Darkened Blade: A Fallen Blade Novel (9 page)

There. At least for the moment, that should reduce any impulses to advance Jax’s case for First Blade via a dagger in my back. In the days of the goddess, such an idea would never even have occurred to me. But now, with all the betrayals I’d faced over the last few years, and the simple fact that I was leading a society of
assassins
, it was a possibility I couldn’t afford to ignore.

“Does anyone else have any questions before I tell you where we are with respect to the forces of Heaven’s Reach and how we got here? It will take me some time to get through it all, but hopefully by the end you’ll see why Kelos yet lives, why I have a Hand in my train, and understand the full story of the fall of the temple.”

Jax raised a hand. “I want to know what is going on with Devin and the other traitors, and what you intend to do about them.”

“To the extent that I know anything about the first part, I’ll get there. As to the second, that will be a matter for the new shadow council. It’s not a decision I feel that I should make alone.” As much as
kill them, kill them all
appealed to me at the moment, I suspected it wasn’t the best choice.

Jax nodded and looked thoughtful.

Inaya’s familiar Ssayath, spoke from the wall behind her next. “Master Aral, in that same line, I would like to know what you intend to do about Master Kelos and Resshath Malthiss.”

“Assuming that they and I both survive our visit with the Son of Heaven, I think that we will have to bring him before the shadow council as well. His crimes were against all of us, and all of us who remain should have a part in deciding his fate.”

“Thank you,” said Ssayath.

Once, you would have said that his crimes were against the goddess. . . .
Triss sounded sad and wistful in my mind.
You have changed so very much these last few years.

For the better, I hope. I am no longer as certain of things as I once was, but I feel wiser.

Even as Triss and I continued our silent conversation, I began to speak aloud, relating all that I knew and had guessed about the Son of Heaven, the fall of the temple, Kelos, and, well . . . everything I had been doing since Maylien had come to me for aid in regaining her legacy. Well, nearly everything. There were a number of secrets I wasn’t yet ready to share.

You are wiser, I think,
sent Tris,
and you have stopped drinking. But you are a harder man now and a colder one. You have always been capable of great good. Now I think you are also capable of great harm, and that concerns me.

I wouldn’t worry too much. I have you to advise me.

That
is part of what concerns me. I think that I understand your people better than most of my kind, but I am not
of
you. I attempt to live mercy because it is—or was—important to you and to Namara, but it is a learned thing. Darkness does not know restraint. It is all devouring and without pity, and, as much as I am bound to you and, through you, to humanity, I am still an elemental creature of darkness. In my mind, I may share your ideals, but in my soul . . . I look at what Thiussus was like and I wonder how easy it would be for me to become her.

I thought back to what I had seen of Nuriko’s mad Shade familiar . . .
I can’t see it.
I simply couldn’t imagine Triss ever acting like she did.
You’re better than that. Sane, for starters.

I thank you for that, and I hope that you are right, but still, I worry.

But then I was coming to my first encounter with Devin after the fall of the temple—a particularly dense section of the story I was telling aloud—and I had to drop the conversation with Triss to give my full attention to the details.

Hours later, after I had passed through the revolution in Zhan, the events that had cost Jax half her hand, and the rising of the buried gods, I finally wound down to the last few weeks, the death of the most recent Signet, and what she had told me. I elided some of the details about the powers Siri had gained through her forced connection to the Smoldering Flame—that was her story to tell, if she chose, and not mine.

When I was done, there was a long silence, into which the growling of Faran’s stomach made an especially loud interjection—it
had
been a long march on tight rations. Taking that as a sign, and because I wanted to give all the information time to sink in before we started arguing about Kelos and Chomarr, we adjourned for a late lunch.

In another place it would have been supper, but much of a Blade’s training and life happened at night, and Jax ran the place on the same timeline as the temple, which meant four meals. First breakfast came shortly after dawn, for the convenience of those who had to operate on the sun’s time for one reason or another. The shepherds who maintained the flocks that fed the castle for example. Blade’s breakfast happened at midday and provided lunch to the grooms and other morning folk. Dinner, or Blade’s lunch was served around sunset, and supper happened at midnight.

Dalridian cuisine was heavy on frying, sausage of the unidentifiable bits variety, and other foods that could be stored for a long time without spoiling. It reminded me strongly of the things my family had eaten back in Varya before the temple
took me, and not in a good way. There was some nostalgia value to it, but after years of eating spicy Zhani noodle dishes and Sylvani curries, it sat very heavy on the stomach.

