'I can't sing,' he added with another smile, 'although I know how you love your songs. So for you, plum blossom, and only for you, flower of my heart and mother of my son, I will tell you the story of the events of the last many days as a tale.'
At the high salt sea, on the edge of the Hundred, a vast escarpment splits the land and the mountains plunge downward to a flat plain. If you stand on the sharp ridge that separates the waters from the cliff, you can gaze over the drylands, a desert that extends for an unknown distance, inimical to life.
But Kirit can smell the grass of home, even if maybe it is only memory.
She said, 'Uncle, I killed the ones who hurt me.'
'I know,' he said sadly.
'I killed a lot of bad people. Their hearts were rotten.'
'Some hearts do rot. Although that does not give us leave to behave as they would.'
The day was very hot, and the air so dry her lips were already cracking. 'I thought revenge would heal me. I found Shai. I looked into his heart, only his heart was veiled. But I do not need the third eye and second heart to know him, since I lived for two years in the same household. He was tempted, but he did not succumb. And if he could resist the worst in himself, then so must I. I won't become a demon.'
The wind tore at their cloaks. Far away above the southern range, raptors circled so high that they were nothing more than specks in the fierce blaze of the heavens.
'What happened to her?' she asked. 'Ashaya, who wore the cloak before me.'
He followed the distant eagles with his gaze, but finally looked at her. 'When she walked out of the Hundred, she hoped the gods would abandon her, that she would be able to die and be free, without loosing the cloak into the hands of the others.'
'But I found the cloak.'
'Yes. You did. So maybe you freed her, or maybe she was already gone. It's something to consider. What living person has ever attempted to uncloak a Guardian, eh? Who could manage it? I've been thinking about what happened to you, Kirit. It can't have been the poison that killed you.'
'The poison that killed Girish?'
'Maybe the brew wasn't strong enough to kill. Maybe he just choked to death on his vomit.'
She grinned. 'As he deserved.'
'Eiya! There's a conversation I'm not wise enough to assay. You told me the Qin captain forced you to walk into the sandstorm.'
'I wanted to rejoin my tribe. Their voices called to me from the storm.'
'Demons, most likely. Did he seek you out?'
'The captain? Neh. I went to find Mountain to tell him that the slave bearers needed water. A storm can last days. What use is shelter if you die of thirst beneath it?'
'A humble request, but a just one.'
'The captain saw me. He thought I would bring ill luck down on them because that's what demons do. He gave me a fair choice. I could walk into the storm of my own will, or he would make sure I died some other way before the journey was over. That was the first time since I walked into demon land that I got to choose.' She hid her face behind a hand, and then, finding that the voices of her lost tribesfolk did not call to her as they had in the storm, she lowered the hand and looked at him.
He smiled gently.
'I can't go home, Uncle. I am a different person, not that one who lived before.'
He sighed and said nothing, by which he meant he agreed.
Yet Rats can't stay quiet for long.
'Do you know the tale of how the wide lake came to rest here, caught between the mountains and the cliff? It happened in the Tale of Change, when the delvings captured a merling and decided that in order to keep it from escaping back into the sea they must dig a prison far from the ocean and joined to no stream or rivulet down which it could slip and slide. So they cut a path deep through the earth and under the watershed-'
'I missed you,' she said.
For a breath, two breaths, and then five, he could not speak.
A rippling movement flashed above the drowsy waters.
'Look there!' she cried.
A rocky islet lay surrounded by the lifeless waters. The islet, too, revealed no sign of life except for the desiccated remains of flowers draped over a series of crude stone pillars. A horse flew gracefully over the sea and circled the islet, and then the rider noticed them standing exposed on the ridge.
They waited.
At length her mare clattered to earth on the ridge, and Mark dismounted. She halted a prudent distance away and drew from a leather sheath a serviceable short sword, nothing fancy to look at: plain, good steel. 'The sword, called death, cuts the strand of life.'
'Where did you find it?' he asked.
'The place no one else thought to look,' she said with a grin. 'I'm Marit, as I said before. Kirit I already know. Will you tell me who you are, ver?'
'No one who ever did a cursed thing in his life to deserve good or ill, verea. But my mother, who has long since crossed the Spirit Gate, gave me the name Jothinin.'
'"Foolish Jothinin, light-minded Jothinin". An old-fashioned name. Just like in the tale.'
He smiled but said nothing.
'What is a Guardian?' she asked, but answered herself. 'It's not a thing already made. It's what we become of our own shaping.'
He rested his staff against a shoulder and opened his hands in the gesture of welcoming. 'Will you join us, little sister?' Kirit looked sharply at him but did not object. 'We have scant hope of victory, but we must make the effort.'
She laughed, and the air wicked away her tears. 'Allies, then?'
'Indeed we are,' he agreed with a sweet, sober smile. 'The last of our kind.'
54
At dawn, as the clangor of the temple bells called men to prayer, Keshad confronted the guards at the gate, holding his blessing bowl in cupped hands.
'I need to pray.'
They looked at each other. One went into the guardhouse and emerged with the sergeant while the other stared straight ahead, pretending not to see Kesh.
'No foreigners allowed in Sarida today,' said the sergeant. He was a big man with hair shaved short and powerful hands that looked ready to crush the windpipe of any clamoring fool who annoyed him.
'1 need to pray.' Again he displayed the bowl. 'I am a believing man. Not like the others.'
He did not look into the courtyard where sour-faced men gathered yawning and stretching to mutter among themselves at the locked gate. The foreign merchants had heard trumpets in the night, and now it seemed they were to be imprisoned all day, not even let free to buy and sell in the market. Mutters turned to
54
cheerful greetings as Eliar emerged from the cubicle he shared with Keshad, and at once the conversation flowered with laughter and spirited banter. Everyone liked Eliar! Kesh could not understand how the others could stomach the Silver's convivial ways and inanely amiable chatter.
'All peace be upon Beltak, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Shining One Who Rules Alone,' said the sergeant at last, having taken his time to think things through. 'The priests bid us to open the exalted gates to all men. To turn away a man who wishes to enter would be like killing him. Therefore, go. But return here after. This guard will accompany you. He speaks nothing of the trade talk, so no point in trying to converse.'
'My thanks,' said Kesh. 'I'm just surprised. We heard trumpets last night, and now we're told we can't go into the market. It's impossible to do business.'
'Those are my orders.'
And that, Kesh judged, was far enough to push this one. He waited while the inner gate was unlocked, a laborious process involving chains, locks, and keys, and cursed if Eliar didn't trot up behind.
'Heya, Keshad. Where are you going? How did you get permission to leave? Are they opening the gates for the day, finally?'
'Move back,' said the sergeant in a curt way that made Eliar startle and Kesh smile. 'No one allowed out.'