Halls of Law

by V. M. Escalada

  “You sound better already.” Ker helped Tel to sit up, laid his military cloak over his shoulders, and one of the blankets across his legs. Fever or no, it was too cold for him to be sitting there without a shirt, even with the fire.

  “I feel better.”

  “Here, drink this. It should make you feel better still.” He took the cup of yarrow tea from her with his left hand. She only had to steady it a bit. “I’ll look around for wild yarrow tomorrow, or fever bark if that’s the best I can find.”

  “What now?”

  Ker’s stomach chose that moment to growl. “I don’t know what I want more, to eat or to sleep. Sleep, I guess.”

  “Both of us?”

  He was right. Someone should keep watch. But if she didn’t sleep soon, she was in danger of falling face-first into the fire. She was tired enough to take a chance that she might have unpleasant dreams. “If you can stay awake, you can take the first watch. I’ve been on my feet since dawn yesterday, and I’m all in.”

  There was only the one set of blankets, but Ker was beyond caring. She rolled herself in her own cloak, and pulled the remaining blanket almost completely over her head. For a moment she wondered what Tel Cursar had done about keeping watch when he was alone. For another moment she thought that sleep wouldn’t come after all, that she’d reached that strange level of exhaustion where she was so tired she couldn’t drop off, but just as she was formulating the thought, the world drifted away.

  • • •

  The afternoon was well advanced when Kerida woke up to the smell of roasting meat. She squeezed her eyes shut, almost afraid to open them. But she’d slept like a stone, with no dreams. Maybe she would be all right after all. She rolled over, every muscle protesting, and blinked at the fire. Or rather, at what was on the skewer suspended above the fire.

  “You went hunting?” She didn’t exactly call him an idiot, but it was all there in her tone. If this was how he rested, it was no wonder his wound had become infected.

  “Didn’t have to. We set snares when we first got here, and when I went out to check them, I found this rabbit.” He grinned at her. “And I was careful to use only my left hand.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ker would have been happier about it if the glint of fever wasn’t still in his eye. She rolled upright, stretching as much as her sore muscles and the confined space would let her, and rubbed at her face. She focused on the rabbit, her mouth watering. “Not dead too long, I hope.”

  “What do you take me for?”

  “I take you for somebody who doesn’t know how to keep his wound clean, and who, instead of resting to make sure his fever doesn’t get worse, pretends he managed to gut and skin a rabbit with only his left hand.”

  Tel’s face hardened, but almost immediately, he nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “I admit I haven’t made much of a showing. But roasting rabbits is a skill I definitely do have. Here.” He had cut a travel cake in walnut-sized pieces, and now handed her two of them. “Something to take the edge off, if you haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

  Everyone called it travel cake, but the fact was that even people who never journeyed farther than the nearest market kept some on hand, especially large groups like the military or the Halls. Kerida had only the vaguest idea how it was prepared. Made properly, however, travel cakes could be kept for years before they would go bad, and a person could live on them safely, even when they could get no fresh food of any kind.

  Too bad she’d never gotten to where she liked the taste.

  She washed the first chunk of cake down with several swallows of water before putting cake and waterskin aside. “Let’s have a look at your shoulder while we’re waiting for that rabbit.”

  With only his left arm through the sleeve hole, Tel’s tunic pulled off easily. Once she’d untied the shirt-sling, Ker was happy to see the wound had lost its fiery redness, and felt much cooler to the back of her hand. She wiped it clean again with the yarrow water she had saved from the morning, rewrapped the dressing, and restored Tel’s arm to its sling.

  “How do you feel?” She laid the inside of her forearm against his forehead. She could vaguely remember her mother doing this to her as a child. Or perhaps it had been her brother.

  “Much better, I’m glad to say.”

  “You still feel warm to me, but not as hot as you did when I got here.”

  “Which reminds me, just what is it that brought you here? Or do I need to ask?”

