Araids?
No. Old, older than trees’ roots. And vast… the ground is riddled with it like a bone full of bloodworms.
The boy is lucky you were there.
There was no answer to that.
If I am lucky, Daru thought, I am the unluckiest lucky person the world has ever known.
Hush, he wakes. And you owe me a pig.
* * *
Daru was curled on his side, soft bedding and slick fur pressed against his cheek. He felt the air burning in his lungs, and his heart’s labored efforts to keep beating, like a bird in a too-small cage. He tried to open his eyes, but they were caked with dust, the same foul stuff that coated the inside of his mouth.
“What?” he croaked.
Hafsa Azeina’s strong, bony arm supported him, helped him to a sit up. She wiped his face with a warm, damp cloth, and held a cup of cool water to his lips. He sipped, then drank greedily. The cool water seemed to spread through his limbs and into his fingers and toes, making them tingle and come back to life.
“What?” he asked again. “What happened? Where was I?”
“What is fairly simple to answer: you had one of your fits.” Hafsa Azeina took the cup from his fingers and turned away, toward Khurra’an. Her locked hair glowed in the firelight. “Where is a bit more problematic to answer. What do you remember?”
“I was in a place… down. Under the ground. Very, very far underground.” Remembering, he shivered. “A big cave—and there were more caves, I think. Like a rabbit’s warren, or spiders’ tunnels. There were dead men. Or… not dead. One of them turned to look at me. But I may have dreamed that part.”
He had not dreamed it. Even now, those dead eyes bored into his, wanting something from him. Hungry, and angry, and very, very old.
She turned her face toward him, and he flinched from the intensity of her gaze. “What else?”
“They were… they seemed to be… wrapped all in red. And.” He swallowed. “Gold masks. Like those battle-mages.”
“Ahhhhhhhh.” The breath hissed from her, and she turned to look at Khurra’an. “So. Now we know.”
The cat just stared at them, flipping the back of his tail back and forth and not blinking.
Hafsa Azeina moved away and folded her legs to sit staring into the fire. Her face went smooth, as smooth and clean as a golden mask, but he was not afraid. Daru had been staring at that face for as long as he could remember, watching the golden eyes flick back and forth as if they followed things that nobody else could see. Many times he had fallen asleep as she sat staring into the fire, and sometimes when he woke her face would be bloodied, or grim, and soon after she would begin making a new instrument out of a bit of bone, or gut, or skin. Daru never asked what she had done, because she watched over them all as they slept.
Her gaze turned to him. “Daru.”
He sat up straight, letting the blankets fall away from his shoulders. “Dreamshifter?”
“You have seen the Baidun Daiel. You are to stay away from them, as far as you can, at all times. Never speak to them. Do not look at them, or speak of them, or think of them if you can help it. Especially when you are tired, or falling asleep. Never, never let them touch you. Do you understand?”
Daru nodded.
It was not enough. Her eyes went sharp as a hawk’s. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Dreamshifter.”
“Also, I have been neglecting your body. You are thin and weak.”
He burned with shame, that the dreamshifter would think of him so. Khurra’an grunted. To Daru’s surprise Hafsa Azeina stood, and walked across the room, and tucked her knees underneath to sit beside him on her pallet. She touched his cheek with the back of her hand, looked into his eyes, touched him gently between the eyes with one finger. Her eyes were softer than usual as she sat back upon her heels and regarded him.
“You really are an exceptional child,” she told him. “Remember this—I chose you as my apprentice for a reason.”
He realized that he was gaping at her, and snapped his mouth shut. She smiled, and a little bit of it leaked into her eyes.
“You are an exceptional child,” she repeated, “and this city is a dangerous place for exceptional children. I want you to keep close to the people at all times. Ware all outlanders, not just the red mages.”
“Yes, Dreamshifter.” He had an uncomfortable thought. “Even Leviathus?” He liked the tall, red-haired man.
