by Ginn Hale
“But that never happened,” Ji said gently.
“That’s not true. Umbhra’ibaye did fall.” That, Kahlil was sure of. All of the Payshmura strongholds had fallen.
“Not as I had seen it and not as you saw it either. Years before then,” Ji replied. “Jath’ibaye destroyed it.”
“But I remember—” Kahlil stopped himself. He wasn’t sure what he remembered.
“You remember what never happened.” Ji shifted to scratch at her side with her back leg. Kahlil fought to keep a sense of reality. It was disorienting to be having this conversation with a dog. Even knowing that Ji was an escaped Issusha Oracle speaking from inside an animal form didn’t keep all this from seeming like it should have been a dream.
“It’s the same thing that drove so many issusha’im mad. They saw what happened and what never happened—lives, kingdoms, endless histories that the Payshmura altered and destroyed before they could come into being. Only the issusha’im lived them, knew them, and at the same time, knew that they had never come to pass.” Ji shook her head. “To cling to what is lost, no matter how real it once seemed or once was, will lead only to madness.”
“But I do remember you,” Kahlil said. “Not just from Umbhra’ibaye.”
Ji’s gaze lifted and she studied him for a few moments. Kahlil thought she might be weighing her response, but just the fact that she took pause told him he was right.
“Yes,” Ji admitted. “When you were a child, before the Payshmura came and took you and Rousma, I lived with your family for a while. Eventually, I left to join the Fai’daum. But when you were just a tiny baby, I talked to you. I used to play with you.”
“Oh,” Kahlil said. That was not at all what he’d expected. As a child he’d been cared for by a large dog? It seemed utterly strange and yet there was a deep warmth, an almost soothing reassurance that he felt when he looked into her big brown eyes.
“But that isn’t what you remember, is it?” Ji asked.
“No,” Kahlil said. “I remember…” The heat of her blood on his hands. His black blade driven into her body. He realized that he didn’t want to tell her these things. In Nurjima she had helped to save his life.
“You remember killing me,” Ji put in smoothly. “In the rain, beneath the apple blossoms, we fought. You won. But what you did afterwards, what you did in Nayeshi, changed all of that. Our battle never occurred. That entire history was written over by a new one.”
Kahlil knew this, and yet hearing Ji say as much disturbed him. For the first time he allowed himself to consider the full implication of the changes he’d wrought by allowing the Rifter to enter Basawar unguarded and unrecognized.
“And I’m not part of this new history, am I?” Kahlil asked. “That’s why my memories are all wrong.”
Ji only nodded.
“I was in Nayeshi and then lost between the worlds. I missed the changes.”
“Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t.” Ji lowered her head onto her paws again. “Tell me, are there things that you recall, but you know couldn’t have happened?”
“Yes,” Kahlil said, but he didn’t elaborate.
“I had them as well.” Ji nodded. “Dreams, thoughts, brief flashes. Visions of another life. I imagine that you resist them. I imagine that you suppress them as much as you can.” She paused, but Kahlil offered no confirmation. Ji went on, “You are carrying two lives. One belongs to this history and another does not. You may not want to know the life you lived here. You may not want to be the man you were, but let me tell you that there is danger in not knowing. There are mistakes that you could avoid if you would just allow yourself to know.”
Kahlil scowled at Ji. She sounded very much the Issusha Oracle now.
“Or not.” Ji closed her eyes. Kahlil turned back to the telescope. He focused out past the farthest mountains, out to the very brink of the telescope’s limit. A churning cauldron of white clouds and mist filled his vision. Faint gray shadows seemed to move just behind the swaths of vapor like bones beneath translucent skin.
“I died, didn’t I?” Kahlil asked at last. “I mean Ravishan—he died.”
Ji didn’t immediately respond. Kahlil thought that she had fallen asleep again. Then he heard her voice.
“There is no difference between you and Ushiri Ravishan. You are one and the same. But yes, you died when Rathal’pesha fell.”
He’d had dreams of this death. The fire and confusion of battle, and then agony. Jath’ibaye had been there—holding him and shaking with desperation. Kahlil felt cold and sick.
“You died,” Ji said gently. “But now he’s brought you back. And he needs you more than you can know—”
Kahlil cut her off with a shake of his head. He wasn’t the man Jath’ibaye needed—not the one who had rescued him on the Holy Road, not the one who had fought an army here at Vundomu. Not the one who had died like a hero.
