The Emperor's blades

30

Kaden spent the lengthening days of late spring tracking, running-at night and during the day, blindfolded and not-throwing bowls in the pottery shed, and painting, all under the watchful eye of Rampuri Tan. There had been no more gruesome deaths since Serkhan’s body was found, but the older monk insisted on accompanying his pupil whenever he left the central compound of the monastery, and it was some small comfort that Tan always carried that strange naczal spear. At least, it would have been a comfort if he didn’t spend half his time beating Kaden black and blue with the flat of it.

The training, which had started out brutal, only got worse; the blows grew sharper, the labors longer, the respites ever more brief. Strangely, Kaden was starting to realize that in many ways his umial seemed to know him better than he knew himself-knew just how long he could be held under the mountain streams before drowning, how long he could run before falling, and how close he could hold his hand to the flame without burning away the flesh-and as the days passed, Kaden found that, though his body still recoiled from the physical torment, his mind accepted it with growing equanimity. Still, it was a relief when he had a few scant hours to himself.

The stone cell in which he slept was small, barely large enough for a thin reed mattress, a simple desk, and a few hooks on which he could hang his robes. The granite of the walls and floor was cold and rough. Still, it was his own, and when he closed the door to the hallway, he had the illusion of privacy and solitude. He seated himself at the desk, glanced out the narrow window into the courtyard, unstoppered his ink jar, and took up his quill. Father-he wrote at the top of the page. The letter would take months to reach the Dawn Palace, even if he was able to send it along with Blerim Panno when he left for the Bend. From there it would have to go by boat to Annur. Whatever information Kaden cared to share would be hopelessly out of date by the time it arrived, and yet, it felt important to write, despite the fact that he didn’t have anything to say. Maybe it was Tan’s tutelage, or the deaths around the monastery, but Kaden felt as though some important part of himself, some human cord that tethered him to his past, to his family, to his home, was being stretched, that if he neglected it for too much longer, it might suddenly and unexpectedly snap. He paused before remembering to add his sister’s name to the opening lines.

Father and Adare-

I’m sorry it’s been so long since last I wrote. We accomplish little here, but the days are full. Most recently

Before he could finish the sentence, the door crashed open. Kaden spun in his seat, searching for a weapon of some sort, but it was only Pater, sweaty and breathless in his robe. The small boy’s face was flushed, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Kaden!” he shouted, trying to slow himself as he careened into the cell. “Kaden! There’s people here, Kaden. Strangers!”

Kaden laid down his quill. Visitors to the monastery were rare, exceedingly so. There was a new crop of acolytes every year, of course, but they arrived together, on the same day, led by Blerim Panno, who guided them up into the mountains from the Bend. Sometimes Panno arrived from the west, but the way was long and arduous: barren steppe and intermittent desert with only the nomadic Urghul for company. Either way, the Footsore Monk wasn’t scheduled to arrive for at least another month; Kaden had been getting an early start on his letter. “What kind of strangers?”

“Merchants!” the small boy chirped. “Two of them, and a pack mule, too!”

Kaden sat up. The Shin grew or made almost everything they needed, and for the rest they traded with the Urghul during the fall. Still, the occasional gullible trader, lured by rumors of fabulous hidden wealth in a monastery far to the north, would make the trek of hundreds of leagues. Their disappointment when they discovered the austerity of the Shin was so palpable that Kaden almost pitied them. It was unlikely that anyone would make the voyage so early in the year, but it sounded as though Pater had actually seen them.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“They’re cleaning up now, but they’re coming to the refectory for dinner. All the monks are going to be there, and we can ask questions! Nin even said so!”

The small boy was practically jumping out of his skin as Kaden rose to his feet.

“You run ahead,” he said. “See if you can get a glimpse of them. I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”

Pater nodded and bolted out of the room all at once, leaving Kaden alone with his truncated letter. Merchants. The thought filled him with more excitement than he would have expected. It seemed he had almost forgotten what real excitement felt like. Still, these men would have news of the world, news of his family, Kaden realized as he doffed his mud-stained robe and started to pull a clean one over his head. It wasn’t often that the monks had visitors, and Nin would want to make a favorable impression on whoever had taken the trouble to trek all the way across Vash.