  Kerida had no way to know what her face told him, but it clearly told him something.

  “Never mind,” he was quick to say. “There’s only one thing that would have a Talent on the run for a whole day.” He prodded the rabbit with the point of his knife, clearly needing to look away. He was trying to keep his tone level, but he wasn’t doing all that well. “Did many escape?”

  Kerida shook her head, trying to dislodge the images of what she’d seen in the great room. “No one.” She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry and her throat tight. She picked up the waterskin, but couldn’t make herself drink from it. “No one else, that I know of.” Once more, the enormity of what had happened swelled up out of the darkness to overwhelm her. Once more, Ker pushed it back.

  “Hey.” Tel’s hand was on her arm; she blinked at it before looking up into his face. His pale gray eyes were still too bright, but there was a warmth in them that reminded her of the first time she’d seen him in the kitchen at the Hall. “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said. “You did what you needed to do.”

  Her glance fell on the ax she’d left leaning against the far wall. But he didn’t know about that. “I didn’t go back, I didn’t help anyone. I didn’t even check to see if there was anyone to help.” Kerida shut her mouth tight, clenching her teeth together, before the rising note of hysteria she’d heard in her voice could get any worse.

  “You did what you needed to do,” Tel repeated. “Just like those Eagles did, leaving me behind. Getting killed along with everyone else wouldn’t have helped anyone.” He gave her arm a little shake. “It wouldn’t have helped me, that’s certain.”

  All of which was true. None of which made her feel any better. She made her lips smile. “Is the rabbit burning?”

  The rabbit was fine, and if Kerida had to force herself to finish her share, at least it was an improvement over travel cakes. Neither one of them had much appetite, but both understood the necessity of eating. Once they’d finished, and Kerida had made Tel drink another cup of yarrow tea, she got him to lie down, spreading both blankets and his cloak over him.

  “You’ll be cold,” he said, shifting to find the position where his shoulder would hurt the least.

  “I’ve got my cloak. And I’m closer to the fire.”

  “Sing out if you need me.”

  “Of course,” she lied. Pulling the hood up on the cloak, she went out of the mine entirely, needing to feel the fresh wind on her face, trying to gauge whether it was getting colder. Snow hadn’t fallen yet, but from the smell of the air, it wasn’t far off. Eventually, she went back inside, settling in a spot where she had a good view through the entrance. She set Tel’s sword down on her right, the ax she’d taken from the Halian on her left, hoping not to have to use either. It had been a long time.

  I can’t always be lucky enough to cut someone’s throat from behind while he doesn’t even know I’m there. She stroked the handle of the ax with her thumb. She done exactly what she’d once trained very hard to do. Kill the enemy. It was never easy, and should never be done lightly, but it was necessary. The Faraman Polity was still expanding, and even on the Peninsula there was still order to be kept. The first time, though. The first time was hard. She sighed, wishing she could use the flames in front of her to meditate, to empty her mind of the thoughts that whirled there, and keep it empty.

  “Talk to me.” Tel’s voice startled her, its warmth pulling her back from her
bleak thoughts.

  She sat up straighter, easing her shoulders and lower back. “You should be resting.”

  “I am resting. It’s just that I can’t sleep.”

  Ker cut off a sour laugh. “Aren’t we a pair. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep either.”

  “Well, you did sleep most of the day.” There was an edge of irritation in his voice that Ker put down to the fever.

  “I was exhausted. Now I’m not.”

  “And you’re still brooding about leaving your mates behind you. I’ve already said you shouldn’t feel badly about that.”

  Ker shook her head. “Easier said than done. But it’s not just that. I don’t want to see . . .” Why shouldn’t she just say it? Every soldier had a first time when it came to killing. If he was going to laugh at her doubt and queasiness, she’d better get it over with. Not that she cared what he thought.