Not that I faulted Jax for that. The castle stood in a remote village in the mountains in a country that was cut off from the rest of the world for half the year, and the fancier sorts of culinary preservation magics were extraordinarily expensive. One of the things I was going to have to do sooner rather than later if I wanted to properly reestablish the order was figure out some way to get in better food and some really good cooks. If I didn’t, the next generation of Blades was going to be terrible with poisons. You have to know how to cook and how to season if you want to successfully dose a meal or drink.

“So.” Jax leaned in close as she finished her food. “Now that we’re done stalling, can we talk about Kelos, and whether or not we should leave him out in the rain to rot with his Hand friend?”

I responded just as quietly. “You saw through that, huh?”

“Aral, we were engaged through several possible but never realized wedding dates. I can spot your stalling face from a mile away on a dark night with a patch over one eye.”

Ouch.

Hush, Triss.
Aloud, I said, “Point.”

“Well?” asked Jax.

I looked around the large room. The group that had met in the council chamber was alone, the majority of the castle’s inhabitants having eaten their lunches at a more reasonable hour. There was no reason not to continue the discussion here.

“I think it’s time we brought them in,” I said. “Siri, will you go collect Kelos and Chomarr for me?”

She rose instantly from her chair. “Of course. I presume you would like me to bring them in as quietly as possible.”

I nodded. “Not that it’s going to do any good. I know exactly what young Blades are like. There’s not a chance in the world that the whole school isn’t going to know they’re here within five minutes of the drawbridge going down to let
you all in. Still, I’d like to keep the fuss to a minimum for as long as possible. We’ll meet you in the council chamber.”

The school likely already knows,
Triss sent as Siri faded out of sight.

Oh?
I asked as we rose and headed out in the other direction.

Maryam is not happy with how things are going. She fell to the back of the group on our walk here, and Vrass fell back farther still. I expect that she passed word along to those she thought would support her.

Lovely. Do you think I will need to do something about Maryam?

Perhaps. It would certainly pay to be ready for that.

I don’t want to fracture the remainder of the order any worse than it already is,
I sent.

I hope that it doesn’t come to that.

But you don’t believe it.

No, not really.

“H
ello,
Jax.” That was all that Kelos said. A simple
hello
as he stepped through the door into the room. It was also, quite clearly, too much for Jax.

The council table was a long slab of some dark wood that could easily have seated twenty. I was at the end on the right as you entered the room with Faran and Siri flanking me on the sides. The journeymen were ranged around the far end, with Jax at the seat across from the door, bridging the divide between us.

When Kelos spoke, Jax made a little choking noise and then moved as I had not seen her move since our temple days. In one long fluid motion she launched herself up and out of her seat and landed in a crouch on the table, all in perfect silence. A flick of her wrist dropped a knife into her good hand as she made a backhanded cut at Kelos’s throat. It was blindingly fast, and it would have killed most men. But Kelos was not most men.

He caught her hand almost casually, not even interrupting the flow of her spin, just a brief squeeze and twist as it approached his face. The knife fell to the stone floor with a
harsh ting while Jax continued her rotation, turning past Kelos. But Jax was very good, too, and she brought her right foot up as she pivoted on the ball of her left when her hands touched the table, lashing a heel at Kelos’s face.

It was a powerful kick, with the whole weight of her body behind it. Kelos caught Jax’s ankle with the same hand that he’d used to disarm her, and she just . . . stopped—like she’d hit a stone pillar. Before she could do anything else, Kelos pushed, throwing his weight behind the move. Jax skidded toward the far edge of the table.

She lifted her free foot and stomp-kicked at the hand holding her ankle. Kelos caught that foot as well, and now he pulled and twisted so that Jax ended up dangling upside down by her ankles facing away from Kelos. She wasn’t completely helpless that way, but nothing she could do was going to put someone like Kelos at serious risk.

That’s when Maryam struck. Sometime during the action, she had drawn her right-hand sword. Now she thrust in sharply at Kelos’s ribs from the side. Malthiss appeared then, batting the sword away even as Kelos turned and interposed the dangling Jax between himself and Maryam as a shield. That put his right side toward the table and his back to Siri.

“Child, I would prefer not to hurt you,” Kelos said, quietly. “Please don’t strike at me again.”

Jax sighed. “Maryam, do as he says. Kelos, put me down.”

“Are you going to attack me again?”

“No. Not while you’re awake anyway.”

