Scribes

by James Wolanyk

  “Precious,” the tracker said, “but this is business. I thought the north respected that.”

  “It does. Those who flee often value other courses.”

  The tracker smoked from the tube for a while, staring at Bora with still-glazed eyes. “Have you come here to tell me that you’re backing out, then? Backing out over a boy?”

  Bora raised a brow. “No. Severing ties is a luxury in these circles. But I’m sure you’ve learned as much by now.” She turned her eyes on Anna, cutting into her thoughts and fears about the north. “I advise you to leave the boy.”

  The tracker set down the tube. “And what will he pay me for his wife’s rune, then? A few loaves of bread?”

  “Gratitude,” Bora said. “It is a rare thing in Hazan, and timeless. You would do well to honor it.”

  “As you said, there are other courses.”

  “Then appeal to his business blood. Galipa has always been a trustworthy man. He would send you a portion of his salt for the rest of his days, if you accepted.”

  “The last thing I want is a trail to Hazan.”

  “Then his gratitude is the wisest choice.”

  Anna studied Bora, wondering where she’d been and what she’d seen. She had exhaustion in her eyes, but there was also an unfailing alertness, and she thought back to the coyotes in the fields around her home.

  Bora looked at her, and she glanced away.

  “You’ve got the night to say goodbye to him.” The tracker folded his arms. “We sail tomorrow, you said.” He stood, pulling at the sleeve of Anna’s dress. “If you’ll excuse us, I have to draw a bath for her. At the very least, she ought to look presentable tomorrow.”

  * * * *

  When Anna finished bathing alone in a shallow metal tub behind the inn, finding little comfort in the red and yellow nebulae overhead, she hastily slipped on her new dress, a clean, oversized garment from Emine’s wardrobe. Pulling the pleats past the cuts on her legs burned, but it was preferable to her old rags. The scent of the linen, eerily similar to the cloth Bylka used to wrap the bodies of stillborn babes, was distracting enough to keep her awake as she lay in her quarters.

  Shem slept somewhere nearby, and the tracker rested in a chair just outside of the room, dedicated to some perversion of Anna’s safety. In fact, he’d smirked at the idea of Shem sleeping in the same room as Anna, and it’d taken several minutes for the reality of her request to sink in.

  In the common room in Bylka, she’d always slept with Julek nearby, but it was nothing like sleeping near a boy beyond her blood. Everybody knew what lovers did in the darkness, how they rolled over each other and sprouted babes in girls’ bellies. Anna had never experienced it, or —beyond her mother and father—seen it happen firsthand. Her kin’s insistence on secrecy, along with her own mistrust, hadn’t allowed her to grow so close to anybody. Especially not to Shem, a foreigner who’d hardly passed beyond childhood, who stared with adoration beyond lust.

  While drifting toward asleep, she had grotesque visions of the northern crypts, which had been illustrated in her mind by the tales of passing riders. She watched creatures picking at sun-bleached bones. She saw the sun screaming, water retreating from sand, boiling while it fled.

  Anna sat up, her chest tight and robbing her of breath.

  Escape became a burning urge. She could make it to the main city before dawn, and there, she could find the Halshaf. Some riders said that they took in young girls and boys, and they gave them food or shelter without any expectation of salt. It sounded plausible enough as she rose in darkness, supported by the wall. She could stay there indefinitely, if she made herself useful.

  She crept toward a window and ran her hands up its slatted shutters. Cold air whispered against her fingertips as she felt higher and undid the brass latch. A breeze pushed the shutters open.

  Scattered braziers and rooftop torch bearers dotted the dark sprawl. Hounds howled in unison, and foreign tongues snapped faster than ears could follow. In the main street below her, framed in the light that bled from open windows and doorways, she saw a young boy hurrying toward Malchym.

  He was thin, probably starved, with the burnished skin of a northerner. His tunic ended just below his knees, and in the fabric’s folds around his belly, he seemed to be carrying something. Multiple things, Anna realized as he wandered through another patch of light. His eyes were sharp and fearful, his shoulders huddled.

