Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (62 page)

Breathe.
Tank rolled sideways into the inner stillness Allonin had drilled into him and Teilo had reinforced with her witchery and her drugs. Allonin—but that was another pain, another shame, another horror: he pushed it away and focused on
breath.
Alyea, unresisting, went with him;
aqeyva
murmured through her mind, along with a similar flinching away from some painful memory of her own. Her discipline melded with his, bringing them into an utterly silent void. They rested in the emptiness, listening to the soft rhythm of pulse and breathing, and little by little the world aligned itself around them in proper tracks. Memory unraveled and faded safely into the past.

Can’t change the past,
one of them said.
But it doesn’t have to matter in the now. And it wasn’t your fault, or mine: drugged senseless for the one, never knowing better for the other. That’s not who we are now. We have a choice. We can let that go. Let that section go.

Tank resisted: anger and shame writhing through him, sharp and raw. Alyea resisted, drenched in self-loathing and fury.

Aqeyva. Breathe.

The void soothed away emotion again. They faced one another, drawing in close, closer:
I understand,
they said together; and having one other who truly saw, who truly accepted—was enough. That particular corner of the rage dissolved, slowly, into a grey ash and blew away, dissipating into unimportance.

There was more anger. There always would be. But that one small piece—was gone: and that was enough, for now.

Privacy returned, tiny corners of thought held apart from one another. In one of those solitary pockets ran, very quietly, the thought that this was what Wian, in her inarticulate way, had been striving to say: that Tank had stood beside her in nightmare and accepted, and released her from one small piece of her pain. But he hadn’t shared his own, or trusted her in the least. He’d only watched. Not because of her profession: because she hadn’t
wanted
to see beyond herself. She’d only wanted to
get,
not to give; while Alyea had brutally yanked out the guts of his agony, laid them beside her own, and forced them both into a bizarre augury: telling the future through the echoes of the past.

Alyea stirred against him, returning from some private contemplation of her own, and said:
Enough. For now, it’s enough. Let the next moments take care of themselves.

Twined together, they descended into the healing peace of true sleep.

Silence and darkness surrounded them, took away emotion, took away fear and pain; after some endless time, they surfaced together into a brighter level of slow-rolling, shared memory-dreams. In a wordless conversation, they shared visions of first times and best times and worst times and unmet needs; began to press together, seeing what would please the other most—

A sharp sound jarred Tank from the relaxed haze of anticipation. Alyea sighed, the moment lost, and slid back toward the deeper void once more, unwilling to follow him to full awareness. Aches returned, along with the pressure of a full bladder: he rolled, eyes barely focused, to seek out the chamberpot that habit insisted would be nearby
—No chamberpot,
Alyea said in a dim haze,
bathroom—
and retreated completely into the obscuring dark.

Tank began to push up on one elbow, surroundings clarifying: a large room, curtains drawn back to allow late-afternoon sunlight through, and a stifling heat barely eased by the open window.
There was an icestorm in Kybeach yesterday,
he thought, baffled by the sharp, prickling sweat he could feel slicking his body; and turning his head to look at the other side of the room, met a gaze as cold as that storm had been.

Dark and depthless, that stare, set in a fine-boned, almond-brown face; sable hair pulled back into a neat, tight triple-bound tail caught close at the base of the skull. The man sat still, solidly placed on the light chair, but in a way that suggested a readiness and capacity for explosively swift movement.

Deiq of Stass:
a flurry of images braided through Tank’s forebrain as the hindbrain shrieked at him to run. He stared back at the man, frozen like a rat before a riddler-snake, his only conscious thought
Please gods don’t let me piss myself—I’ll get it all over Alyea—

“Bathroom’s that way,” Deiq said, his tone underlaid with a distinct growl of displeasure. Faced with a plausible escape from that increasingly savage glare, Tank nearly bolted for the indicated door.

He stood shivering for some time afterwards, welcoming even the heated stink of the indoor toilet room as more pleasant than returning to face Deiq. The residue of shared memory marked him as simultaneously
dangerous
and
safe;
how Alyea could live with such sharply opposite perceptions of the man, Tank didn’t understand.