Kelos chuckled. “Good enough. Smart, too. You might even get me that way.” He tossed Jax into a flip that allowed her to land gracefully on her feet facing him.

She turned a hard look my way. “I thought you said he had a death wish, Aral.”

I shrugged. “I thought he did. Perhaps that was all reflex?”

“I choose not to die today,” said Kelos. “But it won’t be much longer.” He sounded old and tired and unspeakably sad. “Once the Son of Heaven is gone, I will have no reason to keep fighting. Until then . . .” He shrugged. “Until then,
well, it could go either way. Depends on mood more than anything.”

He turned and stuck his head out into the hall. “I was right to have you wait back there, but you can come in now, Lieutenant Chomarr. I think that the bulk of the killing rage has been burned off for the moment, though I wouldn’t turn my back on anyone but Aral and Siri, if I were you.”

The Hand entered cautiously with a terse, “Noted.”

Chomarr took a seat between Siri and Kelos as the latter closed the council room door and leaned back against it. His Storm flew down to perch on his thigh.

“Aren’t you worried that one of my students might put a sword through your back from the hall?” Jax asked Kelos.

“Do you think Malthiss would let that happen?” he countered, and I noticed that his shadow vanished under the door rather than taking basilisk shape behind him.

“No, probably not. But a girl can dream, can’t she?” Jax vaulted back over the table and reclaimed her seat. She assumed a calm tone, but I could read the fury in the lines of her neck and the set of her lips—I had seen it often enough when we were engaged.

“Lieutenant Chomarr?” she said. “I understand that you have information we need. In light of that, I’ll refrain from letting my students kill you before we’ve extracted it, but, your people gave me these.” Jax traced a finger lightly along the scars on her cheek. “And this.” She lifted her half hand. “Give me the slightest excuse, and I will cut your living heart out of your chest.”

The Hand nodded, his face almost serene. “I have served my god all the days of my life. My soul is always prepared for death. I do not fear to meet the lords of judgment. Nor the wheel of rebirth.”

I recognized his expression by the way it felt from within. When my goddess yet lived I wore it often enough myself—utter religious certitude, perhaps the most fundamental problem of fanaticism.

Roric cleared his throat. “Just say the word, Lieutenant, and I can speed you on your way.” He touched the scar where
his ear used to be. “Like Master Jax, I have a few debts I owe where your kind is concerned.”

I can’t quit, can I, Triss?
I sent.
Right now, what I want more than anything in the world is to get up and walk away. I want to go home to my horrible little room in the hayloft at the Gryphon’s Head and go back to being a shadowside jack whose only problem is where to find enough money for my next drink.

Is that really what you want? To become a drunk once more? Because, as I remember it, you were fucking miserable doing that.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead.
You’re right, and it was killing me. But I don’t want the weight of the order on my shoulders, much less what’s going to happen if we kill the Son of Heaven. I really don’t know if I can bear it all.

If
we kill the Son of Heaven? I thought it was
when
. But we can discuss this later; if you don’t want another fight breaking out in this room in the next few minutes, you need to get your hands back on the reins.

Triss was right, as usual. “Roric, that’s enough. Everyone, Lieutenant Chomarr is here under my protection, and I will not have him threatened any further.” I turned to Chomarr next. “I’ve told my people the basics of my conversation with Toragana and what we believe is happening with the Son, and in Heaven’s Reach, but I’ve left the details of current security arrangements till now. Why don’t you and Kelos give Jax and her students a full rundown of the layout of the temple precinct and the situation within.”

Chomarr nodded and began to speak.

There,
sent Triss.
Very leaderly. Was that so hard?

Yes. Leaderly? Are you sure you speak human?

It’s a perfectly good word.

It’s really not,
I admonished.

Hush, you should be listening to this.

I heard it all before, back in Tavan.

Triss made the mental equivalent of a snort.
You weren’t listening that time either. Not really. I can tell when you’re
not paying attention by the way your daydreams start to leak.

Fine. I’ll listen.

I believe you.

I tried to force myself to it, but I kept thinking back to that little room in Tien. It was a hellhole and I was drinking myself to death, but there was something terribly seductive about the idea of going back to not owing anything to anybody beyond Triss and my bar bill.

I may have agreed to try to deal with the Son of Heaven, and he certainly deserved it, but I couldn’t stop worrying about what the aftermath was going to look like. The responsibility might ultimately belong to the Son of Heaven, but, if I succeeded, it was going to be
me
who killed off an entire ruling class. There was a potential there for death and destruction across the eleven kingdoms on a scale that hadn’t been seen since the mage wars had devoured the western lands more than two thousand years ago.
Then
, the survivors had moved into what was now the eleven kingdoms, variously conquering, assimilating with, or being massacred by the people of the-East-that-was.

