Shadows Return n-4

by Lynn Flewelling

  “No, I’m fine. You’d better eat. There’s not much left.”

  Seregil settled for a mouthful of tepid water. “We have to find more food, and fast. Maybe we can steal you a bow somewhere tonight.”

  “Do you really mean to walk all the way to the southern coast?” Ilar demanded. “It could be days, weeks even, for all you know!”

  “It’s not that far, a few days at most,” Seregil told him, though he wasn’t so sure.

  Alec tugged at his braid. “This has gotten me into trouble a few times already. Guess we’d better cut it off. My knife is better for the job than yours.”

  Alec handed him the black-handled dagger and turned his back. Seregil gripped the braid at its base and brought the knife against it.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Alec.

  Seregil lowered the blade, caught by the warm, familiar weight of the plait against his palm. “What’s the point? Long or short, that hair will give you away. You might as well just cover it up for now. Cut some cloth off that sling of yours and make a head rag for yourself.”

  Alec gave him a quizzical look over one shoulder. “You’re getting sentimental.”

  “Probably.” He nodded at the rhekaro, whose hair fell well below its waist. “We’ll have to cut his shorter, though. I don’t think we can hide that much.”

  He turned to the rhekaro to find it staring at the knife, fear clear in those usually expressionless eyes. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Alec put a protective arm around its thin shoulders. “He doesn’t like knives much. Yhakobin hurt him a lot and cut parts of him off.”

  “What parts?”

  “Fingers. Skin.”

  Even Seregil felt a little sick at the thought. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Here, let me do it. He trusts me.”

  Seregil handed him back the knife and watched the rhekaro’s normal blank expression return. “But he has all his fingers.”

  “I told you, things grow back. See?” He showed Seregil Sebrahn’s right hand. Thin scars circled the base of three fingers, and there was another around its wrist. “That’s where Yhakobin cut them off and they grew back. Drinking my blood helped him heal more quickly. The first one Yhakobin made…” He broke off and Seregil saw the shadow of something horrific in Alec’s eyes. “Yhakobin butchered that one, then made me heal it, so he could do it again. He destroyed it, piece by piece, until it died.”

  Seregil touched the rhekaro’s cool little hand with a bit more respect. “The bastard’s no better than a necromancer.”

  “He’s worse.” Alec reached out and picked up a strand of the rhekaro’s silvery hair, telling it quietly, “I’m going to cut your hair, but it won’t hurt, I promise.”

  Seregil couldn’t tell if it understood or not, but it didn’t shrink away as Alec began carefully trimming its hair short above its shoulders. Handfuls of the silky stuff pooled on the ground around it. Seregil couldn’t resist picking up a lock and running it between his fingers. It was very soft, like a real child’s. It had its eyes closed now, and was almost smiling as Alec smoothed a gentle hand over its head.

  “He really does like you,” Seregil noted with a resigned sigh.

  “How do you know it’s a boy?” asked Ilar, coming closer. “It’s not like it has anything between its legs.”

  “Neither do you!” Alec spat back.

  “It doesn’t?” asked Seregil.

  Alec paused in his barbering. “Well, no, but he looks like me, so we might as well call him that as anything.”

  “Then how does he piss?”

  “I don’t think he needs to.”

  Seregil rested his face in his hands, trying again to imagine how they were going to manage.

  Alec kept his gaze on his work, frowning. “No one’s going to hurt him again. Besides, if Yhakobin wants him so badly, then he must be important, right?”

  “To make some medicine.”

  “That didn’t work,” Ilar reminded them.

  “I think we should take him to Thero and Magyana,” said Alec. “Maybe they’ll know what he is.”

  “I know a little,” Ilar said, giving Alec an arch look. “More than you.”

  “Would you care to tell us?” Seregil replied evenly.

  Ilar shrugged. “Ilban says there are many different kinds of rhekaro. The ones made from Hâzadriëlfaie blood are the rarest of all. According to the alchemists’ histories, a perfect poison can be made of their blood, as well as an elixir of perfect healing, and that it possesses a power that can strike a thousand men dead on the spot when its master speaks the key.”