One thing he could tell without resorting to Alyea’s memories as a guide: it would be a bad idea to let Deiq know that Tank had any idea who and what Deiq was. That knowledge would necessarily mark Tank out as far more than a common mercenary; and while the previous—night? day? How long had he slept?—while his encounter with Alyea might have made it difficult to pull off
ordinary
around this man, there was no sense driving the nail further into the block than it already stood.

One thing he
didn’t
want to be around this man was a perceived threat. Deiq was the type to simply remove a threat... permanently. And while Alyea was still blind to it, Tank could see clearly from her memories of the man that he was more than friendly in his intentions toward her.

Man.
Tank breathed deeply and tried not to think of Deiq as anything but that. It wasn’t safe to think of him as—

Another segment of Alyea’s memories clicked over in his mind.
Idisio. He
is
ha’ra’ha. So is his mother.
A stark and vivid image of shredded bone and a cottage drenched in human effluvium filled his mind.
Dear gods! And I attacked her with a
stick....

But he couldn’t stay in the piss closet forever. Tank drew another breath, settled his pulse and his thoughts into steady order, and returned to the bedroom.

Deiq didn’t seem to have moved, but Tank’s boots stood beside the small table now, not by the bed. His dark stare tracked Tank’s approach, and he tipped his chin in a barely visible gesture toward a second chair.

“Sit,” he said.

Tank obeyed without hesitation, deeply grateful that at least there was a table, however small and flimsy, between them. He tugged on his boots with a strong sense of relief; he liked being barefoot, but it felt like a needless vulnerability at the moment. Straightening up, he first perched on the edge of the chair, then, realizing that being anxious was worse than pointless with this man, settled more firmly into the seat, straight-backed. He met Deiq’s black gaze squarely.

The man’s thin lips twitched: in amusement or irritation, Tank couldn’t tell.

“My name,” he said, “is Deiq. And you are Tanavin of the Aerthraim.”

So much for
ordinary.
Knowing that much meant Deiq knew—everything relevant. And everything dangerous. Tension threading along his muscles, Tank kept his expression blank and said, “I’d rather be called Tank,
s’e,
thanks all the same.”

Deiq tilted his head to one side, eyes narrowing: not a hostile expression, to Tank’s relief, but a surprised, curious one.

“Tank,” he said. “Why would you discard a name of note for a lowly drunkard’s tag?”

Tank opened his mouth, shut it again, startled by the man’s genuine interest.

“I... I don’t know,” he said, fumbling; then surprised himself further by offering raw and dangerous honesty. “I didn’t want to be Tanavin any longer. Or... of the Aerthraim.”

Deiq’s mouth stretched; a smile this time, albeit a dark and sardonic one.

“Yes,” he said. “I can understand wanting to distance yourself from the Aerthraim. They weren’t entirely honest with you, were they?” He paused. Tank said nothing; any response would drag him irretrievably past any attempt at
ordinary.
“I don’t blame the Aerthraim for lying to you, either,” Deiq added, more quietly. “The only mistake they made was allowing you to live afterwards.”

Tank sat perfectly still but not frozen this time, his muscles gathering into the same coiling readiness to move that he had sensed in Deiq. “Are you looking to correct that?”

Deiq stared at Tank for what seemed a small eternity. Then his gaze flicked to the bed, to Alyea’s curled-up, sleeping form. He stared at Alyea for a while, unblinking; finally turned a much milder gaze on Tank.

“No,” he said. “I should. But I won’t. Not after—what you’ve done.” His gaze went to Alyea again, as though compelled. “What was that thing you made her chew on? It looked like a stick.”

“Chich,” Tank said, his chest loosening with relief. “It’s more like a very hard jerky. The Aerthraim ketarch developed it to help with... with dasta fits.” He ducked his head, flinching away from all the implicit admissions about himself in that statement, never mind that Deiq very likely already knew about it all; he couldn’t endure seeing that knowledge in the man’s eyes. Couldn’t take the chance of seeing pity there.

When he looked up again, Deiq’s expression was completely blank and his gaze on his hands.

“Interesting,” he said in a muted voice. “Leave us a few, if you’d be so kind. If you can spare any.”