  Before he could cross a bisecting alley, a shadow with a long cloak and brimmed hat emerged and blocked his path. It held a tapered club and swung its tip in lazy circles.

  There was something familiar about his dress. Agents of Malchym, Anna recalled with a shudder.

  Passing women pulled their children to the opposite side of the road, and conversations fell away without resolution.

  Anna swung the shutters in a bit more, craning her head to glimpse the scene. She saw the man approaching the boy, the boy jerking his hands from his tunic and shielding his face.

  Crusts of bread spilled onto the road, and then came the dull thump of the club breaking the boy’s skull. The boy collapsed in a heap, motionless, and the agent walked onward, whistling. Hounds skulked out from the alleyways and fought for scraps.

  It was impossible to breathe. Anna closed the shutters and slid down against the wall and listened to the wind wheezing past. Her breaths returned in jerks and prickled her lungs with frigid air. She brushed her sleeve over dry eyes. Malchym was no different than any other wicked place.

  “Why are you awake?” Shem whispered.

  Anna wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly vulnerable. She fought to quiet herself.

  Fabric rustled in the darkness as Shem approached. He crept along the floor, his back painted with slats of moonlight, and paused at the edge of her sheets. For a long while they were both quiet.

  During the last few days she’d grown used to silence. Perhaps she’d become afraid of her voice. But now, with the wordlessness hanging between them, she wished she could speak her fears.

  Shem’s hand rose out of the dark and brushed her cheek. His touch was gentle but probing, as though he couldn’t fathom the strangeness of her flesh.

  Anna reached up and wrapped her hand around his, holding fast to the skin’s warmth and smoothness.

  “Have you seen north, Anna?” Shem asked. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “My father say you take care of me.” He paused. “I hope, because I do not like other man. Mother say he is not your father. So he may not take care. Not for you. So I take care of you, since you take care of me.”

  Anna squeezed Shem’s hand, and the boy squeezed back faintly.

  “When you make speaking again, perhaps you tell me about father.” Despite the darkness, Anna swore that she could see the boy smile, see his heart shimmer through his skin. “I take care of you.”

  Anna willed herself to speak, tightening her throat until she felt pain, and the strands within her throat twisted and vibrated. Through the agony, she heard a low sound, barely enough to overcome the drumming of her heartbeat:

  “I’ll take care of you too,” she whispered.

  Chapter 8

  They left the inn just before dawn. The streets were dusty and cool without sunlight, and the first caravans made their way toward Malchym in a sluggish trickle. Anna stood with Shem against the inn’s front wall, their linen cloaks dancing together in the wind. The tracker, Bora, and Shem’s parents settled matters of salt by the door.

  Aside from a quiet good night to Shem, Anna hadn’t ventured to speak again. Words sliced at her throat, and even the cardamom tea in her canteen failed to soothe the pain for long. Besides, she treasured the safety of silence.

  Somehow Shem understood that.

  To Anna’s left, far up the caravan path leading to Malchym, the timber spires of watchtowers and keeps within the earthworks caught the sun’s f
irst light over the mountains. From here the city was pristine and welcoming. If Anna hadn’t known its true heart, its corruption and malice, she might’ve tried to flee there.

  Bora and the tracker stepped away from the door, allowing Emine and Galipa to exit. Emine approached and embraced Shem with hollow, dead eyes, while Galipa stared into the dirt with slack lips.

  The tracker sighed and leaned against the corner of the building.

  “Come this way,” Bora said, wrapping a hand around Anna’s shoulder and guiding her toward the street. Anna’s gaze fell to the northerner’s newly donned white cloak, which glittered with a hint of mica. Without warning Bora grasped Anna’s chin and moved her head toward the city gates. “Where we’re venturing, you’ll learn not to stare. Some things are not meant to be seen.”

  Anna watched the gates and the endless procession of mules, horses, and giants. It was a fruitless attempt to block out the sobbing, the shouting, the shushing. Through it all, Shem was silent.

  Maybe we are alike, Anna reasoned. It brought her no joy.