He was the man who’d lurked in shadows and silence. He was the assassin.
“Kyle?” Ji asked softly. “Is something wrong?”
He almost laughed at that. Something was very wrong and it was him. Here.
“No. I…I just need to be alone for a little while,” Kahlil said. “I need to go somewhere and think.”
“What should I tell Jath’ibaye?” Ji asked.
“He told me I was free to do as I pleased.” Kahlil could see from Ji’s expression that she would try to persuade him to stay if she could. She would want him to talk to her and to Jath’ibaye. But Kahlil didn’t want to talk. He needed to be alone.
He brought his hand up and split open the Gray Space.
“Be careful,” Ji called to him. She might have said more, but Kahlil was already far away.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Kahlil went north, as far north as he could before the Gray Space turned treacherous and contorted with distortions. Unconsciously, he supposed, he was searching for Rathal’pesha, the place where he had grown up, been tested, trained, and died. But Rathal’pesha had long since crashed into the sea. He dropped out of the Gray Space on the northern edge of the chasm.
He knelt down and touched the pale soil. It was dry and cold, each distinct pebble looking like some broken bit of shell or eroded bone. It felt nothing like the rich soil surrounding Vundomu. He opened his hand and the grains fell through his fingers like fine sand. The desolate white plateau stretched out to the very edge of the land and then dropped straight down to the ocean below.
Kahlil couldn’t see the waters. Mist and fog rose up from the ocean in thick, swirling walls. Distantly, he could hear the crash of waves more than a mile below. Only the utter silence allowed him to notice them at all. He had never seen the ocean of his own world, and briefly, he wondered if the waters were as emerald and fertile as the northern Pacific of Nayeshi. Or were they as dull and gray as the lands above them?
He shifted the weight of the yasi’halaun against his back. He had not wanted to leave it in Vundomu. Not after he had almost died to retrieve it in Nurjima. He had almost died so many times—come so close to it so often that he supposed that it shouldn’t have been a surprise to discover that in another life he had died.
Kahlil scowled out at the rolling fog. Rathal’pesha once stood out there, somewhere. Perhaps the remains of his body were out there as well. It would have been nearly thirty years. There would just be skeletal remains, if anything.
What would it be like to touch his own bones?
Kahlil glanced down at his hands. Whatever remains that might lie out beyond the mist weren’t his. They were Ravishan’s. Though Ji had said that there was no difference, Kahlil knew otherwise. Ravishan had died. Kahlil was still here, the vestigial remnant of a history that never existed.
He supposed he could do as Ji wished. He could usurp Ravishan’s life. If he wanted to, he could lay claim to everything Ravishan had known and felt, to Ravishan’s entire existence.
Kahlil closed his eyes. Already he could summon memories that could not have been his own.
Ravish
an had rejected the Payshmura. He had turned away from his initiation as Kahlil to save the man he loved. He had abdicated his entire upbringing, his training, his church. For a moment, Kahlil reveled in Ravishan’s memories. They were filled with assurance and belonging. He had been happy and he had been loved. Ravishan had won friends, comrades, a lover, a home. He had known that he belonged to this world.
Kahlil’s own history was one of solitude, deception, displacement, murder and failure.
But he was not Ravishan. They might have been one at some point in the past, but they were no longer one and the same. He had not possessed the same brilliant faith that emboldened Ravishan nor had he made the sacrifices that Ravishan had. He’d done nothing to earn the joy and assurance that suffused Ravishan’s memories.
The idea of claiming Ravishan’s identity felt like theft or something worse. A wave of repulsion rolled through him as he realized how jealous and envious he was of Ravishan. Of course Kahlil wanted Ravishan’s life. He wanted it so much that it came as a relief to know that Ravishan had not lived to claim his own history.
But he knew down to his very bones that he neither deserved to claim Ravishan’s identity nor could he live up to it if he tried. The only decent course of action for him to take was to leave. Let the people who had befriended and loved Ravishan keep their memories of him intact.
That would be the right thing to do.
Kahlil kicked at the pebbled white sand in frustration at his own selfishness. For all his reasoning and ranting at himself, he remained where he was. He simply couldn’t bring himself to abandon the promise of a home. He couldn’t stop yearning for even a shred of the belonging that Ravishan had claimed here.