You’re not listening.

And so it went.

*   *   *

It
was sometime after noon when a gentle tap came at my door.

“Yes?” I mumbled from under my pillow.

The door creaked open, so I flipped the pillow aside. It was Altia, who had been Faran’s closest friend back before the fall of the temple. She was compact and muscular with a round face and golden brown skin that marked her out as Kvani—Dvali if I was remembering right. Her familiar, Olthiss, took the shape of a Kvani-style manticore—a bat-winged horse with saberlike teeth and a scorpion’s tail. But, for the moment, he remained hidden in her shadow.

“They’re serving breakfast in the great hall, Master Aral,
if you would like to come down.” She had a deep, rough voice and a warm smile. “Otherwise I can bring a tray up for you.”

I blinked. “A tray would be lovely. Did Jax send you? Or Kelos?”

Altia laughed merrily. “No. I overheard the servants arguing about who they ought to send to”—and here her voice shifted higher and took on a sharp worried undertone as she quoted—“‘wake up the First Blade.’ I could tell that the thought of bothering the Kingslayer made them all very nervous, so I offered to come in their stead.”

“That was kind,” I replied. “Even among Blades in training there aren’t many who would think of the servants’ feelings and choose to take on a duty that they might feel was beneath them.”

“Beneath me?” She shook her head. “Hardly that. I was raised to become a Blade, but I was born in Dval. You are First Blade, and that makes you my clan chief. I owe you my sword and my service. Bringing breakfast to the head of my new clan family and my khan is no burden. Now, let me get to it while the food is still fresh.”

“All right. Thank you, Altia.”

“Back as quickly as I can.” She grinned and was gone a moment later.

I see why she is Jax’s favorite,
sent Triss.
She’s very sweet.

She is that, which explains some of why Faran and she no longer get along. Faran’s life since the fall has left her hard where Altia had things gentler. She and Faran are of an age, but if I didn’t know that I’d give them a ten year difference.

I flopped back down amongst the pillows and tried to convince myself that crawling out of the truly marvelous featherbed was a good idea. I had been assigned the best of the castle’s guest rooms. Somehow, leaving it didn’t seem like a step in the right direction. Probably because I knew what the rest of my day looked like. . . .

Triss, tell me I don’t have another fucking meeting to go to this afternoon.

You want me to lie to you?

Yes, if
you
want me to get out of bed.
I flipped the covers down to my waist.

But then I would have to go to the meeting, too.
Triss pulled them back up.

I left them there. My original plan had called for a two or three day stop at the castle at most. Breeze in, give Jax a briefing, collect a few journeymen to make into masters, and head for the temple. . . . But no. We had been there for nearly two weeks already, dealing with a never-ending series of decisions and discussions, with no escape in sight. I was beginning to suspect that Jax was
trying
to trap us there until the snow fell. I knew she wanted both Siri and me to stay on and instruct the youngsters, and she had more than enough guile to trap where she couldn’t convince.

I don’t remember playing the First Blade involving quite so much in the way of politics back at the temple,
I sent.

It didn’t. Many of the duties they are trying to assign you used to belong to the high priestess or to Namara herself. Others were handled by the council on a much more routine b
asis.

Do you think Siri had any idea what she was getting me into when she vacated the role and insisted that I fill it?

Siri is very nearly as good a strategist as Kelos. . . .

I’m going to get her for this if it’s the last thing I do.
I flipped the covers back again.

This time Triss didn’t pull them up.
I’ll help.

Habit carried me out of bed and into the routines of dressing and equipping myself. Since there was no one actively trying to kill me, I put my shirt on before my sword rig. Then pants, and boots with their built-in sheathes and knives. I’d worn my wrist sheathes to bed, mostly because a lifetime of practice meant I slept poorly without them. My hood came next, though I left it and the attached scarf down since I wasn’t going a-hunting.

I was just bending over the ewer to wash my face and hands when I noticed smoke swirling wildly above the banked coals on my hearth. Siri, and unannounced. Never
a good sign. Especially since she had stopped sleeping with me once we had decided to go after the Son of Heaven—she preferred not to indulge in such entanglements during a mission. I couldn’t blame her, and ours had always been an off-again, on-again casual sort of affair. Friends first, and lovers only when it seemed convenient.