  “I’m afraid of what I’ll see if I try to sleep. The images.” She swallowed, focusing her eyes on the fire. The way the wet blood on the ax caught the flicker of the flames as the blade fell onto Cana’s neck. “The way the horse shied when the spray of blood hit him in the face,” she said aloud.

  “Someone killed a horse?” Tel sounded interested.

  “No, I killed a man to get a horse. That’s how I got these.” She indicated the helm and the ax. “I killed him while I was getting away.”

  Fever still flushed Tel’s face. But not laughter. “Your first?” he said, nodding back at her when she nodded. “So. Somewhere every soldier has been. You already know the truth of this. You had no choice. If you’d stayed to help any of your friends, you’d have been killed, too. Running was the smart thing, the right thing. Tell me, which was harder? The killing or the running?”

  “Running.” Ker blinked. She’d answered without thinking, and she’d surprised herself.

  “So you’ve learned a lesson that every soldier learns sooner or later. Running is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do.” He nodded his head at the ax. “Killing someone’s far easier.”

  Kerida felt a tightness deep inside her suddenly loosen. “It didn’t bother me when I did it. Like you said, it was something I had to do. But now—when I shut my eyes, I keep thinking I see his face, accusing me, glaring at me from under this helm.” She tapped it. “Except I never saw the man’s face. Never turned him over to look at it.”

  “That will pass, trust me.” He took a deep breath, and his tone changed. “You must have gone in for training while you were still in nappies, to have had any at all before your Talent came.”

  Kerida was never sure what prompted her to tell him the truth. Perhaps it was the loss of everything she’d known for the last two years. Perhaps it was the shock of their world, of which the Halls of Law were the backbone, falling to pieces around them. Perhaps it was because he understood how she felt.

  “I hid my Talent,” she said. “The Halls of Law didn’t find out about me until a couple of years ago.”

  Tel shifted up onto an elbow. “You hid it? How? Why? That’s supposed to be impossible.”

  “Remember how you guessed that my sister was Ester Nast? Well, if you thought about it a little more, you’d realize that means my other sister is Tonia Nast, Faro of Panthers, and my father is Elidon Nast, who was Faro before her, like my grandmother Fermina Nast before him. Not to mention some of my aunts and uncles and cousins, scattered through the Wings.” Ker scrubbed at her face with her hands. “I grew up in a military household. We’re one of the old Shield families. We’ve born arms for the Polity for generations. Since before there was a Polity, if you listen to my grandmother. I never expected anything else, I never wanted anything else.”

  “But when your Talent came?”

  “When I got caught, I told everyone that it had only just come. It hadn’t.” Ker blinked. Apparently, once she’d decided to tell the truth, she was going to tell all of it. “Exactly the opposite, in fact. My Talent came early. Much earlier than it’s supposed to.”

  Tel shook his head. “Why didn’t they find it when you were examined?”

  Ker pulled the cloak a little closer around her. Whose was it? And why hadn’t she thought about that until now? She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Tel Cursar was still looking at her, apparently willing to wait, his pale eyes fixed on hers, until she told him.

  “I was alone when it happened the first time.” She hesitated again, feeling the warm mud, and the cold smoothness of the old bone under her fingertips. “I found the bones of a murdered man. The Talent High Inquisitor said it was such a shock,” she finally managed to say, “so horrible, what I Flashed, that I somehow blocked it all away: the images, the Talent itself, everything.”

  “But how could it have been a shock? Didn’t you get the lecture?”

  Ker raised her eyebrows at him. “How old were you when you first got the lecture?”

  He shrugged, wincing as his wounded shoulder moved. “I don’t know. Nine? Ten? Oh!” The light dawned. “You were younger, you said. Your Talent came so early you hadn’t heard the lecture.”

  “I hadn’t heard it. And you know no one talks about it in front of you, until you’ve had it.”

  He was nodding. “Like it’s too frightening for children to know about, until they have to.” He drew his brows together. “But when you did get the lecture, you must have realized then what had happened to you?”

