Way Walkers: Tangled Paths (The Tazu Saga)

by Leigh, J.

  “Why is this attractive?” he hissed at Ass’shiri, who, for once, was having no better luck, though he seemed more energized for it.

  “The thrill of the chase, Jath.” He chuckled. “The thrill of the chase!”

  Some of the mei were a bit too forward, batting their eyes and blatantly asking for gifts. Jathen was adept enough at sending such women off in short order, and when they got a bit too brazen, Ass’shiri was a good bodyguard. Ass’shiri came in especially handy when a male mei took a shine to Jathen.

  There were some successes, and Jathen did learn a few things about what he did and didn’t enjoy in a companion. High-pitched, nonsensical gigglers were definitely distasteful, along with anyone who wanted to tie him up or role play. It all seemed so contrived. The same went for mei twisting themselves like pretzels or wanting him to spout preconceived lines at them to “set the mood.”

  The final straw before his friend agreed to take a break was the mei who, crawling around on all fours, went about spanking herself and wailing at Jathen, “Mount me like a Tazu! Mount me like a Tazu!”

  “I didn’t know whether to laugh or run in terror,” he told a hysterically cackling Ass’shiri. “So I did both.”

  The day after that, a letter came. Alodie announced it when she brought in the post, placing the crisp and finely lettered envelope into Jathen’s hands.

  “Who’s it from?” Ass’shiri asked.

  “My sister!” Jathen exclaimed, jubilant. It’d been months since he’d heard word from home, and the thick packet promised there would be plenty of news.

  Ass’shiri smiled. “Nice. I can’t tell you how long I’ve gone since hearing from home. Then again, I can’t remember the last time I sent a letter to them that had a return address.”

  “You should,” Jathen said, opening up his prize. “I’m sure you’ve got some family back home who miss you.”

  “Maybe, but perhaps not back home.” He pointed at the packet. “Looks like she would have stuck herself into the envelope to come along if she could have.”

  “Much as I miss Thee, I don’t know about that.” Jathen smirked, scanning the lines for anything of major import. “She’s too much in love with the Tazu court to leave, Beleskie follower or not.”

  “Don’t you think Thee would like it here?”

  “No, actually I don’t. Thee is all about the scandal of relationships. She’s more interested in what this one is doing with that one and ‘Oh, how terrible’ or ‘Oh, how romantic.’ Here, affairs are such a nonchalant thing that I don’t think she’d get enough amusement from it.”

  Ass’shiri left the room, and Jathen fell between the pages of his sister’s world. The premiere gossip of the mating season seemed to be the fact that their mother had split from Dolomith’s father and decided to remain single for the duration.

  Everyone is whispering it’s because he wasn’t grateful enough when you saved Dol. But as much as I’d love to give you credit, I think Mother is just tired. It’s the first season since I was born that she’s taken a hiatus from trying to conceive an egg. She needed a break, and it’s been wonderful to have her around more, playing with Dol and painting with me. All that’s missing is you. I think you’d be very proud of her.

  I got all your letters just fine, and I’m glad to see you are feeling better about the trip. Ass’shiri sounds like a good friend. Promise me you’ll bring him back with you when you come home, as I’d very much like to meet someone who has your personality but none of your moodiness. That was a joke, big brother. But do bring him.

  He immediately began penning a return letter promising to bring the Clan kasior home someday. He kept the finer details of his mei hunting adventures out, though he did relay some of his and Ass’shiri’s more humorous interactions pursuing them.

  I think, Thee, that despite a few shortcomings here and there, I might actually be becoming happy. I know it’s a foreign concept, and it’s certainly not an everyday occurrence yet, but I really think I might be getting there.

  As the summer progressed, Jathen played tag with the boarding house ghost, who took vast delight in hiding then returning their personal effects. Her particular favorites were his belt, left glove, the clip he used to hold his sketchbook pages together—only the clip, never the rest of the sketchbook—and the star puzzle. She also had a tendency to move objects from one room to another. Jathen tripped over Hatori’s amber sword cane half a dozen times walking into his room. Alodie was constantly returning his and Ass’shiri’s right boots, and Jephue’s strawberry-scented soaps kept surfacing in all the bathrooms on their floor. When Hatori’s watch went missing for the fourth time, he became absolutely belligerent, screaming to thin air about Rheanic exorcism, eternal torture, and soul-trapping wards. Within the hour, the timepiece was returned, and it did not disappear again.