Kahlil lifted his gaze and glared out at the distant roiling mists.
He wasn’t Ravishan—he never would be—but there was still something he could offer. Even if he’d never become more than a lurking assassin, that was still what Jath’ibaye needed if he wanted to be free of Fikiri.
That was something. Maybe not noble, but useful nonetheless.
The faint call of a voice interrupted Kahlil’s thoughts. He turned and scanned the rolling white dunes behind him. He couldn’t see far through the haze of fog and mist. But the voice came again, closer and louder.
“Kyle!” It was Jath’ibaye, searching for him. But not really for him. For Ravishan.
Jath’ibaye had, apparently, been able to find him without much trouble. It had to be their bond. Jath’ibaye had probably learned to use the connection to find Ravishan. It annoyed Kahlil to think that he would never be able to hide from Jath’ibaye outside of the Gray Space.
“Kyle!” Jath’ibaye called again, this time from even closer. Kahlil didn’t reply. As he watched, a tall gray shadow appeared through the fog. Jath’ibaye strode forward as if he could already see Kahlil.
Condensation from the mist made Jath’ibaye’s heavy leather coat look black. Droplets of water clung to his hair. There was an easiness in the way he held his rifle that unnerved Kahlil slightly. Jath’ibaye caught sight of him immediately but paused a moment before he said anything.
A dim memory flickered to life in Kahlil, a scene from his other life. Jath’ibaye had found him like this before, but that time he had been high in the cliffs above Rathal’pesha. Jath’ibaye had not carried a rifle then or even gone by the same name, but his expression had been the same. That time Jahn had wrapped his arms around Ravishan and promised to be his lover. This time he kept his distance.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Jath’ibaye said. His eyes only focused briefly on Kahlil before roving out to where the land plummeted away.
“I just wanted some time to think. Somewhere that wasn’t so busy,” Kahlil said. “I told Ji. I assumed that she told you—”
“Not here,” Jath’ibaye cut him off. “You can go anywhere else that you like, but not here. It’s not safe this close to the chasm.”
“I wanted to see where I—where Ravishan died,” Kahlil said.
Jath’ibaye’s mouth compressed into a hard line. When he spoke, his words came out clipped and cold. “It didn’t happen here. It was farther north, in Rathal’pesha. There’s no way you could go there now. And there’s no point. It was all ruined.”
Kahlil nodded. The lands had been so utterly torn asunder that even the Gray Spaces were disrupted.
“Once in Nurjima, when I was following Fikiri, I crossed into a twisted, contorted area of the Gray Space. That’s where the ruins are. Rathal’pesha didn’t fall into the ocean, did it?” Kahlil asked.
“No, it didn’t. The ruins of Rathal’pesha, the Black Tower, and Umbhra’ibaye form an island out there.” Jath’ibaye pointed the barrel of his rifle out into the clouds of mist. “In the summer, when the fog thins, you can see it from the Greenhills watchtowers. The hungry bones come from there. Though, some sleep in these cliffs as well. We should get moving.”
Jath’ibaye turned and Kahlil stepped up beside him. If Jath’ibaye didn’t feel safe, then Kahlil was pretty certain he wasn’t safe either. There weren’t many things that could threaten the Rifter.
“So what are these hungry bones?” Kahlil asked as they walked. “Issusha’im?”
“Some used to be.” Jath’ibaye moved quickly. Kahlil had to work to keep up with him. The sand slid away under his feet.
“What many of them used to be, I don’t know. I think they might be attempts at making issusha’im. Or maybe just punshiments.” Jath’ibaye grimaced. “They feed on blood. Scavenge corpses for more bones. In the winter, when food is scarce, they sleep. But the weather is getting warmer and some of them have to have already been feeding on birds and weasels.”
“Can’t you destroy them?” Kahlil asked.
“She makes more.” Jath’ibaye glanced back over his shoulder. Kahlil was about to ask who, when Jath’ibaye held his hand up for silence. He froze, listening. Kahlil strained to hear what Jath’ibaye heard. There was only the sound of the distant waves, a soft rolling hiss.
Kahlil frowned. He shouldn’t have been hearing the ocean from directly below him while he stood on solid ground.
