2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows (17 page)

Esh’illan gingerly sat his wine glass down on the table and then carefully nudged it away from his plate.

“So the stones in our houses,” Esh’illan’s voice was low, “could Jath’ibaye make them do...that?”

“Possibly, but I doubt he would have,” Fikiri said. “Tricks like that are tiring and rarely accomplish much. It serves Jath’ibaye far more to have wards.”

“And they’re gone now?” Esh’illan asked.

“He’d feel it if they were removed completely. That would have been a warning to him in itself,” Fikiri replied. “Nanvess has shifted their positions so that there are gaps in Jath’ibaye’s web. Chinks in his armor.”

“The west garden at the Bell Dance will be his weakest position,” Nanvess said.

“There’s still his bitch.” Esh’illan started to reach for his wine glass, then dropped his hand back down to the carved arm of his chair.

“He won’t bring her to the dance if I ask him not to,” Ourath said.

“If you ask him?” Esh’illan frowned at Ourath’s self-satisfied expression.

“He’s not a man without his weaknesses.” Ourath’s smile split into a handsome grin.

“You’re joking.” Esh’illan’s boyish face screwed up as if he’d swallowed a fly. “That’s disgusting.”

Nanvess laughed.

“You think it’s funny?” Esh’illan demanded of Nanvess.

“I think it’s no surprise that Ourath wants the man dead so very badly,” Nanvess replied. Standing back from the others, Fikiri said nothing. The flat line of his mouth seemed to compress slightly more.

“That’s disgusting.” Esh’illan couldn’t seem to stop grimacing. “You don’t let him...”

“Absolutely not.” Ourath rolled his eyes. “I merely listen to his insane ramblings and look fascinated. He’s pathetic, really.”

“Keep talking like that and you’ll have him crying his eyes out on your doorstep.” Nanvess grinned.

“Maybe you should,” Esh’illan said. “While he’s bawling we’ll just shoot him.”

“Maybe you should just marry him and settle all our troubles on the wedding night,” Nanvess suggested.

“He might like where I’d shove that black knife a little too much.” Ourath laughed and the other noblemen did as well.

“I’ve seen him tear boys like you apart with his bare hands.” Fikiri’s voice cut through their laughter. All three noblemen instantly fell silent. The only sound in the room came from the tiny pops and snaps of the wood burning in the fireplace. Kahlil found that he was holding his breath, afraid that Fikiri would hear him exhale.

“Don’t ever think that he’s a joke,” Fikiri growled. “He could kill any of you in a heartbeat.”

Nanvess bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Uncle. We didn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Fikiri waved his apology aside. “I can’t stay here much longer. Jath’ibaye will sense my presence. There is still the matter of this knife.” Fikiri brushed his scarred right hand over the hilt of the black knife. “There was a man who brought it into the city and into the Bousim garrison. He needs to be found.”

“Who is he?” Nanvess asked.

“The Kahlil,” Fikiri replied dryly. “Who else would you think?”

“But—” Esh’illan began.

“Don’t argue with me. I don’t have the time or the patience for it.” Fikiri looked directly at Nanvess. “Find him and kill him.”

Nanvess nodded. “He’ll be dead in a day.”

“Good,” Fikiri said. He lifted his hands to his chest. “I will see you again in three days. Be ready.”

Kahlil felt the air suddenly shudder with building force. Soon Fikiri would be gone. Kahlil lifted his own hands, drawing his concentration and strength. Fikiri split the fabric of the room with a rending force. Again there came the sound of tearing metal. Flames and a sudden, chill wind writhed around his black-robed figure. Fikiri stepped into the ragged Gray Space.

If he could take him by surprise from behind, Kahlil thought he might have a chance. But he had to catch the man. At the very least, he needed to know where Fikiri and his lady hid themselves.

Kahlil followed far more quietly. He slipped through the Gray Space with only a whisper. The surrounding room faded to dull mist.