“Of course,” Tank said, already fumbling with his belt pouch. He sorted out four; ticked over the count of the remainder with his fingers, grimacing a little. He’d have to find a way to get more soon. He couldn’t go through Dasin. Any request from Dasin for chich would be tantamount to admitting that Tank was traveling alongside him, and while that news reaching Aerthraim Family might be inevitable in the end, Tank wanted to put that day off for as long as possible.

He didn’t want to be found; he wanted to disappear, like the Aerthraim Lost: that group of engineers and inventors who had fled Bright Bay during the Purge, gone north, and vanished from all knowledge. Even if that was an impossible dream, he intended to try.

He set the four sticks on the table, pushed them to midpoint. He kept his gaze on the chich as he said, “Don’t use more than two in a day. Send to the Aerthraim ketarch for more. Don’t—” He stopped, biting his lip, and tried to think of how to say
Don’t tell them it was me
without sounding like a fool.

Deiq let out a grating chuckle. “You were never here,” he said.

“Thank you.” He glanced over to Alyea, smiling a little: she’d curled up like a child lost in the depths of a dream. Deiq made a soft, growling noise; Tank looked back, startled, into a sharp, hostile blackness. “I should go,” he said, the only rational response to that glare.

Deiq tilted his head, agreeing. His unblinking, unwavering gaze turned heat to chill along every bit of Tank’s exposed skin.

“You were never here,” he repeated, more definitely this time.

Tank sat still for a long moment, breathing difficult; cast one last, deliberate look at Alyea, then rose from the chair. “No,” he said, looking down at Deiq. “I came here—”

Deiq’s face hardened, muscles tensing toward motion.

“—to tell Lord Eredion about Idisio and his mother,” Tank went on unhurriedly. Deiq’s expression shifted, lines drawing a different tension now. “Idisio asked for you,
s’e
Deiq. He needs your help.”

He endured the man’s cold stare without flinching. At last, Deiq said, tone muted again, “I’ve heard. We’ll do what we can. Thank you for the message, and for—your help.”

Tank nodded and turned away.

“Tanavin,” Deiq said before Tank had gone two steps.

Tank turned, cocking his head, and waited. Deiq’s expression had gone thoughtful. He said, “Why become a mercenary?”

Tank sorted through answers, finally settled on honesty again. “Lets me beat the shit out of folk as deserve it,” he said. “With my hands, or with a big damn knife if I need that to help. Nothing fancy or—strange. Just like anyone else would do in a fight.”

Deiq’s mouth moved into a real smile.

“May your gods hold you gently, Tank,” he said. “Teth-kavit.”

Tank blinked, his eyes swimming with sudden relief: that was close enough to a declaration of truce to suit him. “Teth-kavit,” he said with care, and left the room without a backwards glance.

Sandsplit proper lay a good hour’s walk from the outskirts; the group who had fed Kolan lived farther out on the fringe than he’d thought. Not surprising, given that their assorted trades were those that carried the vilest odors and social stigmas.

He didn’t mind. The walk gave him time to solidly bury his thoughts of Ellemoa, the disturbing memories, the agonizing ache of wishing she had survived. He could have saved her, once away from Rosin. He was certain of that. He
knew
her, he understood her so deeply that—

“Never mind,” he muttered, and shoved that longing behind the barrier. Today, now,
move on—
He had a road under his feet, and a destination, finally, clear in his mind: Arason. He’d go back there, and see if the Arason Church had survived the troubles; would petition to be accepted back, as novice or junior—whatever they allowed him. He would stay within the walls of the Church and revel in the safety of those chill stone walls, in the silence and the space for prayer.

He walked, barefoot and uncaring of it, recalling every last detail of the rooms and courtyards and furnishings of the Arason Church, concentrating so intently that when grass changed to sand and then to laid stone underfoot he barely noticed. The buildings and trees looming around him slowly drew his attention from his reverie. He stopped, looking around him in appreciation of how the patterned night-shadows of human architecture mingled with those of ivy-draped featherpalm trees and stone pines.

A vague breeze wandered over his feet, sending an odd shiver of uncertainty up his legs like a message, a warning, a whisper of dread. He stood still, blinking slowly and listening to the quiet darkness. Crickets chirred. Night-frogs sang their creaking songs. A cat yowled, somewhere far away; a human laughed, high and shrill.