  On the whole, they gave a wider and wider berth to Hatori, who was dangerous when consumed by work.

  “It’s like the fires of hell in there, and he’s the Red,” Ass’shiri observed after getting some sort of pyrotechnic launched at him.

  Ass’shiri and Jathen had been serving as Hatori’s errand boys, making numerous trips to the local silversmith and jeweler to pick up supplies or drop off coin or orders. Ass’shiri had merely been checking in when he inadvertently triggered the trap. The blast was more noise than danger—just a flash and a bang—but it had Ass’shiri clutching his sensitive ears in pain.

  “You should feel flattered,” Jathen said. “He only threw soldering irons and canes at me.” He chuckled then turned to Jephue. “What was that thing, anyway?”

  “Some sort of flash-charm.” Jephue rolled his eyes and returned to his papers. He’d been quite consumed with looking for real estate and had at least a dozen prospective locales cut from the local newspapers with him at all times. “He wanted even more emergency security measures, apparently.”

  Ass’shiri grimaced. “He really is a little nuts, huh?”

  “It’s the commission. This is not just anyone he’s working for this time.”

  “So the Monortiths were nobodies?” Jathen sniffed, pretending to be hurt. “Thanks, Jeph.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He poked Jathen in the ribs. “No one would dare steal from the Monortith charm master. But our new commissioner is a private citizen, and Hatori is working on the most precious and expensive stone on the continent. We might as well have painted targets on our backs.”

  Rain was fogging the windows again, and another night playing jimble by candlelight seemed to be in order.

  Later, while they played, Ass’shiri said, “That certainly seems to confirm my theory on him letting you hang around because of your lack of Ability. I mean, whenever he’s working on something.” Ass’shiri dropped a modest bet, a brown piece of sea glass. “I first noticed it on the road, when he was fixing some broken lantern charms for Setsuken. As far as I can see, you are the only one Hatori lets near him. He even chases Jephue off most times.”

  Scowling over his bad hand, Jathen said, “So, you’re saying because I can’t sense what he’s doing, that’s why he’s always allowed me in the workshop all these years?”

  “Probably, yeah.”

  Deciding there was no way on the continent he was going to win anything with such a hand, Jathen folded with a snort of disgust. “But why?”

  “I don’t know. Trade secrets or something?” Ass’shiri shrugged, gathering his pot of sea glass winnings. “You don’t look convinced.” He picked up the cards for a new shuffle.

  “It’s just…” The concept both puzzled and worried Jathen, as there were still things that eluded him about Hatori, and it had just seemed inappropriate to ask about them. He shared his concerns with Ass’shiri about the charm master’s superior skills and seemingly hidden Ability, his un-Clan name, and his rants about the Grays. “And
there are all these other little things…” Pieces of the sea glass ticked together as he played with them, sparking memories of Seren’s silly little puzzle, which the ghost had absconded with once again. “Looks he gives me at odd times, like when you weren’t able to go through the ward or when Charmed Wind crashed. Most of the time, I think it’s just him remembering I’m an idiot when it comes to magical theory, but sometimes I don’t know.”

  “Well first off, you aren’t an idiot, as Mikkal thought you caught on to magical theory just fine, as do I.” Ass’shiri began dealing the cards. “As to the rest, well, there’s a good chance Hatori was part of the group that left after the De’contes thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, just the usual politics. After the emperor was assassinated, a lot of older Clan were really disgusted with not only how our government handled it but also Tar’citadel for giving A’ron sanctuary. So they left. If Chann was studying in Tar’citadel at the time, to, say, become a charm engineer, and all that went down… well, he might have left simply because he was outspoken about De’contes.”