He couldn’t see Fikiri, but he could feel where the other man had passed before him. The texture of the surrounding Gray Space was jagged and splintered and cut into Kahlil like needles of splintered glass.

Fikiri moved in huge bounds of space. He shot through the walls of the Lisam Palace and out over the open streets of Nurjima. His path cut through walls and buildings and then ploughed through the steep hills of the northern area of the city.

Kahlil plunged after him. The faint gray surroundings streaked past almost faster than he could discern them. He swept through the walls of a bakery, a bedroom, through trees and animals alike. Still, he found Fikiri’s trail slashing out far ahead of him. He whipped through a heavy black wall and jerked to a halt.

Suddenly the misty images of the surrounding world had become a jumble of chaotic forms. Huge dark girders shot up through pale stone staircases. Walls jutted through each other at wrong angles and then folded into long, open hallways. Twisted pine trees grew up through a massive altar. Apple blossoms drifted down from half of a domed ceiling.

It was as if entire landscapes had been superimposed over and into each other. The Gray Space, too, felt thicker and twisted. Kahlil took a small step and immediately he found himself several feet behind where he had stood. With a step to the side he instantly found himself on one of the pale staircases. He skipped, like a scratched record, from spot to spot.

He turned slowly in a circle, trying to locate Fikiri’s trail. But that too was disjointed and randomly etched through his surroundings. He took a step towards the nearest line of jagged splinters and instantly he was ten feet back from it, in the middle of a carved stone column.

This wasn’t good.

The entire night hadn’t been good, but this had to be the low point.

Kahlil didn’t have any idea where he was or how he could keep following Fikiri. This place had to be some kind of trap. He was a little worried about where he would find himself if he left the Gray Space. At least while he was inside it, Kahlil couldn’t be harmed by hurtling into a stone column.

Kahlil crouched down and scowled at the fractured lines of Fikiri’s path. The marks resembled arcs of hanging frost, disconnected over the walls, stairs, towers, and trees. Kahlil studied it, trying to find a pattern. He tilted his head and his view snapped to a different angle, somewhere down near his knees. He jerked his head back up straight, feeling slightly sick.

A dull little bird fluttered up from the branches of a pine tree. A murky marine form darted from the shadows and swallowed it. The creature undulated up through the air like an eel swimming in deep water and coiled up into the branches of an apple tree.

This wasn’t the place or the time to just throw himself after Fikiri. Even if he could work out the way, Kahlil realized, he would be entering Fikiri’s world. And it didn’t look at all familiar. There was also the strong possibility that, should he need to escape, he might have to pass through more spaces like this one.

He was going to have to challenge Fikiri in a place that he knew. It would have to be at the Bell Dance in three days.

Kahlil retraced his steps, skipping back across the staircases and hallways, until he reached the point where he had first stepped into this distorted collision of structures. He drew away from it into the evenly textured Gray Space that he was accustomed to.

Then suddenly something blazing hot snapped up around his leg. Kahlil looked down only to see a blinding white form. The air around him screamed as it was ripped open. Warm air and sound slammed into Kahlil as he was torn out of the Gray Space and thrown down.

He hit the ground hard.

A huge blonde man towered over him.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know you were here?” the man bellowed. He grabbed a fistful of Kahlil’s hair and jerked him up. “I’ll kill you—” A look of pure shock swallowed the man’s expression of fury. He stared at Kahlil and his grip on Kahlil’s hair went slack.

“You...” the blonde man whispered. His blue eyes widened. His lips parted slightly as if Kahlil had knocked the breath out of him.

Kahlil didn’t wait for the man to regain his composure. He snapped open the Gray Space, plunged through the man’s body, and out through the black wall behind him.

He was in Nurjima again. He recognized the orderly lines of buildings and the trolley tracks cutting through the street. Behind him there was the wall. Kahlil recognized it now. It had been constructed where the Payshmura’s Black Tower had once stood. The heavy wall closed the ruins off from the rest of the city.

Kahlil turned and ran from it as fast as he could.