The smile left her eyes. “Even Leviathus. Even Sulema.” She glanced at Khurra’an. “We need to make your body strong, stronger than it is now. If you are fainting away in front of people, you are vulnerable. This mountain air will be good for your lungs. I will have you walking every day, climbing stairs. Carrying things. Kabila will help you with this, and keep an eye on you when I have none to spare. You will take long baths in the mineral pools, to heat and strengthen your blood. You will eat meat, as raw as you can stand it.” She stood. “You are nine years old now. It is past time you learn a weapon. Not the sword, maybe.” She looked at him and frowned. “Not the staff. A short bow, and perhaps… knives?”
Daru was so excited he could hardly sit still. Weapons! The dreamshifter finally, finally thought he was strong enough to learn weapons. He felt his eyes glowing from the inside out, and scrambled to his feet despite the trembling in his legs. “I have knives, Dreamshifter!” He caught her amused glance and blushed furiously. “I mean, yes, Dreamshifter. Ismai gifted me with a set of knives before we left.” He swallowed. “They were my mother’s.”
She smoothed the hair back from her eyes with both hands. “Let us see, then.”
Daru fairly skipped into his little room and fumbled for the rolled leather pack that held his knives. He skipped back as well, and then stood for a moment clutching them to his chest. What if she did not approve? What if she changed her mind?
What if… what if she took them from him?
She stared at him, holding her hands out patiently as if she read his every thought. He handed the package over reluctantly, and fairly held his breath as she let the leather fall open, revealing his only treasure.
The knives were even more beautiful than he remembered, bone handles gleaming. Hawk, snake, fennec. Horse, owl, sandcat. The edges of the blades swirled blue-green and orange if you turned them just so in the sunlight.
“Ahhhhh.” Hafsa Azeina breathed softly. Her hands hovered over the knives, but she did not touch them. “I had forgotten that she had these. Interesting, that they should find their way to you now.” She handed them back to Daru. They were heavy and warm in his hands as if he held a living thing. “Knives it is, then.”
Daru clutched the knives to his chest and returned to his little room, wondering whether perhaps he was still dreaming.
* * *
The next morning when he awoke the knives were still on the little table by his bed, but now they were sheathed in a fine black leather harness meant to be worn diagonally from shoulder to hip. Daru dressed, and over his tunic he buckled the harness. It fit perfectly.
As he left the dreamshifter’s rooms, he saw Hafsa Azeina seated before the dragon-face fireplace using a leather strap to polish the long bone. She glanced up, nodded approvingly at Daru and his knives, and went back to her work.
He broke his fast in the kitchens, thanked Saskia for her care and concern, and smiled when Kabila ruffled his hair and teased that she would be making a man out of him after all. Nobody took any notice of his knives or called him a weakling. Nobody mentioned Umm Nurati or the dreamshifter.
When he returned, the dreamshifter and Khurra’an were gone. In their place was a short woman, an outlander with curly dark hair tied back from her pale face with a leather thong, and enormous gray eyes darkened with kohl. She wore soft leather boots laced to the knee, and loose linen trousers, and a leather harness much like his own buckled over a short blue tunic. She looked at him, put her hands on her hips, and scowled.
“This is what they give me to work with
?” She clucked her tongue and advanced. She moved like a vash’ai on the hunt, low and smooth and silent. Daru froze where he was. He was not supposed to talk to outlanders.
“Your mistress has sent me to you,” the woman explained. “After this day, you will come to me. I will show you, yes?” Her Atualonian was heavily accented. She poked his shoulder, clucking her tongue again as she felt the muscles in his arm, poked him in the belly, stared hard at his face. Daru wondered if she was going to open his mouth and look at his teeth. “A challenge, yes. They give me straw and expect me to spin it into sunlight. Pah! What do we have here?” She reached for his knives.
“These are mine.” Daru clutched the knives to his chest and took a step back.
The woman arched both brows at him and her gray eyes danced merrily. “Oh, it has spirit, does it? Good. I was wondering whether they had sent me a boy or a mouse. I do not teach mice, not even for what they have offered to pay me. Hah! Not even for that! Well, boy, let us see what they have given me to work with. Show me how you would hold your knife.”
Daru reached hesitantly toward the top knife, the one shaped like a horse, and drew it from the sheath.