  After traveling through crowds of herb-wreathed merchants and knife peddlers, Bora herded them out of the main procession and into a narrow side alley where chipped stairs led downward and out of sight. It was cool in the shade of the towering thatch-roofed and tiled buildings. Odors of burning dust faded beyond the main streets, yielding to saline and vinegar and over-darkened leather. Gulls squawked from the rafters and cut wide arcs over the road and nearby bazaars.

  The tracker turned to Bora, shrugging. “She’s earned it, I’d say.”

  Bora glanced down at her nails. Her shaven head was conspicuously free of sweat. “The judgment is yours. The demicen will have no quarrel with it.”

  “Right, then.” The tracker unbuckled the cracked leather satchel at his waist. During his stay at the inn, he hadn’t worn anything of the sort, certainly not with that kind of workmanship. A boy, it seemed, wasn’t enough payment. After a moment of rummaging, he produced a handful of balled silver links and a knife with a wooden tang and iron blade. “Be good with these, girl.”

  Anna could hardly believe it. She’d nearly forgotten about the trinkets, but now she craved them again. They were worth more than salt, gold, or freedom. Her hands cupped with hesitation, ready to pull away if the tracker’s decency was a ploy.

  But there was no teasing, no tempting. The tracker placed the necklace and knife in Anna’s hands with a sigh. “See, now? Honest partnership.”

  She wrapped the necklace’s links around her wrist and formed a crude bracelet, pulled the cloak’s sleeve over her skin to hide the metal, then slid the knife into the linen scarf around her waist. When she glanced up the tracker was already descending the stairs, and Bora stood waiting for Anna and Shem.

  Honest partnership. She watched the tracker’s silhouette disappearing around the bend in the wall, and for the first time she remembered the tomesroom, the light, who had saved her. She considered that he wasn’t as evil as most men.

  He did his deeds in daylight, while others worked in shadow.

  His deeds . . .

  Anna’s stomach convulsed. She shook the thoughts away, watching seagulls swing over the marketplace in the rising sun’s light. She couldn’t forget the blood.

  But Shem looked at her, and she looked back. The boy took her hand.

  Bora led them down the stairs, through a narrower alley, and then into a courtyard lined with crooked pine trees and wooden fortifications, crowded by patrolling Agents of Malchym. There the ocean appeared. It was a vast and dark expanse through the gateway ahead, streaked with raw sunlight and stirring with the winds.

  It’s real, Anna thought, regardless of its childishness. It was easy to hear stories from travelers, but it was another to actually see something, to feel the wind rising from it.

  “Come,” Bora said. Her gaze followed the tracker as she navigated along the cliffs, along paths that were raised and carved from the rock itself, worn down by eons of footsteps and wagon traffic.

  Below Anna, the waters churned and broke against the cliff’s black rocks. The whitewash sprayed up as pale mist, tossing the wind through her hair and forcing her to step back. A day ago she might have released Shem’s hand and taken the extra step, and nobody would have missed her, not even herself. Now the heights were dizzying, and she walked carefully along the cliffside with Shem, gazing out at the bloody, thrashing fish on hooks and dockside sentry posts.

  The largest vessel in the cove was slim but tall, boasting sharp-angled sails and a dozen mooring ropes. Close to its boarding ramp, which Bora and the tracker had nearly reached, was a winding stairway carved into the cliffside, snaking down into the port and its shanty huts.

  Something tingled through Anna’s hands and stomach. It was potential, she realized. The potential for something better.

  * * * *

  Come midday she stood on the main deck and watched them cut the last ropes anchoring the vessel, smiling for reasons beyond comprehension. Somebody patted her shoulder as the ship lurched, riding a swell. She turned to see the tracker, whose eyes were still violet-tinged but placid. And in spite of everything, including the knot in her gut, she held his gaze.

  “Honest partnership,” he said.

  That evening she ate dinner with Shem and a dozen strangers in the lower bunks. None of the strangers comforted her. Some wore strips over their eyes and huddled around the candlelight in silence, while others even looked like Shem, their hearts and stomachs pulsing beneath clear flesh.

