“May I?” he asked, with a sardonic twist to his mouth. His eyes lingered—outland men reacted strangely to the sight of a woman with her vest off—but he said nothing more as he stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him. “So this was not a simple mantid-training exercise? She did not come to my rooms, by the way. She found me at the training grounds. I expect you will be hearing about this from your brother and your father.”
“Why would they care how Leilei found you?”
“If a mantid tracks to a person’s room, she is following the scent of their orchid. If she follows them anywhere else, it can only mean they have followed the scent of that person’s sweat. In order to do that…”
“She would have to know how you smelled.” I know how you smell, she thought. “But why would my brother or father care about that?”
“Oh, they would care. A great deal, I should think. You are the daughter of Ka Atu…”
“I am Sulema Ja’Akari.” I belong to myself, she wanted to say, but Ja’Akari do not lie. So she told him a partial truth instead. “The weakness is growing worse. See?” She held out her sword-arm, which trembled under the weight of her shamsi. “My fingers are going cold again, and my toes too, I think. I was hoping you might take me to this Rothfaust for another dose of his churra-piss medicine.”
“I had thought that might be it. The loremaster and I have talked, and agree it might be best if you do not come to him directly. Until we have revealed our enemies…”
“We should not reveal our allies.” She nodded approval. “You would make a good warden, Mattu Halfmask.”
“Please,” he said. “Just Mattu.” He took a leather pouch from the belt at his waist and handed it to her. “The loremaster said he is closer to finding the tune in your blood, so this should be more effective than the last dose. It still smells like a dead sea-beast, though.”
She accepted the pouch with her off hand, noting how the fingers trembled. The last dose had kept the shadows at bay for nearly a full moon. Perhaps it would be enough.
It will have to be enough, she thought. Daru had spoken of shadows for as long as she could remember, but she had never seen them before. Now, when she stared into the dark places between the candles, the shadows stared back.
Leilei chirruped sleepily from the confines of her little bamboo cage. She sounded happy enough, but Sulema thought that she could never be truly content, shut off from her freedom.
No more than she. At the moment she wanted nothing more than to put this weakness, this magic, this city behind her for good, to seek out the Mah’zula and live as a warrior of old.
Ehuani, she amended as she looked at Mattu, I might want a little more.
“Was there something else you wanted, ne Atu?” His eyes were hot. He knows, she thought.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, and dropped the leather pouch. Freedom could wait. This could not.
She used her free hand to loosen the bindings of her warrior’s girdle, and let it fall to the floor, taking her trousers with it. She set her sword carefully down and then stepped out of the puddle of clothes, naked.
“What is this?” he asked. His eyes, his voice had gone all dark and deep, and Sulema found herself swaying toward him. Heat coiled low in her belly, dispelling the chill in her limbs, driving away the weakness. She was a woman, and she was powerful.
“This is Ayyam Binat,” she told him. “When a girl becomes a warrior, she may ask any man of the pride to her bed, so long as his mother approves.”
“His mother?”
“I had heard that your mother was gone, so I asked your sister. She has given you her permission.” Sulema did not add that the older woman had laughed until tears rolled down her face.
“I have no choice in the matter?”
“Of course you have a choice,” she snapped. It was chilly in her room, and she was nervous. Stupid man. “We may be barbarians, but we are not barbaric.”
“Oh,” he said, and looked at her clothes on the floor.
“Oh,” he said again, and his eyes lingered on her body. When his gaze met hers, Sulema knew he was fighting to deny her.
She knew he would lose.
“Oh,” he said a third time, as if he had finally figured out what Sulema had known all along. He sighed and stepped toward her, and the candle-light danced to the beating of her heart. “Well, then, to be fair…”
Mattu reached up to his face, and removed his mask.
He stood there, more naked than she, looking at her through eyes that held not the shadow of a lie.
Sulema stepped closer and raised a hand to his face. “Ahhh,” she breathed, “what happened?”