  “And therefore wouldn’t have finished his training.” Jathen nodded and picked up his cards, which made up a considerably better hand than the last. “But that doesn’t necessarily explain the name change.” He laid down a brown shard as a bet.

  “As I said, there are a lot of old politics mixed in with names and clans.” Ass’shiri raised the bet by another brown piece. “He could have just dropped it as a symbol of cutting ties.”

  “Again, you’re probably right. That doesn’t explain the odd looks, though.” Pondering his cards, Jathen added a green glass to the pot. “Or the strange treatment.”

  “Maybe that’s just a symptom of you spending too much time with the paranoia master.” Ass’shiri called the bet and showed his cards.

  Jathen forced a laugh. Ass’shiri had won again.

  He remembered something he’d overheard Hatori say: “Jathen is the kind of boy who sees monsters in the dark but dismisses them as clothes racks casting odd shadows, not because he is ignorant, but because he is disbelieving. He wants rationality, wants the world to sit clean in clean-cut shapes, but he has enough sense to see it isn’t so. Yet he still wears the mask of naïveté, similar to how he wears his masks of subservience, inferiority, or compliance. None of those things are really Jathen, and he knows it. But he wears the masks anyway because he believes he wants to.”

  Maybe it is just shadows this time. But then why is it still bothering me?

  Chapter 29

  Steam whistled.

  Jathen watched from the platform as the sleek metal beast glided into the station, reminiscent of a silver and bronze dragon puffing smoke on a cold day. It was electric, so Hatori had explained, but the steam came from the processor-charms that regulated temperature control in the passenger cabins. If it were not bound to the earth by tracks and could soar in the air like Charmed Wind, Jathen would have said it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  Hatori prodded Jathen lightly with his cane. “Close your mouth. You look far too much like a tourist.”

  “I am a tourist,” Jathen said. “I’ve never been to Fauve and certainly not on a bolt train, considering they aren’t in use outside the Republic.”

  “Yes, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t go drawing attention to the fact.” Hatori smirked, tapping his cane on his vest pocket. The amber knob made a solid thump, knocking against the thin box concealed there. “Rather not give anyone reason to think we’d be easy to steal from. Understand?”

  Jathen nodded.

  “Good. I’ll have you thinking like a proper courtier soon enough.” Hatori frowned, his silver-green eyes scanning the crowd. “Now where in the Pit are Ass’shiri and Jephue with our tickets? I swear, I should never have left such things to them.”

  “And if we left it to you, my love, you’d have yet another poor ticket girl in tears,” Jephue retorted, squeezing through the crowd to meet them.

  Ass’shiri stepped up behind Jephue, their tickets in hand.

  Hatori snorted. “Yes, well.” He waggled the cane at Ass’shiri and Jathen. “You two dolts better be on your best behavior at the gala tonight, or so help me, I’ll wring both your necks. Understood?”

  Ass’shiri saluted. “Yes, my employer.”

  Hatori rolled his eyes. “Come now.” He headed toward the end of the platform. “We’re boarding.”

  Jathen craned his neck, trying to glimpse more of the smooth train.

  “You certainly seem excited,” Ass’shiri said. “Bored of Ca’june already?”

  “I hate to say it, but I am a city boy, Ass.” Jathen grinned. “Fauve is the provincial capital and is full of all sorts of architectural gems I’ve been just pining to see.”

  “You and your buildings. I really need to take you to the Clan Lands one day. Now there is some architecture—over eight thousand years’ worth in some places.”

  They entered the belly of the metal snake. The interior was lush with thick carpets, wood paneling, and private seating compartments.

  “Well, Fauve will have to serve in the meanwhile,” Hatori said as he ushered them into one of the small four-seater rooms. “They do have one of the largest, most elaborate Clan districts in the world, Ass’shiri.”

  “No kidding?” Ass’shiri claimed the window seat across from Jephue. “Maybe we can find some restaurants, then. It’s been ages since I’ve gotten some decent Clan food.”