“Don’t bother,” said Rampuri Tan. He had entered the room without knocking, and stood just inside the door, his dark eyes hard. The naczal, as always, was in his hand, although why he would carry it inside the dormitory was anyone’s guess. Whatever had killed Serkhan surely wouldn’t be bold enough to enter one of Ashk’lan’s largest buildings.

Kaden hesitated.

“You won’t be going to the evening meal,” Tan continued. “You will not speak with the merchants. You will not approach the merchants. You will remain out of sight in the clay shed until they leave.”

The words landed like a slap.

“They could be here a week,” Kaden pointed out warily. “Longer.”

“Then you will stay in the clay shed for a week. Or longer.”

The older monk stared at him, then exited as abruptly as he had come, leaving Kaden with his rope belt halfway tied and a look of disbelief on his face.

Visitors to the monastery were such an unusual diversion that a large dinner was always prepared-two or three goats would be slaughtered, trenchers filled with turnips, potatoes, and carrots, and everyone would eat crusty loaves of warm bread. Even more enticing than the meal, however, would be the conversation. All the monks would have their chance to ask a question or two, to learn something of the world that continued to turn outside the walls of Ashk’lan. Bohumir Novalk would want to talk politics, of course, and so would Scial Nin. No doubt, fat Phirum Prumm would ask for news of Channary, which the merchants would have in abundance, and news of his mother, which they would not. Kaden couldn’t remember an acolyte being forbidden to a meal when there were visitors present.

“Ae only knows what I did to deserve this,” he muttered to himself, “but I hope Tan’s got Akiil scrubbing out the privy.”

He shrugged the clean robe back over his head and tossed it onto the bunk. No point sullying it with clay. He dressed quickly and then, just as he was leaving, walked directly into Pater’s headlong rush.

“Kaden!” the boy shouted, trying to disentangle himself and pull Kaden down the hallway all at the same time. “Some of the monks are in the refectory already. We have to hurry!”

Kaden picked the boy up by his armpits, set him on his feet, and dusted him off.

“I know,” he said, trying not to let his bitterness show. “But I can’t go. You remember to tell me what they say, what they look like. You remember everything, all right?”

Pater stared at him, his mouth hanging open. “Can’t go? Kaden, who even knows who they are? We have to go!”

It was just like Pater to shift from I to we, and Kaden smiled in spite of himself. “Tan sent me to the clay shed to polish bowls. He’ll notice right away if I’m anywhere near the refectory. You go ahead.”

Pater shook his head so vigorously it looked like it might rattle right off his shoulders. “We won’t go to the refectory.”

“But that’s where the merchants are.”

The boy beamed, obviously pleased with his chance to help. “We’ll go to the dovecote.”

Kaden smiled slowly. The dovecote. Leave it to Pater to remember that old hideout.

The granite of the high peaks was cold and hard, impossible to cut or quarry. The Shin were forced to scavenge their building stone-exfoliated flakes and small, uneven boulders. Given the labor involved, the monks made the most of their existing structures and so, countless years back, when some brother long dead decided to build a dovecote, he built it up against the rear of the refectory, saving himself the labor of constructing a fourth wall. In their early years at the monastery, Kaden and Akiil had discovered the dovecote’s true value: a hidden spot where they could escape the severe eyes of their umials. When they outgrew their childhood hideout, they had passed the secret on to Pater, and Kaden had to smile now at the idea of the younger boy reminding him of his own secret.

“Is there anyone out back?” he asked. “Anyone who might see us?”

Pater shook his head emphatically once more. “They’re all out front, hoping to ask the merchants a few questions before the meal begins.”

“And Tan?”

“He’s there, too! Right next to Scial Nin!”

That settled it. As the two made their way toward the back of the refectory, Pater bounding ahead, Kaden pulled his hood up over his face, trying to look nondescript. He cast a glance over his shoulder before slipping through the narrow doorway, then climbed the ladder to the tiny second story, where the doves were housed in narrow cells. He could hear their soft cooing, the gentle, delicate sound they made deep in their hollow chests. Even the musty scent of hay and droppings was a comfort, a memory of a childhood when he and Akiil had hidden in the gloom, eluding their chores and their umials. That was before Rampuri Tan. Well before.