“When I was very small, your father’s forces attacked my father’s castle. They killed my brother, and tossed me down the mountain.” He stood still as she traced the scars with her fingertips. “I was very small, but I survived. When my mother begged for my life, your father saw fit to spare it.”
“But this is not why you wear the mask,” she decided.
“No,” he smiled. “Clever girl.”
“Your scars are not so bad. Askander Ja’Sajani has worse.”
“Who is this Askander?” he asked. “Your lover? I will have to kill him.”
“No,” she told him. “You will be my first.”
“Your first.” His breathing grew ragged. “Oh, sweet girl, you are going to get me in so much trouble.”
“It is only trouble if you get caught,” she reminded him.
“Then I am indeed in trouble,” he said, “because you have caught me.”
He bent down to kiss her…
…and that night Sulema learned, much to her surprise, that there was something in the world better than horses, or hunting, or sleep.
THIRTY - NINE
The new-hatched mantid sat up on her hind legs, little hands folded primly across a narrow pearlescent abdomen, shook out her delicate wings with a prismatic flash, tipped her head to the side, and hissed.
“Oh, look at you,” Daru breathed. “Lovely girl. Do you want to be my friend?”
Dainty, feather-fine antennae unfurled partway, and an iridescent sheen washed across her multifaceted eyes. The mantid’s sweet little triangular head tipped to the other side, and she hissed again. Daru thought she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.
Catching a wild mantid was no easy thing. His hands and knees were raw, his clothes torn and filthy, and his breathing was labored after the long walk down the ramp used by the rag-tag men. The air reeked of sulfur and human waste and a strange, yeasty, cinnamony smell that turned his stomach and sat heavy in his lungs, but Ashta had told him that if he wanted to have a mantid of his own, he would have to catch a wild hatchling and train her up himself.
“If you can talk shadows into letting you throw knives at them,” she had teased, “surely you can catch a little bug.”
Atukos was crawling with mantids. Big as crows and easily as intelligent, the insects had caught his fancy with their pretty colors and winning ways, and Loremaster Rothfaust himself had said he had a way with them. But the charming pets, specially trained to the hand and able to carry messages in the form of sweet little tunes, were a vanity only available to the wealthiest citizens of Atualon, and well beyond the reach of a dreamshifter’s apprentice.
This is how Daru found himself outside the city walls on an especially hot day, stinking of poop and rotten vegetables, hoping to find a hatchling of his own before the bug-men scooped them all up in their little black nets. Earlier excursions had yielded nothing but hatched eggs, an interesting skull, and the husk of a dead soldier beetle, but this time he had ventured closer to the beetle-fields, and had been rewarded for his daring—or would be rewarded, if he could manage to catch the golden-pearl hatchling that lingered so close to the thin catch-loop just beyond his fingertips.
Ashta had shown him how to twist and weave the noose so that he might catch a tender infant without doing any harm, and how to soak the cord in the
musk of a cat’s-paw orchid, but his intended pet was not convinced. She sat up higher on her rear legs, mandibles working at the smell of sweet musk, and combed one antennae again and again through a forelimb.
She took a tentative step toward the noose, and stopped. A second step, swaying and bobbing and waving her antennae… a third step, and she was his. Daru pulled gently on his end of the cord and the noose flipped up and over the little stick he had set so carefully, so that it closed gently about the little bug, trapping wings and forelimbs against her body. The heat of the sun and the stink of refuse pressed him down onto the hard-packed path, his knives dug into his ribs and one hip, and sweat plastered the hair to his temples, but the thrill of his victory flushed through Daru in a wave, and he could feel a grin spreading across his face.
“Hello, sweetling,” he crooned to her.
The mantid tucked her head down as if contemplating her predicament, and her mandibles parted so that her long tongue could uncurl and taste the cord. She chirruped, a tiny, soft noise, but made no effort to break free. Perhaps she did not know how to fight, he thought. Or perhaps she was afraid to try. He inched closer, urging her onto his outstretched hand, and then he stood and held his new mantid, marveling at her gentle beauty and his own audacity. He cupped his hands about her and stroked the tip of his finger along her back, crooning a wordless tune.