  Alec glared at him. “Liar! He couldn’t even protect himself.”

  “As I said, this one turned out wrong, too,” Ilar replied. “Neither of them even had wings like they were supposed to. He blamed your mongrel blood.”

  Seregil struck Ilar across the mouth so fast the other man had no time to duck. “Shut your filthy mouth,” he snarled as Ilar went sprawling.

  “His words, not mine,” Ilar whined, cupping his split lip. “Nothing he tried with it worked as it was supposed to. He tried making something from your blood, too, Seregil, but that didn’t work properly, either. That’s why he didn’t free me, as he’d promised.” He sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I was so close!”

  “At our expense.” Seregil gathered the rhekaro’s shorn hair and twisted it into a rope to go into the bundle. “What else did he tell you about it?”

  “Not very much. But I did see something. I’ll show you, if-”

  Seregil arched an eyebrow. “If I promise not to kill you?”

  “Both of you.”

  “Well, Alec? What do you say? He has been of some use.”

  “We could have gotten away without him,” Alec muttered, trying to comb Sebrahn’s ragged hair into some sort of order with his fingers. It stuck out in long, ragged tufts, but he looked slightly more like a normal child now. But only slightly.

  “Maybe, but I think he’s bought himself some time. So, Ilar, that’s the best you’ll get. What is it you have to show us?”

  “I need some water, and that hog sticker of yours.”

  “You can have the water.” Seregil pulled a cup they’d stolen from the bundle and half filled it from their precious store.

  “Now draw a drop of its blood and let it fall into the cup.”

  Seregil handed Alec his poniard. Alec pulled the rhekaro into his lap and took one of its hands between his. “Don’t worry. It’s just a little poke. Just one. Hold out your hand.”

  And it did, gaze fixed on Alec’s hand. Alec carefully pricked the tip of one small finger. What oozed out was not blood, but something pale and viscous, like the jelly around frog’s eggs in the spring. When it fell into the water, a flash of soft light spread, reminding Seregil of a firefly’s glow. It quickly faded, and something dark formed and floated to the surface.

  It was a flower, and looked for all the world like a tiny river lotus, except for the color. It was dark blue, almost black, and gave off a sweet, heavy fragrance.

  “This is it?” Seregil asked, eyeing it closely.

  “It’s supposed to be white, according to the texts, but this rhekaro makes nothing but these blue ones. They’re worthless,” Ilar told him.

  “I saw some of these in the workshop!” Alec exclaimed, reaching for it.

  Seregil grabbed his wrist. “Be careful.”

  “He said it didn’t work.” But Alec used the tip of his knife to lift the blossom from the cup. Holding it out to the rhekaro, he said, “Sebrahn, can you show me?”

  The rhekaro took it carefully in its cupped hands and looked around at the three of them for a moment. Then it moved toward Ilar, holding the flower up as if it wanted him to smell it. The man scrambled backward, face drawn with fear.

  “So you’re certain it doesn’t work?” Seregil snatched the flower from the rhekaro’s hand and leaped on Ilar, holding him down and mashing it against his lips.

&
nbsp; Ilar clawed at his wrists and they grappled, rolling across the dirty floor. Alec jumped on Ilar’s legs and helped wrestle him down. When Seregil looked for the flower, it was nowhere to be found.

  “Where the hell-? Did you eat it?”

  “Let me go! I had your word!” Ilar cried, still struggling weakly.

  “We never gave you that, actually.” Seregil grabbed Ilar’s face and inspected his mouth closely. “Well, now, that’s interesting. Let him up, Alec.”

  Ilar staggered up to his feet, outraged and panting. “You lied to me!”

  “How does it feel?” Alec sneered.

  “Better yet, how does your lip feel?” asked Seregil.

  “My lip?” Ilar raised a trembling hand to his mouth. “What do you mean? Oh!”

  The split was gone, the lip whole and pink under a smear of blood as if nothing had happened.