  “Well, my main interest is the Zirconia Building.” Jathen took the seat beside Ass’shiri across from Hatori. “It’s one of the most innovative uses of spatial magic on the entire continent. It’s modeled after a conch shell’s interior, you know, the spiral? Well, each room in the building leads to two additional spatial room layers, which then loop you back to a portal that’s attached to another room on the spiral. So there are actually three spirals all layered atop each other, even though there is technically only one physically built into existence. It’s brilliant.”

  “Sounds it,” Ass’shiri said. “But what is the building, actually? Like, what’s in all these rooms that’s worth looking at?”

  “Oh, it’s a natural history museum. There are exhibits on everything from anthropology to zoology.”

  “Heh. More gemstones, I’m sure.” Ass’shiri nudged his countryman with his foot. “Maybe we can lure Hatori there as well.”

  “Already seen it, several times,” Hatori told them. “There’s a diamond on display the size of Kyanith’s head—natural, none of this earth mage’s warping business.” He shot them a firm look. “Don’t get your hopes too high, though. We haven’t the time to get to your building this trip.”

  “I know,” Jathen said, hanging his head.

  Jephue patted Jathen’s knee. “There will be plenty of time.” He was dressed in brilliant blue and gold velvets for the gala. His hair was the same pale gold as Jathen’s, though his hung in ringlets. “We’ll be making multiple trips back and forth for all sorts of things: real estate hunting, commission orders, parties. You’ll get to it.”

  “Along with the larger mei district and the Beleskie Temple proper,” Ass’shiri added, elbowing Jathen in the ribs and giving him a roguish grin.

  The conductor arrived to collect their tickets, and they soon jolted out of the station with a humming burst. The ride was much smoother and less jarring than Charmed Wind, but the motion thrilled Jathen all the same. Outside, trees, bushes, and buildings sped by so fast they were nothing but streaking blurs, while more distant objects whooshed past in an almost rhythmic progression. Jathen and Ass’shiri stayed glued to the window, eyes wide in wonder while their heads swiveled back and forth.

  “How can the rest of the continent not have this?” Jathen asked, astounded. “Can you imagine how much shorter the trip here wou
ld have been if we’d ridden something like this all the way from Kidwellith?”

  “Yes, with lovely train tracks cutting into the rolling landscape,” Hatori responded. “Just you try to convince the Nijū-Iki or the Msāfryan into ruining their aesthetic for it.”

  Jathen turned to gape at him. “They really won’t allow something like this just because they don’t think it’s pretty?”

  “Not that clean cut, but it’s a reason. Notice the Clan and Tazu don’t have such things, either. Different Ways see things differently, the same with countries.”

  “Still seems like a waste.”

  “Heh. Maybe when you’re king, you can try and convince a bunch of flyers why they should spend time, money, and resources to create a mass-transit system that will be primarily used only by humans.”

  “Or cargo,” Jathen added. “There’s a limit to how much a tyrn can carry even over air. Something like this could make a massive difference in getting supplies from the plains to the base of the mountains.”

  “Well, there you go.” Hatori nodded. “When you’re king, that’s the argument to make.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  Upon discovering from the conductor that the almost three-hundred-bound trip to Fauve would take a little over two hours, Jathen was astounded. “This thing goes over one hundred thirty bounds an hour,” he said. “If we’d done it in a sleeper car, the trip from home would have taken two days.”

  “And you would have never met me,” Ass’shiri pointed out. “So stop whining and enjoy the view. Besides, it’s not that fast. My bolts fly nearly seventy bounds faster.”

  Jathen watched the landscape blur until they reached the city, where Hatori quickly procured a carriage. Jathen was grateful not only for the open view but also for the distant placement from the white, whinnying Lu’shun horses. From the dark fabric seat in the back, he observed the foreign metropolis with an architect’s fascination, craning his neck about like Tinzy following food. Fauve could not compare to Kidwellith in detail and structure, but it was still a city, alive and buzzing with the energy of the masses. There were a lot of marble and smooth stone façades, exquisitely carved reliefs in white and gray, but dull and lacking in Tazu luster. At least it’s better than pink brick. And every building looks at least a little bit different than the last, and—