“Pakka,” he told her, and grinned when she tipped her head all the way to the side. “Pakka. Do you like that name? It means raindrops on the river.” He had never seen raindrops on the river, but it must be beautiful.
What are you doing with that bug?
Daru froze and spun to face the vash’ai, drawing Pakka protectively close to his bony chest.
Are you going to eat that? I do not think it will help you grow. Why are you eating bugs? Have your litter-mates finally pushed you from the pride? The great golden eyes flashed and the smoke-and-gold sire took a lazy step closer. It is past time for you to leave. Past time for you to run. You weaken the pride… you weaken her. His mouth gaped open, and sunlight dazzled on the gold-cuffed tusks.
Khurra’an drew back his black lips and sneezed in disgust. Even out here, in the bright light of day, Daru could feel the shadows gathering, giggling like naughty and hungry children.
You are sick. You are weak. Would it weaken me, to eat you? I think… not. He crouched, thick tail lashing from side to side as he kneaded the ground in anticipation.
Daru’s mouth went dry as old bones, and Pakka trilled a protest as he clutched her too close. His eyes darted about wildly, but there was nobody there to help him, not even a rag-tag man. He groped with his mind, but his rising panic made it impossible to find Shehannam, let alone his mistress. His little knives called to him, but they would be as nothing to the vash’ai.
Run, little mouse. Khurra’an drew his forepaws in, black claws scraping across rock, and his haunches wiggled. Run.
Listen for the silence between your heartbeats, Ashta had told him. The stillness between shadows. Then make your move.
Daru drew in a breath, as deeply as he could. His heart was a big skin drum beating in his ears. The shadows held their breaths, too.
As Khurra’an pounced, Daru ducked and scuttled to one side, into the stillness between shadows, slipping like a breath between heartbeats. One claw scored his shoulder, tearing fabric and burning like a brand down his back. He cried out and twisted away from the flash of pain, from the heavy heat and cat-stink, felt the brush of Khurra’an’s mane against his flesh as he wriggled and ducked and ran.
There was an angry grunt and thump as the cat caught empty air, and then the scrabble and scrape of claws on the hard-packed earth behind him. Daru tucked himself into a ball midstride and rolled, curling his body protectively around Pakka, who whistled and shrieked in protest when Khurra’an’s shadow swallowed them both. Even as the vash’ai overshot his mark and flew overhead, snarling with frustration, Daru was on his feet and running, running toward the little caves that pockmarked the pale cliffs below the city.
He darted and wove like a hare under the hawk, breath searing his lungs and mantid scrabbling for purchase against his skin. He imagined Khurra’an’s mouth closing over the top of his head, the proud tusks punching through the top of his skull, and knew that the shadows had finally won. Over and over again he lived his own death, heard teeth scraping across his skull, felt the hot red blood spray, heard his own neck snap. Over and over again the shadows shrieked their triumph and tore hungrily at his soul.
Daru’s legs pumped on, his feet smacked against the ground, and he darted and wove even as his little rabbit’s heart gave out in terror. The voices of the shadows faded away behind him, and his heartbeat slowed, slowed, slowwwwed sloooowwwwwed until he had a lifetime between beats. An eternity. The cliffs loomed before him and Daru saw one of the round caves, smaller and lower than the rest, just above his head. Still clutching the mantid to him with one hand, and praying he had not crushed her, Daru scrambled up the steep rock and squeezed himself into the rock through a hole barely big enough for a full-grown hare, much less a terrified boy.
He was able to wriggle through the crack and down a short tunnel, though he left skin and hair and one sandal on the rock behind him. When he heard Khurra’an scrabbling and scraping at the entrance to the tunnel, and felt the hot wind of the cat’s breath and outrage, he slumped against the rock wall and wept with relief.
Come out, little mouse. Come out and play.