He was dying. Blood poured from his chest. He tasted it in his throat. The blonde man stared down at him. He’d had this dream before, only now Kahlil recognized the man’s face.

It was Jath’ibaye, watching him die.

Then his eyes snapped open and he was awake. He groped for Alidas’ key, and finding it still in place, his muscles instantly relaxed.

Thin predawn light drifted in through the small window above him. He lay in bed, staring up at a low wood ceiling. Canvas panels hung on either side of him. The heavy smell of other men pervaded the air.

It seemed that he was always waking up like this.

He expected to hear prayer bells, ringing low and deep, or the crack of tahldi butting antlers. Instead, there came the shouts of a paperboy calling out the morning headlines. He was in the Lisam house in the runners’ barrack.

Kahlil’s back was bruised and his right leg ached. He could hear other men around him getting up. Knees creaked. There were rough coughs and groggy yawns.

Outside the window, the paperboy continued his spiel. Kahlil heard the boy shout Jath’ibaye’s name. Doubtless, the papers were announcing his arrival. Kahlil sighed. It was old news to him.

Kahlil rose cautiously, testing his weight on his injured leg. His ankle throbbed but it held him.

“Out of bed, lazy men, the world awaits!” Fensal hurled aside the canvas curtain that separated his and Kahlil’s beds. His brown hair was wild and uncombed. He wore only a pair of half-laced underpants. He pounced onto Kahlil’s empty bed and then swept apart the canvas panels on the opposite side and attacked the runner in the bed beyond Kahlil’s. The other man was unfortunate enough to still have been sleeping.

Fensal hammered the other man with his pillow until the man feebly fought back. Once satisfied that the runner was awake, Fensal moved on to the next bed, eventually making his way around to all sixteen beds.

Kahlil didn’t think there had ever been a time in his life when he had been as wildly energetic as Fensal. Of course, he couldn’t remember most of his life, so he couldn’t be certain. But he knew that even if he had possessed as much raw energy as Fensal, he wouldn’t have used it in the same manner.

“Today is the day!” Fensal bounced up and down on a bed and then bounded to the center of the room. “Today, the streets will be packed with other runners. They will try to take our hills. They will clog our back streets and try to run us off the road. Will we let them?” Fensal struck a dramatic pose. “No, my brothers! We will run them down. We will crush them and pass them on every incline!”

Some of the runners clapped. Others laughed. Three or four howled in wild agreement, egging Fensal on.

“Remember,” Fensal gazed out at the empty space above the door as if he were a saint receiving a divine vision, “Jath’ibaye’s runners will be out there too, witnessing the battles, attacking the weak. We must not fail. For the honor of the Lisam house! For the honor of our beautiful machines! We will overcome all obstacles!”

Several of the youngest runners were already on their feet, enlivened by the speech. Fensal beamed. Kahlil clapped along with most of the older runners. Fensal bowed and then strode back to his bed. He picked his pants up from the floor and stuck his legs into them with the resolute expression of a rashan fastening his gauntlets.

Kahlil gathered his own clothes off the wall pegs above his bed and started for the bathroom, slightly favoring his hurt knee. The new bruises stood out clearly on his pale skin and it didn’t take long for Fensal to notice the injury.

“You hurt your leg?”

“I fell.”

“Did your bicycle take much damage?” Fensal asked.

“I wasn’t riding it at the time.”

“Oh...” Fensal screwed up his face at the thought, as if it were an inconceivable event. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

Kahlil turned back towards the bathroom.

“Be careful out there today,” Fensal added from behind him.

He guessed that Fensal might someday grow up to be a decent leader for the Lisam runners; maybe in ten or twelve years, when he had mellowed. He certainly had enough love for the work and skill at it. Right now, he was still too inexperienced at reading the men around him. He could inspire them and impress them, but he rarely had any insight into the subtleties of their minds.

Fensal was no Alidas, but then maybe he didn’t need to be. He delivered packages, not death sentences.