  “No wonder Yhakobin didn’t figure it out,” Seregil murmured, grabbing Ilar again and holding him still while he ran a thumb over the healed place. “It does do something, just not what he wanted, apparently. Let’s hear it for your ‘mongrel’ blood, talí.”

  He grinned at Alec, and for an instant something came to him along the talimenios bond: Alec was as surprised as he was, but there was something more, something Alec wasn’t telling him.

  Alec caught the look and made a discreet canting gesture in Ilar’s direction: Not in front of him.

  At the end of his patience, Seregil pulled Alec to his feet. “Come on. We need to talk. Ilar, you stay here.”

  As expected, Alec took the rhekaro by the hand and brought it along with them. Seregil led them outside.

  “Well?”

  Alec rested his hands on the rhekaro’s shoulders. “The oracle at Sarikali said I’d father a child of no woman, right? And Illior knows, Sebrahn doesn’t have a mother.”

  Seregil clenched his fists in frustration. “It’s not a child!”

  “He is to me, and he’s mine.”

  For a moment Seregil was speechless. Then everything fell into place. “You think-? This-Alec, you’re not serious?”

  “I am, too! What else could it mean? Look at him!”

  There was no mistaking the resemblance between them. Abhorrent as the thought was, Alec might actually be right.

  “Tell me again how he was made. All of it.”

  Alec told him about the purifications in detail, and then, more haltingly, of the various bodily fluids that had been collected and how. When he got to the semen, he was blushing miserably.

  “They drugged you for that, eh? Well, at least you dreamt of me,” Seregil told him, ruffling his hair. “I’m surprised Yhakobin didn’t order Ilar to get that from you…” The look on Alec’s face told him he’d hit a mark. “That bastard!”

  “Like I said, he tried, but I wouldn’t.”

  Seregil gently clasped him by the back of the neck and rested his forehead against Alec’s. “He can be very persuasive, can’t he? Don’t worry, I understand.”

  CHAPTER 42 Sebrahn Stirs

  THEY STAYED AT the barn until nightfall. By the time they set out again, striking south by the stars, the rhekaro’s hair was halfway down its back again.

  “I told you,” said Alec, as he braided it and tucked it under the head rag he’d fashioned for it. He was wearing his, too, and Seregil decided that they didn’t do much good. No one was going to mistake either of them-or him either, probably-for a Plenimaran, unless they tried dressing as women. And that wouldn’t work, either. Even if they did manage to steal the proper clothing, none of them could pass as the male protector no proper Plenimaran woman would be without. Since there was no help for that, they’d just have to make do with trying to stay as far as possible from any locals.

  Ilar was even more sullen now, opening his mouth only to complain. The others ignored him, scanning the moonlit landscape for signs of trouble.

  The land grew drier and more desolate as they went and Seregil began to worry about his travel estimations. Their water was nearly gone and so was the food. It was colder tonight, with a hint of frost in the air. Walking kept them warm but left them thirsty. To spare Alec’s strength, Seregil took turns carrying the rhekaro. It weighed very little and hung in its sling without wiggling or any sign of discomfort. Several times, though, Seregil felt it touching his hair with its cold little fingers. It was a disconcerting feeling, but it occurred to him that if the rhekaro could learn, then perhaps it could be curious, as well, and wondering at the fact that Seregil’s hair was a different color than Alec’s. He also noticed that whenever they stopped to rest, regardless of who had been carrying it, it always went to Alec’s side.

  A child of no woman, Seregil thought again. And the oracle claimed it was a blessing. His mind and heart both rebelled at such a thought; how could this unnatural thing be a blessing?

  And yet, it had healed Ilar’s lip.

  The days grew steadily colder, and the wind never dropped. The further south Alec led them, the rougher the way became and he couldn’t seem to find a way that was easier.

  As far as the eye could see, the land fell steadily to the south. The ever-present wind cut deeply, sculpting the landscape into strange shapes and deep canyons they had to scramble around. It was slow going, and all of them suffered a fall or two. Alec found a small spring that night, but no food. When dawn came, they slept huddled in the shade of an outcropping, with Seregil and Alec trading short watches. Exhausted and a bit feverish, Ilar slept fitfully.