Daru hung his head and took air in great gulps, as if it were water and he had been lost in the desert for days. His skin stung— he had left a great deal of himself on the rocks back there—one knee throbbed, his back burned and it felt like maybe he was bleeding, and his heart hurt. After all these years, could Khurra’an not simply let him be? Tears dripped down his face and onto his hands, cupped protectively against his chest. He loosed them slowly, carefully, and held his breath.
Was she alive? Had he crushed her?
Pakka thrust her little head from between his fingers, swiveled her head this way and that, and peeped like a baby chicken. Daru let his breath go in a long, shuddering sob. She was alive. He was alive.
For the moment, at least.
He huddled in the dark, stroking Pakka with his fingertips—she seemed to like it—and listening to the fading snarls as Khurra’an gave up the hunt. His eyes adjusted to the ruddy gloom soon enough, the thin bit of sunlight sparkling in the thin red dust he had dislodged in his flight. He was in a small chamber, a hole in the ground just big enough for a boy and a bug, with two exits. There was the small hole he had wriggled through once already—and, looking at it, Daru could not imagine how he had ever squeezed himself in there—and a low, dark passage to one side. A faint, warm breeze rose from that passage, and with it the smell of warm bread and cinnamon. Daru decided that he must be in one of the vents that brought fresh air into the kitchens.
He tucked his chin and looked at the baby mantid.
“What do you think, Pakka? Should we go that way? If we come out into the kitchens, the ladies will probably patch me up and feed us. If we go out the other way, Khurra’an will probably catch me up and eat us. I do not want to be eaten today, do you?”
Pakka tipped her head down and twerped at him. She unfolded her forelegs and stroked his wrist, an odd little gesture that made him smile.
“To the kitchens it is, then—but first, let me do something about these shadows.” For they had gathered about him like small children waiting for one of Loremaster Rothfaust’s many stories… naughty children, hungry children, whose eyes glistened like drying blood in the thin light. Daru drew his bird’s-skull flute forth, sighing with relief to find it uncrushed.
The shadows whispered and chittered amongst themselves as he brought the bone instrument to his lips and played. Pippip piiiii, pip-pip-peeee-oh, pip tit-ta-ta-tit-pip pip pip, he played. A silly song, a child’s song, flowers and sunlight and little fishes jumping in the river. A song, a game, a
nd then to bed. The shadows cavorted like darkling flames, hungry naughty mouths singing along to a song with no words, pressing in and pulling back again in time to the beating of his own heart.
Finally the music softened, slowed, and rocked them all to sleep. Shadows poured across the dirt floor. Yawning and blinking their bloody little bat-eyes, they flowed away and left him alone.
For the moment, at least.
When he took the flute from his lips, Pakka surprised him by reaching out and touching it with one slender forelimb.
Pip-pip piiiii, she trilled. Her voice was sweet as berries. Pip-pip-peeeeee-ohhhhh. She flittered her wings, briefly, and then crawled up Daru’s arm and nestled in the soft, warm place between his neck and his shoulder. Pip-pip piiii, she sang happily, and clung to his skin. Daru stood slowly, careful not to dislodge the sweet little thing from her perch.
He could hear no sound coming from the sunlit tunnel, but he had seen many cats watching mouse-holes and was not the least bit reassured.
“The kitchens it is, then,” he whispered again, and pushed away from the wall.
It was dark, but Daru had spent much of his life peering through the shadows. He took a long, steadying breath, and another, imagining as he did so that he was feeding the inner flames of his intikallah higher, hotter. A thin column of indigo and rose flame twined like flowering vines up along his backbone, and when his heart’s-eye kallah blushed and his face flushed with warmth, he opened his dreaming eyes just as Hafsa Azeina had taught him.
Opening the dreaming eyes while fully awake was never easy— he had only been able to do it one time out of every three—but this time his efforts met with success. When he opened his waking eyes again, it was as if the tunnels were lit with a dull reddish light.
The Dragon's Legacy Page 45