  “By then I thought I’d imagined it. I convinced myself that it was a dream or something.” And I was hoping it was, she said to herself. Aloud she added, “I think that’s why no one ever found it when I was examined.”

  “But it did happen again. And you hid it.”

  His fever must be getting better, Ker thought, for his thinking to be so clear. “It did, and I did,” she admitted. “It only flared up once in a while, so I thought I could go on hiding it.”

  “How did you slip up?”

  “That’s just it. It takes training to use it, to make it come and make it go. Otherwise, we’d be Flashing everything, all the time, we couldn’t touch anything or anyone.” She shuddered, remembering again the shock of that first time when the Talent had hit her like a blow from a war club. “Looking back on it, I suppose it was inevitable that one day I’d Flash when there were other people around.” She sat up straighter, hands on her knees. “So that was that. The end of my military career.”

  “But the start of another one.”

  Ker shot him a look. Sure, easy for him to say. Everyone respected Talents, but nobody liked them. “Yes, well. It’s only just recently I’ve started to look at it that way,” she said finally. Now that it’s too late, she realized with a sinking to her stomach.

  “And your family being military couldn’t have made things any easier.” Tel was lying once more on his back, his uninjured arm tucked under his head. “Did you ever hear from them?”

  Ker moved her head slowly to the left, to the right, and back again.

  He rolled over to face her again. “What did you think about that?”

  She looked away, shrugging. “What was I going to think? ‘Talents do not live in the world.’ Everyone knows it.” But she’d expected something, even if just her childhood books. But they’d sent nothing, not even a farewell note. Ker rubbed at a spot of dirt on her breeches.

  Tel grunted his understanding, and she looked at him sideways. He was breathing faster than he should be, and his color was up again. He needed to calm down.

  “You’d better go to sleep,” she said.

  Tel looked into the fire for a long moment before he nodded and settled back again. Kerida thought he’d fallen asleep at last when he spoke again.

  “How far along in your training are you?”

  “Why?”

  “I was wondering if you could Flash that ax you have, or the helm.”

  Startled, Ker looked down
at the ax as if seeing it for the first time. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. Though now that she was thinking of it, Ker knew perfectly well why. She’d killed the man who used this ax. She didn’t want to learn that he had a family, people he loved and who loved him, back wherever Halia really was.

  And she didn’t want to know what the ax had been used for before she’d taken it.

  “Do you think you could? We might get useful information.”

  It would be very easy to say no. To say that her Talent wasn’t trained enough. The fact was that remnants of her original block still prevented her from Flashing much from people, though she and her Tutors had been working on that. But she could Flash objects better than most. And Tel was right; they might very well be able to get something useful from the ax and helm.

  Suddenly the fire seemed very small, and the dark very large.

  “Let’s wait until the morning,” she said finally. “It’s easier when I’m rested. Now get to sleep. It’ll be your watch soon.”

  “Yes, Mother. Kerida?”

  “What?”

  “What happened to the horse?”

  WHEN Kerida woke up the next morning, the sun was clear of the horizon, and the air was crisp with frost. Tel Cursar had been out already. That was clear from the amount of wood available for the fire. He was squatting now on his heels, the fingers of his free hand wrapped completely around one of the small clay cups. Ker could smell the distinctive aroma of kaff.

  “Can’t you sit still for more than two minutes?” She sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and wincing at her still sore finger.

  “I only went out for wood—which I tucked into my sling, so don’t give me that look. I think I found some fever bark, but maybe you should see it for yourself.” He studied the liquid in his cup as if it carried a message. “Time I should be moving on, anyway.” There was a sudden bleakness in his tone that Ker hadn’t heard before. What dark thoughts had Tel been thinking while he gathered wood?

  She threw off her blankets and rolled slowly to her feet. Her muscles still felt every single one of the steps she’d taken to get here. “If you don’t give yourself a chance, your fever will get worse, and then where will you be? Alone with no shelter and no medicine.”