“They’re digging through the sand beneath us,” Jath’ibaye said. “Come on.”
Jath’ibaye swung his rifle across his back and broke into a run. Kahlil followed.
“You should go through the Gray Space,” Jath’ibaye yelled back over his shoulder.
Kahlil could have done as he was told. It would have been easy. But he didn’t. He didn’t want to leave Jath’ibaye. Kahlil continued to run. The sand was sliding from under him much more rapidly now, as if the ground was being pulled out from below him.
Jath’ibaye had no such trouble. Every step he took was sure. He moved quickly and Kahlil suspected that Jath’ibaye could move even faster if he needed to. As Kahlil fell a few more steps behind, Jath’ibaye turned.
“Go through the Gray Space!” Jath’ibaye bellowed at him.
“I don’t want to leave you alone!” Kahlil shouted back. His voice was almost drowned out by an explosive, dry roar. Sand and smooth white pebbles spewed up from the ground like a geyser. Kahlil covered his head as the spray of sand and stone pelted down around him. When he looked up he saw a long serpentine form rearing up from the sand. Thousands of bones, human and animal, hung together on iron hooks and red cables. Sharp ribs bristled out from the body; some curved down, like the legs of a centipede; others jutted out as gigantic talons. Between the ribs, Kahlil caught sight of hundreds of toothy jaws. Other broken bones shot up like spears all along the length of the creature’s immense spine. Some were already stained with the blood of recently killed animals. Hissing, whispering voices filled the air with a hum like a multitude of flies.
The sand under Kahlil swept downward toward a set of gaping jaws. Kahlil crouched to keep his balance, but slid with the sand towards the bloodied bones.
Immediately his hands went to the yasi’halaun. Its hilt was hot against his fingers, almost alive.
“Get out of her
e now!” Jath’ibaye shouted.
Kahlil heard the loud crack of a rifle shot. The jawbone ahead of Kahlil shattered as Jath’ibaye’s bullet blasted through it. Broken bits of bone and tooth showered across the sands. The creature swung its body back, rising up over both Kahlil and Jath’ibaye.
Kahlil swung the yasi’halaun up as the creature came hurtling down upon him. The blade split bone and cables. Splinters of rib cut Kahlil’s bare hands and slashed his cheek. As the first bones snapped and broke, others swung into their place, churning up like shark teeth.
The yasi’halaun burned in Kahlil’s hands as it drank in the twisted, desperate souls that were bound to the bones. Kahlil heard them shrieking. But the creature as a whole hardly seemed affected. It curled around Kahlil and flexed its hundreds of jaws toward him. He swung the yasi’halaun through two animal skulls and then felt a blunt thigh bone hammer into his shoulder.
Instantly the bone was jerked back. At his back, Jath’ibaye snapped the bone in half. With his bare hands he caught hold of one of the massive ribs and ripped it from the rest of its body. Blood poured down Jath’ibaye’s arms and there was a deep gash in his throat. He snarled in unrestrained fury as he punched into the creature’s vertebrae.
Kahlil could feel the ground beneath them shuddering as Jath’ibaye cracked bones and ripped through iron cables. The sky flashed with gathering lightning.
“Get out of my way,” Jath’ibaye growled to Kahlil, “so I can kill this thing!”
Still, Kahlil hesitated. He couldn’t abandon John like this. But then he realized that this wasn’t John or at least not the John he had known. This wasn’t the gentle man who Kahlil had spent years guarding. The man with him now had killed thousands in battles. He had brought down mountains. The only thing stopping him from crushing this creature and all the land surrounding it was Kahlil’s presence. It would kill Kahlil to be caught up in such force.
“That’s an order, damn it!” Jath’ibaye shouted.
Kahlil snapped open the Gray Space and stepped into its cool silence. Miles of land stretched out before him, instantly obtainable. But Kahlil didn’t go. He watched as Jath’ibaye rent bone from bone. The ground rolled up in waves, twisting and crushing ribs, skulls, hips and leg bones into grit and pebbles. Jath’ibaye threw himself into the coils of the creature with a reckless fury. Bones speared through his body and he wrenched them out. From above, lightning split through the bones, shattering them. In minutes, the creature was torn to pieces and ground to swathes of fine white sand and pebbles.
