables and the aroma of roasting meat drifted from the smokestacks of the kitchens.
Inside, an unadorned entryway opened into a large, common room where the only decorative flair seemed to be a pair of staircases that led up to an overhanging balcony and the upper floors. But Kahlil’s strongest impression came not from the spartan surroundings but the flurry of excited servants and runners, who rushed past like flocks of red-garbed swallows.
A pretty young woman called out a warm greeting to Ji, but a moment later she disappeared up a staircase.
Apparently their ship had arrived earlier than expected and the house steward had rallied Jath’ibaye’s entire household to make all ready for his imminent arrival.
Ji winked at Kahlil as two footmen bustled past them, speculating as to who Jath’ibaye’s mysterious guest could be.
Despite the chaos, Ji easily caught the attention of a young, blonde kitchen servant and arranged for him to send taye cakes and warm goat stew up to the western watchtower for Ji and himself.
“It’ll be quiet up there,” Ji informed Kahlil as they mounted the staircase. “We can enjoy our meal and the view in peace.”
The small chamber of the watchtower was packed with rolled maps and shelves of finely ground lenses. Two beautifully polished telescopes stood on brass stands near the thick windows. Kahlil sat at the desk, sampling his stew and trying not to stare as Ji lapped hers up from a gilded plate on the floor. She ate surprisingly daintily considering her form.
Despite the lure of the warm meal, Kahlil couldn’t keep himself from the telescopes. Soon he stood behind one, surveying all the surrounding lands.
Snow still capped the dark mountains that rose all around. The air felt cold and thin, the way Kahlil had remembered it being in Rathal’pesha. But the similarity between the two locations ended there.
The mountains spreading out from the massive fortress of Vundomu were almost as straight as walls. Neither wind nor weather had yet eroded their sharp peaks. Their sheer cliff faces circled north, forming an immense ring around the huge lake, which lay across much of the valley below. From the mouth of the lake flowed a deep river.
And when Kahlil briefly turned the telescope south, he realized the river rolled directly beneath Vundomu’s black iron walls, heavy guns and godhammers, to feed into the headwaters of the great Samsira River.
Kahlil hadn’t remembered the river reaching so far north. He had been almost certain that it had required railways to reach Vundomu from Nurjima. When he said as much, Ji nodded her gray and gold head.
“During the Seven Years’ War we destroyed their trains.” She briefly flashed her yellowed teeth. “Jath’ibaye brought the river up over their stations and tracks. Now if they want a war they have to swim upstream.”
A shudder shivered down Kahlil’s spine at the thought of the Rifter unleashing such force. His memory flickered with the images of crumbling mountains and shattered kingdoms that had filled so many holy books. Just how far would Jath’ibaye go to protect his Fai’daum?
Kahlil turned his attention back to the kingdom that Jath’ibaye had forged from the ruins of the northlands. Gazing down, Kahlil could make out the traces of the Vundomu he remembered. The original walls curved like ribs around new domes and towers of red stone and glittering glass. From the steep southern walls, the structures of Vundomu cascaded in gentle avenues of shops, cottages, clock towers and raised walkways down to the vast lake at its feet.
The three verdant islands that rose from the lake reminded Kahlil of gigantic shells in their perfect symmetry. Stately white buildings dominated what appeared to be a village occupying the largest island. The other two seemed lush and wild, even this early in the northern spring. Hundreds of small boats darted across the lake’s glassy surface, sailing between the islands.
Carefully, Kahlil adjusted the lenses of the telescope, focusing in on one bright blue boat. The women on board seemed to be line fishing. Kahlil watched as a blonde girl hauled a tiny fish up from the water. An older woman held the fish up to a caliper, then shook her head and tossed the fish back into the lake.
“What are they doing?” Kahlil asked.
Ji looked up at him from where she had curled up near a heating pipe. She yawned, showing her yellowed teeth.
“Where?” Ji’s voice sounded soft and still half asleep.
“Out on the lake. They’re throwing fish back.”
“Probably featherfin.” Ji lowered her head back down to her foreleg. “They have to be as long as a hand, otherwise they aren’t old enough to have bred yet and there won’t be any left next year.”
“You have fishing regulations now?” Kahlil asked. He supposed he should have expected as much. After all, John had been an ecologist. Briefly, Kahlil wondered how differently the Fai’daum homeland would have turned out if the Rifter had been a different man, a theater arts professor, for instance. People’s clothes certainly could have been a bit flashier.
“We only introduced the featherfin six years ago, but they ha
ve established themselves well enough,” Ji said. “They give the blue eel something to eat other than little moonfish. They seem to be attracting crown geese as well.”
“Right.” Kahlil’s knowledge of fish was limited to what he had experienced in Nayeshi and that, for the most part, had come in the form of breaded sticks. Or perhaps that had been chicken. He wasn’t sure anymore.
“It bores me too,” Ji sighed, “but it matters to him, you know. The fish, the plants, the animals, the stone and soil, it all matters to him.”
“Jath’ibaye, you mean?”
Ji nodded. “After the fall of Rathal’pesha, all these lands were in ruins. Just miles of mud, ash, and shattered rock. He brought it all back. It took years, but he did it.” Ji cocked her head. “He brought you back as well. I never would have thought he could have done that, but here you are.”
“Yes, here I am.” Kahlil frowned, thinking how odd it was that he should be so comfortable with this woman and that she should seem so at ease with him as well. “Did you know me, Ji? I mean, before now. I think I remember you from some other time.”
“I knew you and have known you many times over,” Ji replied. “Once, you were meant to kill me. I saw it when I was still a captive within the issusha’im. It was the price I was to pay for the destruction of the Great Gate.”
Inside Kahlil, a distant memory stirred. The shattered yellow stones. The broken blade.
“I was to lead an assault into Umbhra’ibaye, send a false message to the Kahlil in Nayeshi, and then destroy everything.”
“I think I remember. My sister was there.” Kahlil closed his eyes, trying to pull the faint memories into focus. He recalled a weight against his back. Something whispering words softly into his ear. He thought there had been flowers and then the smell of a cigarette. Each impression faded even as he tried to concentrate on it.