“Here,” Pater whispered, tugging at the sleeve of his robe. The boy pointed to a place where the oakum chinking the cracks in the rock had long ago been gouged away by the fingers of novices. Feeling like a furtive child again, Kaden put his eye to the crack and grinned to himself as he peered down into the refectory.

The entirety of the long room, from the stone floor to the beams of the peaked ceiling, was given over to the broad, communal tables where the monks ate. Most of the monks were already seated, although none would take food until the visitors arrived. They spoke in low voices while some of the younger novices stole speculative glances toward the kitchen, clearly hungry, and clearly wary lest their umials notice the lapse in discipline. Kaden, however, had eyes only for the door, and so he saw the two strangers at the very moment that they entered.

A compact, blond man of middle years stepped through the doorway first. Despite the chill, he wore a sleeveless tunic of bright red leather, and even from his perch Kaden could see the muscle cording his arms and neck. He was far from handsome, his skin creased from long days in the sun, eyes hawkish and close together, but he moved with a brusque confidence. His companion entered a few steps behind, and Kaden was glad for the wall of stone to hide his stare. Pater had mentioned nothing about a woman.

The second visitor was lean and elegant in her carefully tailored riding cloak, rings flashing on half her fingers. At a quick glance she might have appeared young, but the years had left their subtle marks-a few faint lines creasing the corners of her eyes, a hint of gray streaking her long dark hair. She must have been a few years over forty, Kaden decided, and favored her right leg, as though some old injury still gnawed at the opposite hip or knee-the trail up to Ashk’lan would have been a trial for her.

Kaden started to look for Rampuri Tan, then went back to his scrutiny of the newcomers. He hadn’t seen many merchants in the past eight years, but there was something strange about these two, something off, like ripples on a pool on a windless day.

“Let me see!” Pater whispered urgently. “Come on! It’s my turn.”

Kaden relinquished his post and as Pater clambered past him, closed his eyes, trying to work out what had struck him. He called the saama’an back to mind. It was imperfect, hazy around the edges since he hadn’t had time to make a proper carving, but the details at the center were crisp enough-the man and the woman frozen in the act of entering the large hall. He studied the facial expressions, the posture, the clothes, trying to ferret out the source of his misgiving. Were they frowning? Frightened? Moving oddly? He shook his head. There was nothing to see.

“See Kaden? You don’t have to worry,” Pater whispered. “Tan’s here. He’s talking to the two of them.”

The mention of his umial’s name hit Kaden like a bucket of frigid water, jolting him back to the scene in the man’s cell nearly two months earlier, when he had whipped Kaden bloody over the painting of the slaughtered goat. Any fool can see what’s there. You need to see what is not there. It was possible that whatever bothered him about the merchants wasn’t something that he’d seen, but something that he should have seen. Kaden called the saama’an back and examined it once again.

“Now they’re talking to the abbot,” Pater narrated breathlessly. “I didn’t even know they made clothes that color.”

The abbot. Kaden stared at the image. The two merchants had traveled hundreds of leagues to sell something, and if they knew anything about monasteries, they knew that Scial Nin was the one man who would determine the success or failure of their venture. He was there, standing right inside the door, directly in front of them, and yet, in that first moment, just as they passed the threshold, neither was looking at him. The woman seemed to be peering above the heads of the monks as though searching the rafters, and the man’s head was turned sharply to the left, checking the space occluded by the opened door. Kaden let the image snap into motion, and almost instantly the two turned their attention to the abbot, smiling as they approached.

“Let me have another look,” Kaden said, elbowing Pater in the ribs.

The small boy glared at him, then moved a fraction to the left. “Here,” he said, “we can both see.” Kaden had to content himself with a knobby elbow digging into his ribs as he peered through the crack.

Scial Nin introduced himself with simple formality and the merchants followed suit, the man with a simple nod of his head, the woman eschewing a curtsy for a graceful bow. There was a bright glint in her blue eyes that mirrored the flashing gems on her fingers. Most people would be exhausted after the arduous trek up the mountains, but she looked curious about her surroundings, fully engaged with the people before her. Their names, Pyrre and Jakin Lakatur, sounded strange in Kaden’s ears, and their accents, slow and sibilant, certainly weren’t from Annur.

