“You should hear the truly great bards sing,” Darnae said. She flicked a strand of spider silk off her sleeve. “Or hear the elves when they perform in the native tongue. You would weep.”
“I came to tell you that I’m leaving,” Ashok said. “But I hope … I think I’ll be back, in a tenday, or a little more.”
Darnae nodded as if she wasn’t surprised. “Since we met, I’ve heard folk talk about you in the trade districts,” she said, “and not just because of what happened at the tavern. You have my thanks for that-I should have mentioned it before.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Ashok said.
“But I did, and it’s done,” Darnae said. She draped the cloth over her shoulder and sat on the top of the stool, which put her almost at eye-level with Ashok. “I haven’t heard where you’re going and why, but folk who whisper about you say you’re a messenger from Tempus.”
Ashok shook his head. “Don’t believe the things you hear,” he said.
“So you’re not?” Darnae asked, looking speculative. “But you are something different, aren’t you?”
“Why do you say that?” Ashok asked.
Darnae swung her short legs back and forth, curling them beneath the stool rung. Her feet were bare, and bore a fine coating of dirt. “No one else in that tavern would have done what you did,” she said. “They wouldn’t have considered it. Not because they’re cruel or heartless, but the hierarchy is well established here.”
“They see you as beneath them,” Ashok said.
Darnae nodded. She worked the rag in her hands. “It isn’t easy for them to have to rely so much on the labor and trade of other races,” she said. “They are proud of their accomplishments as warriors and of the grip they have upon their souls. But the truth is they slip, sometimes-you’ve seen it for yourself. They are not always as in control as they would like others to think.”
“You speak bluntly,” Ashok said. “You weren’t like this the last time I came here.”
“You’re right,” Darnae said. “I have to keep up polite appearances for the sake of my business. But as I said, something about you seems different. It makes me feel as if I can speak, that you will understand and not be threatened by the truth.”
“I do understand,” Ashok said, waiting while Darnae climbed down the stool. “I should go.”
“I wish you a fair journey, Ashok,” Darnae said. “Come to see me again, when you return.”
“Are you saying that for appearance’s sake?” Ashok asked.
Darnae smiled at him. “What do you think?” she replied.
Ashok smiled back, a tentative expression. “I think I will look forward to seeing you,” he said.
Ashok went back to the tower and lay down to rest before the Exeden bell. He felt himself drifting on the edges of sleep when he heard the sound.
Ashok opened his eyes in the darkness and listened. He heard nothing, and thought he must have imagined it, but when he reached automatically for the weapons at his belt, his hand grazed the wall, and he felt the vibration through the stone.
Sitting up, Ashok put his ear to the tower wall. Low, rhythmic beats, so deep that they passed through the stone into his skin.
He pulled on his boots and left the tower room. Down the stairs the beats got louder, until they shook the dust off the walls. Ashok could see it drifting in the air. There were voices too, a host of men and women shouting in time to the beats.
Ashok threw open the tower door and strode out into the training yard. What he saw stopped the breath in his chest and sent a wave of fear and awe through his soul.
Hundreds of shadar-kai had gathered in the yard. Ashok recognized warriors in training, Guardians, all ranks of the military including Neimal, and the other Sworn. Their feet pounded the ground in a dance even as their voices rose to the shadows above. It was not a song they sang; there were no words, only shouts of triumph and pain as over and over they lifted their legs and drove their feet into the ground in a punishing rhythm that echoed throughout the city.
Among them, humans and dwarves carried bundles of wood, flint, and steel. They arranged the wood in three large circles in the yard and lit fires from them.
At first the small golden blazes were lost amid all the dancing gray bodies, but then Neimal swept forward in her gray and black robes. She climbed into the back of a wagon near the iron fence so she could see over the crowd. She opened her arms and uttered words that were lost over the rush of shadar-kai cheers. Her lips moved, the crowd’s shouts built into a roar, and Ashok felt the heat rising in the air as the flames climbed and turned from orange to brilliant white.
Everywhere there was light. It was painful to look at, but it drove back the shadows in a way Ashok had never seen light do in the dismal Shadowfell.
The other races skittered back from the fire circles, but the shadar-kai formed their own rings around the blazes. Ashok stepped into the yard. The shadar-kai’s stomping feet and shouts invaded his mind, and Ashok found himself joining the crowd. The shadar-kai enfolded him-strangers he’d never seen before that night-until he could not tell his own body from the others.
The crowd moved in a slow circle, and Ashok found himself swept along with them. His feet joined the rhythmic pounding. Every stamp against the ground was a roar and sent a shudder of pain through his bones. As one, they could crack the earth, split it open, and expose another world, or so it felt to Ashok.
Fire surged before Ashok’s eyes, and his face became slick with sweat. He tried to pull back from the circles, but the crowd guided him inexorably forward, closer to the enchanted flames. There were hands on his shoulders, his hands were on other shoulders, and suddenly they were all running forward, one body, one mind, and jumping.
They passed through the flames and landed in the heart of the fire rings. Ashok could hear the triumphant cries from the other circles and see shadar-kai shadows dancing in the light. The men and women within his own circle bounded up and threw their heads back, screaming to the world above. Their clothing fire-blackened, the shadar-kai shed their garments and continued to dance naked, their feet always pounding the ground.
Ashok felt hands draw him up and into the dance. Bodies pressed together, slick with sweat, the heat unbearable but vital. They were in the heart of a forge.
Ashok let the shadar-kai pull his shirt over his head, strip away his armor until he was completely naked. The fire surged. Ashok shouted and danced with his people. They could be burned to ash, their skin seared off their bodies, but he’d never felt so utterly whole. He wasn’t being torn apart or cut to shreds with a blade.
He was Ashok. No: he was shadar-kai.
When the flames burned low enough, they leaped over the fire and collapsed upon each other, screaming, laughing like wild children.
Ashok fell on his back and closed his eyes. He could hold no thoughts in his head, had no room for doubts or pain or fear. There were too many of them. His flesh touched that of another, and another, with nothing to distinguish him from the whole. No one could see him; nothing could hurt him. For all his arrogance, he’d never been stronger than he was there, at that breath in time.
He could see the others shouting to each other, kissing, dancing. He sat up, wanting to take it all in, to remember this feeling always.
A hand touched his shoulder. He turned to see Chanoch kneeling on the grass, naked, his eyes shining with tears.
“I came to tell you,” Chanoch said. Ashok could barely hear him. “I wanted you to see.” The young one’s voice broke. He pitched forward on his hands, exposing his back to Ashok. “I’ve been given the mark. Praise Tempus!”
Ashok saw the black blade, the symbol of Tempus tattooed down Chanoch’s spine. His surrounding skin was deep red and raw from the work, but Chanoch’s body quivered with rapture.
Praise be, Ashok wanted to say, but he stopped before the words reached his lips. He touched Chanoch’s shoulder instead. He could hear the young one weeping.