“No, no, no! Put it back.” She scowled ferociously. “Not like you are some cook, chopping vegetables. The first thing you have to do is stand. Like this.” She grabbed his shoulders and pushed them down so that he stood with his knees bent a little, and kicked his feet apart. “Shoulders back, back straight… no, no. Loose like a snake, not stiff like a piece of wood. Loose, yes, so you can move your hips. So you can slide your feet. Yes!
“Now hold your belly in… no, no, do not suck it in, you are not a fat man trying to impress a pretty girl. Hold it in. Use your muscles. Press your belly toward your spine. No, no, not like a piece of wood. Yes, like that! Now, breathe. First you must learn to breathe, and then we will teach you how to fight so that you can keep on breathing, yes?” She chuckled at her own joke.
* * *
They kept at it until Daru could hardly stand straight for the fire in his belly and back, till his legs cramped and his neck cramped and the knives in their harness felt so heavy he could barely get down to the kitchens, and groaned to think of the climb back up.
When he was back in his room, he dragged the belt off, laid it across the little table, and fell asleep so quickly he did not have time to grieve, or worry, or even wonder where Hafsa Azeina and Khurra’an had gone.
* * *
The next morning Daru learned that the woman’s name was Ashta, that she was not a weapons-master at all but a journeyman mantist—whatever that meant—and that her father had taught her to dance with knives. He learned that she had been easy on him the first day.
After the midday meal, Kabila found him and announced with a big grin that it was time to get to work.
THIRTY
Kaapua,” Xienpei said, gesturing toward and across the wide blue waters. “The River of Flowers.”
The land at their feet sloped gently toward the river. Here the trees had given way to scrub and shrubbery and colorful grasses, and the land all along Kaapua was aflame with red and yellow and orange dream-poppies, waist-high rhododendrons in violent scarlet and deepest purple, cobra grass with hoods of pale green and yellow-spotted throats, flowers that burst like fireworks, flowers that looked like small wisps of colored smoke.
Even so late in the spring Jian could see the occasional raft or basket of blooms making its journey to the sea, stragglers from the mountain villagers’ fertility rites. One particularly elaborate creation spun and bobbed its way past them, trailing streamers of cloth and laden with offerings of guava and pomegranate blossoms. Some woman had wished for a child, a girl-child.
Jian felt his heart squeeze painfully and he wished that the stranger’s prayer might be answered, that she would be blessed with a strong and healthy daughter, and that the little girl would be born well past the days of the Two Moon Dawn.
None of this showed on his face—not the beauty of the land, his joy at being so close to water, not even the thought that if he drove his knife through the throat of Xienpei, he might throw himself into the water and escape. Or better yet, drown. He let the flowered raft slip by beneath his gaze, lest the touch of his regard bring misfortune to its maker.
“Why have you brought me here?” he asked instead. Not that he expected Xienpei to answer, or would trust her words if she did.
Her laugh was as light and sweet as the wind through the flowers. “As a reward, why else? Do you think I tempt you to make an escape? I am unarmed.” She spread her arms out to either side and laughed again. The sunlight caught in her teeth. “I like to come out here and breathe air that does not stink of sweat and fear. I like to be near the water. I am hoping you might run so that I can hunt you down and eat you. Take your pick.” She lowered her arms, sank gracefully to the ground, and closed her eyes.
Jian studied his yendaeshi as she meditated, hands resting lightly on her knees, face as smooth and guileless as a sleeping child’s. He wondered whether she really wanted him to run, and what might happen if he did.
The raft shed its flowers into the river as it spun gently out of sight.
A hummingbird danced about him for a while, thinking perhaps that he was an enormous yellow flower, before taking its place amongst the honeybees.
A hawk circled lazily overhead, hoping to startle a hare into flight.
Jian closed his eyes, listened to the wind, and waited.
“You are getting better at this,” Xienpei said after a while, without opening her eyes. “You are learning well. You may swim, if you like. I know how the water calls to you.”
“Yendaeshi?”