“It’s a long hike up your little hill,” Pyrre lamented wryly, rubbing her knee. “Perhaps you’d consider acquiring one of those kettral everyone is always telling tales about.”

“We value our isolation here,” Nin replied, not unkindly.

The merchant grinned and turned to her companion. “Meaning,” she said with a rueful grin, “we should have saved ourselves the trip.”

“Not at all,” Nin said, gesturing to a long table. “You are here now. Although I can’t promise we will offer you any custom, you are welcome to share our repast.”

Frustratingly, the abbot made only small talk during the meal, polite comments about the weather and the state of the flocks, which allowed his guests to focus on their food. When Phirum cleared his throat to ask a question, Nin fixed him with that calm, implacable gaze of his, and the fat acolyte sagged back onto his bench. Only when the last crumbs had been wiped off the last plate did Scial Nin slide his chair back from the table and cross his hands in his lap. “So,” he said finally, “what news from the world?”

Pyrre grinned; she seemed by far the more garrulous of the two. “Sailors fight pirates, soldiers fight Urghul, the Waist is still hot, and Freeport’s still cold enough that you’ve got to fuck in your furs.” She ran through the litany with the air of a woman who found something funny about the entire world, as though it were there for her amusement. “Mothers pray to Bedisa, whores to Ciena, alemasters mix their malt with water, and an honest woman still goes poor to her grave.”

“And you,” the abbot asked with a genial nod. “Are you an honest woman?”

“My wife? Honest?” Jakin snorted, gesturing to the rings on her fingers, cabochons and cut gems glittering in the candlelight. “Her tastes are too expensive for honesty.”

“Darling,” the merchant replied, turning to her husband with a wounded look, “you would have the good brothers believe that a wolf has come among them to steal their sheep.”

The words hit home, and Nin set down his teacup before asking the next question.

“You didn’t come across anything unusual on the trail up to the monastery, did you?”

“Unusual?” Pyrre spun one of the rings on her fingers absently as she considered the question. “Not aside from more broken spokes than we normally see in a month. We were forced to leave our wagon halfway down that ludicrous goat track you call a trail.” Her eyes narrowed appraisingly. “What did you mean by unusual?”

“A creature?” Nin responded. “Some kind of predator?”

Pyrre glanced at her husband, but he just shrugged.

“Nothing,” she replied. “Should we be worried? I’ve heard that you raise crag cats the size of ponies in these mountains.”

“Not a crag cat. We’re sure enough of that. Whatever it is has been savaging our flocks recently. A few weeks ago, it killed one of our brothers.”

A few of the monks shifted on their benches. A log on the long hearth collapsed in a shower of embers. Pyrre pushed back in her chair and took a deep breath. Kaden froze the image and looked closer. The woman should have been frightened by the news, confused and alarmed at the very least. After all, she and her husband had spent the better part of a day-longer, if they had a wagon with them-toiling up the very trails where Serkhan had been killed. Even if she was capable of protecting herself and her wares from brigands and highwaymen, a possibility that seemed unlikely, given her age and that hip, she should have registered some sort of worry at the realization that an unknown predator was stalking the mountains, killing men and beasts alike.

Certainly she had made an effort to mimic concern; her lips tightened, her brow furrowed. But here, too, something was missing. Where were the widened eyes, the involuntary glance at her husband that would have indicated true fear? Where was the surprise?

“How ghastly,” Pyrre said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Those of us who live in the hollow of the Blank God’s hand have no fear of Ananshael.”

Pyrre pursed her lips, shot her husband a skeptical glance. “I guess that explains why I never became a monk.”

“You never became a monk,” Jakin replied, “because you have breasts and you like men to look at them.”

“A thousand pardons,” Pyrre interjected, turning back to the abbot with a horrified look on her face. “After months on the road with only me for company, my husband sometimes forgets his tongue.”

“No apology needed,” Nin replied, although his features had hardened somewhat.

“In truth,” Pyrre continued, “I’m overly attached to this sad little life of mine. Hard to say why, really. It mostly consists of trudging, overcooked rice in the evening, sleeping in the rain, undercooked rice in the morning, and more trudging.” She pursed her lips speculatively. “Occasionally my knee gives out. Sometimes there are gallstones.”

“And yet you would not give it up,” Nin concluded.

“Not for all the gold you’ve got hidden in your granary.”