  Candles were sparse on the lower decks, the ceilings low, the hammock bunks stifling, all as the smell of rotting fish wafted up from the deep holds. But none of those things outweighed small blessings. The crew had segmented the lower decks with ragged curtains, allowing Anna to share a cell with Shem toward the boat’s rear. If any of the crew members found it strange, the tracker made sure they withheld their thoughts.

  Every so often Anna glanced at the hanging strands of beads and watched them lull to one side, wondering how much the boat tilted with each wave. When she set aside her canteen and dried pork, she found Shem staring at her.

  “You cut?” he asked, his finger tracing his neck and exciting the sigils below.

  “I don’t know,” Anna mouthed. Her fingers curled with nervous energy. They begged her to leave scars on the boy, to open him to the hayat and all its beauty, even if they’d already cost him a mother. Light flared through her skull. “I . . .”

  The luster in his eyes dimmed. “If you do not want, I understand this.”

  Anna studied the sigils across Shem’s skin, and hayat called to her in turn. “No,” she managed as loudly as she could muster. “I’ll do it.” She tugged at the collar of her cloak and demonstrated a folding action, signaling Shem to conceal his rune upon completion.

  Not that the tracker would dare to harm her. Little by little, Anna had observed his reactions: She was valuable to him.

  “Does it hurt?” Shem asked, luring Anna from her thoughts. He glanced down at the blade’s handle, which protruded from Anna’s waist wrap.

  Anna drew the knife and turned it over in her hands. Light glinted off the blade, and she realized somebody had polished the iron. She ran a thumb over the flat edge, marveling at how much of the grime and dried blood and rust had been scourged. It must have taken a grinding effort—and vinegar.

  “Anna?”

  She looked up and saw the fearful arch of Shem’s brows. “Yes,” she whispered. There was no sense in lying to him. “It will hurt while I cut you, but afterward it will heal.”

  “How you know?” Shem stared at the blade. “My father told me that hayajara not feel cuts, because they cannot have. Hayajara cannot make cut on hayajara.”

  She’d learned that much already. In the north, perhaps they knew more about it, or they could explain such things beyond telling stories. Perhaps there were
more of the scribes, the hayajara, in the north.

  Perhaps it made Anna less valuable.

  Anna regarded the knife with another long gaze. “It’s true,” she said, her voice barely breaking above the waves’ sloshing. Nothing moved in her throat when she spoke; she could no longer feel the words forming. “When I’ve scarred people, the flesh has always healed quickly. They don’t bleed much.”

  “So it not hurt?”

  She sat the blade on the pitted wooden floor. “It might not be wise, Shem.”

  “You may make stopping if it hurts?”

  Anna pursed her lips. “No, I can’t. If I don’t finish the cut, it’ll be worse. You could die. And you can’t make any noise.” She saw the confusion in the twist of his brow. “They can’t know. Nobody except us can know.”

  “But we are friends, both droby.”

  Rage flared through her. She saw the dark morning woods and the soglav, and felt hot breath on the back of her legs. She wrapped her hands around the knife. “I am not his droba,” she hissed. When the boy shrank inward, frowning, she eased her glare. “Neither are you, Shem. You don’t belong to him. But this has to remain between us.”

  Shem knotted his brow, candlelight shimmering across the flesh. “It is sworn.”

  His promise was the catalyst. Hayat surged through Anna, guiding her hand to the knife and restricting her vision to Shem’s neck. The walls darkened and blurred around her, but every pore of the boy’s translucent flesh came alive. When her knife touched his jugular, it was only a matter of tracing hayat’s ever-fleeing glow, capturing fireflies.

  Shem screamed.

  Sigils fled from the blade. The boy jerked back, twisting the iron in his flesh, and a gush of clear fluid darkened to blood as it met the air. Hayat dissipated from the wound in a luminous cloud.

  Come back. She scrambled forward, chasing the wound’s open edge and stabbing toward the boy’s neck. Every breath was thick with hayat’s scorched scent, and she surrendered control of her fingers as the energy settled in her lungs.