She did not answer. Jian stared at her for long moments more, then shrugged and walked down the gentle slope toward the water, stripping his clothes off as he went and letting them fall to the ground. He could feel the muscles shift and curl beneath his skin, and the ache at the side of his neck where Naruteo had struck him two days earlier. He shook his hand: still a little numb. He shed his left sandal in the grass and his right sandal in the mud by the river, and then the water slapped at his feet, inviting him to play.
Jian froze mid-breath, his entire body shocked by a pleasure so sharp it was closer to pain. The water was sweet and shallow and fickle, it sang of mountaintops drenched in rain and locked in ice, of flowers and frogs spawning in the reeds, and the long deaths of rocks. It did not sing to him with the voice of the sea, but it sang, and for now it was enough.
Shedding his human existence as carelessly as he had shed his clothes, Jian slipped into the river and let the water carry him away. All his life he had been called Issuq, a sea-thing’s child, but not until this moment had Jian felt the truth in those words.
Not a day of it had come easy. The Daechen had been moved into the Yellow Palace the very same day as the winnowing, and by the third day Jian thought he was going to die as well. During the first few days, he had been given purges and potions and foul-tasting teas that made his eyes water, his tongue swell, and his hair fall out in clumps. One day he would break out in an angry red-and-white rash, and the next his body would try to rid itself of every meal he had ever eaten, from both ends at once.
He was confined to his room at first, and when the boys were finally dragged to the main dining hall, he saw that their numbers had been cut by nearly half again. Jian was happy to see that Perri had survived, though the smaller boy was a mass of bruises and cuts and walked bent over in an old man’s shuffle. He was even happy to see Naruteo’s swollen, sullen face. The laughing boy from Shenzou, the weaver’s boy from Tienzhen, the pig-farm boys from Hou… in the end they had been nothing more than a handful of lesser pearls, ground into dust.
The following weeks had brought no relief. The purges and medicines stopped, and were followed by a blessed few days of rest and bland food and even the occasional walk outside, but every moment and every movement took place under the watchful stare of the yendaeshi, and the slightest wron
g glance brought swift and painful punishment. Jian learned quickly to keep his head down and his mouth shut. Naruteo, whose neck was stiff as a bull’s, was slower to yield his will and often absent at mealtimes.
Days bled into weeks, each turn of the moons bringing a new torment as he was poked and prodded and tested and beaten for infractions he could not have guessed at or avoided. Asking after his mother had earned Jian a leather strap across the face. Looking up toward the sun had earned him a five-stroke caning and the loss of his clothes for three days. The morning he watched both Naruteo and Perri stripped, bound, beaten, and dragged bloody and unconscious from the exercise yard, he knew he would not survive the Yellow Palace. He wondered whether they would send his bones to his mother, or whether she would take her tea at the beach during Remembrance, and smile, thinking him alive and well.
That night, Jian dreamt of the sea. In his dream there were no yendaeshi, no yellow silk or blood-soaked sheets, no Yellow Palace, no emperor. There was only Jian, and the sea, and life. He dove down, down, into the mother’s embrace, feeling the warm salt water tickle and rub against his thick fur, peering wide-eyed through the tourmaline gloom. He was not alone, for once in his life he was truly not alone.
He could hear the cetaceans calling each other by their beautiful names, hear the vast weave of their lifesongs circling round and round, never-ending and ever-changing as the sea herself. Lives that were so infinitely small or so incredibly vast his mind could not map them, and that was just fine. None was more important, or less important, than his own.
They were.
He was.
A bullfish flitted by, and he thought about eating it. A shongwei passed beneath, and thought about eating him. He was strong, he was fierce, he was home. He ate the bullfish, and it was good. He was eaten, in turn, by the shongwei… and that was also good. There was no pain, no regret, there was only the sea.
The next day Jian woke early, feeling better than he had since he had come to Khanbul. He felt… clean. As if he had been swallowed and spat forth again, whole and healed. Even Xienpei noticed the change. She had had him beaten in case he had been planning an escape, and then with her own hands she brought him a plate of fish and seaweed and rice with saffron, and praised his stamina.
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