“A nice gambit,” Nin replied. “But we have no granary, let alone gold.”

Pyrre turned to her husband. “It’s worse than we thought.” She returned her attention to Scial Nin. “This thing that killed your brother. Are we in danger?”

Nin raised a reassuring hand. “You made it here-that is the crucial fact. You should be safe in the buildings and central square. We can give you an escort when you descend the path once more.”

“We thank you,” she responded. “And again, we’re sorry for your loss. It’s bad luck to lose a friend-even for stoic monks indifferent to death. Perhaps we can take your mind off it with news of the outside world. You’re just a step or two off the main trade routes.”

That opened the floodgates, and for a while the robed men lost some of their austerity in their eagerness. Nin did his best to maintain order, but more than once two or even three monks spoke at the same time, each trying to pitch his voice just a little louder than the others.

“How many ships of the line has O’Mara Havast taken this year?” asked Altaf the Smith. The man had plied his trade at the Bend before joining the Shin, and he retained a keen curiosity about the Annurian navy.

Chalmer Oleki wanted to know if the rebel Hannan tribes had stepped up attacks on the empire. Phirum Prumm, true to form, asked nervously if any plagues had swept Channary recently. “My mother,” he added apologetically. “She lives there still, at least she did when I departed.”

“I have no news of your mother,” Pyrre responded, “much to my chagrin. I can tell you that the atrep of Channary has redoubled his efforts to keep the city streets clear of filth, and the plague has not visited the city since.”

“How about the Urghul?” Rebbin wanted to know. “There were rumblings of war this year when we went down to trade with them in their winter pasturage. Something about a new chieftain unifying the tribes.”

“The Urghul,” she replied, turning her palms to the ceiling helplessly, “are the Urghul. One day they seem massed for an assault over the White River, following this new shaman or chief or whoever he is. The next, they’re sacrificing captives or buggering elk or whatever it is they do for sport.”

When the questions got around to Akiil, Kaden’s friend had the temerity to ask the merchants to describe “with careful attention to detail” the body of Ciena’s new high priestess. Pyrre laughed at that, a long melodious laugh, while the abbot shot the youth a look that promised penance on the morrow.

Kaden had been at Ashk’lan so long that he didn’t know most of the names and places his brothers asked after. At best they were dimly recollected echoes from a childhood so far away, it might have been a different life. In some cases, they were pure fantasy, and he let the strange syllables wash over him, rapt. For a while he forgot the questions pricking his mind, the nagging and unformed suspicions about the merchant and her husband. It was enough just to listen.

Pyrre responded to the questions in long, literary cadences while Jakin was blunt and direct. It seemed that someone named the Burned King was trying to unite the Blood Cities of southeastern Vash. Tsavein Kar’amalan continued to hold the Waist, as ruthless and shadowy as ever. An odd rumor out of Rabi had it that the tribes of the Darvi Desert were trying to force a passage over the Ancaz, though how they could hope to establish a foothold on Annurian territory held by Annurian legions was unclear. On and on and on it went until at long last, Halva Sjold asked the question Kaden had been waiting for: “And the Emperor? Sanlitun is still the strong, stubborn oak I remember from twenty years ago?”

Pyrre continued to smile as she had throughout most of the evening, an easy, casual grin that invited camaraderie and confidence. As she nodded, however, Kaden felt a pricking under his skin. “The books say Sanlitun means ‘stone’ in the old tongue. If so, the name suits the Emperor. It will take a hurricane to dislodge him.”

The words should have been comforting. It will take a hurricane to dislodge him. They should have been comforting, but the woman was lying, Kaden was sure of it. At the very least, she was concealing something. He reached for the calm he had summoned at the start of the meal, tried desperately to empty his mind and fill it with the image of the merchant smiling and nodding. The saama’an eluded him. He could think only of his father grasping his small forearm. I will teach you to make the cold, hard decisions through which a boy becomes a man.…

The conversation dragged on, but Kaden moved away from his post, allowing Pater the full space. As the boy peered in fascination into the room below, Kaden leaned back against the rough stone wall of the dovecote. Any fool can see what’s there. You need to see what is not there. As he stared into the darkness, he tried to imagine what Pyrre wasn’t saying about the empire, what she wasn’t saying about his father.