  It was a miserable time, and made more so when Alec was forced to rely on Ilar for warmth while Seregil was walking about on watch. He wasn’t certain which was worse: having to be so close to the man or seeing Seregil with him like that when Alec was on watch. It was some comfort that Seregil didn’t appear to be enjoying the situation any more than he was, so Alec kept his bitter thoughts to himself, hating the whispers of jealousy at the back of his mind.

  When it was his turn to rest, he had no choice but to sit close beside Ilar, with Sebrahn, who never showed any sign of being cold, on his lap. Unlike Ilar, the child gave off no more heat than a newt, but it was still good to have the weight of another body against his-one that he didn’t detest, anyway.

  “Keep still,” he snarled as Ilar shifted around, trying to get comfortable on the stony ground.

  “I’m helping you stay alive. If you were out here alone, you’d die.”

  “I’ve managed before,” Alec muttered. “Don’t talk to me.”

  “How long are you going to hate me?”

  Alec rested his cheek against Sebrahn’s cool hair. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “I know how it all looks to you, the way things were at Yhakobin’s, but what choice do you think I had? The man owned me, body and soul. My life was in his hands.”

  “And your comfort,” Alec reminded him. “The way I heard it, you had an easy life there. If it wasn’t for Seregil escaping, you’d still be there, wouldn’t you, Ilban’s pet slave?”

  Ilar sighed. “You’re right. I would be. But I don’t hold that against Seregil. How could I, after what I did to him, and to you?” He gestured out at the barren, broken land around them. “If not for your mercy, I’d be dead or in the hands of another cruel master. If not for your forbearance, I wouldn’t be sitting here now, a free man.” He looked sidelong at Alec and smiled. “Well, almost free. Do you really think we’ll get away?”

  “We always do.”

  “I’ve heard a bit of your adventures. A kinsman of Vargûl Ashnazai is a good friend with Il-with Yhakobin. Is it true that you were the one who killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “So you’re a reluctant killer, too? Did Seregil teach you that as well?”

  “We’re not assassins, just nightrunners.” Alec left unsaid the fact that before he’d taken up with Seregil, he’d never killed anyone.

  “There’s a difference?”

  “For thos
e who know,” Alec replied, teeth chattering in spite of the cloak he had pulled over him and Sebrahn.

  Ilar shifted this way and that, then leaned closer, pressing against his side. Alec bristled at that, but there was no denying that it was warmer that way. He was too tired and too cold to argue the matter right now. His eyelids felt heavy as books.

  Ilar was still talking softly when he fell asleep.

  Seregil’s eyes burned from staring into the distance. He longed for the cover of night and the feel of his feet eating up the distance that separated them from freedom with every pace.

  The others were sheltered between two large boulders. As he passed, he heard the murmur of voices, and guessed that Alec was not enjoying the situation much. When he passed again later, however, he saw that he was fast asleep against Ilar’s shoulder. The other man was awake, and nodded slightly, acknowledging Seregil’s presence.

  Seregil wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. But at least Alec wasn’t going to die of a chill.

  When his own watch ended and he woke them, Alec looked surprised and none too pleased at his own position. Standing up unsteadily with the rhekaro in his arms, he glared down at Ilar for a second, then walked stiffly away.

  “You should leave Sebrahn with me,” Seregil offered. “You’re going to end up a hunchback, lugging it-him-around all the time.”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” Alec replied, preparing to nick another fingertip; they were all red and stippled with scabs now, except for his thumbs, and looked sore.

  “I wonder if he could heal those for you?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  Seregil walked over to him. From here Ilar was hidden in the lee of the rocks. “Talí, talk to me.”

  Alec gave him a weary look. “I told you, I’m fine. I just wish we trusted Ilar enough for him to take a watch now and then. But I don’t, and now you have to go sleep with him.”

  “I won’t enjoy it, I promise.”

  “I know. Go on. You look like hell.”

  “So do you, love. Just keep thinking of the baths in Gedre. That’s what keeps me going these days.”