The Emperor's blades

32

There were no locks on the door, but for three days, ever since the dinner for Pyrre and Jakin, Kaden had been a prisoner in the clay shed. He had sneaked back just in time, slipping out of the dovecote with Pater, sprinting down the path, and sliding inside with barely enough time to light a lantern, slow his heartbeat, cool his skin, and compose his face before Tan arrived to check up on him.

“How was the dinner?” Kaden had asked nonchalantly. He yearned to question his umial about Pyrre’s strange behavior-if anyone else picked up on it, it would have been Tan-but, of course, if he let on that he’d been hiding in the dovecote, Ae only knew what sort of penance the monk would devise.

“Unremarkable,” Tan replied, looking over Kaden’s work. “You haven’t made much progress.”

“The process is the goal,” Kaden responded innocently, trying not to feel smug. It was about time one of those Shin maxims worked in his favor.

“You will continue the process tomorrow.”

“And tonight?” Kaden asked. “Should I return to the dormitory?”

Tan shook his head. “Sleep here. If you have to piss, use a pot. Someone will come for it in the morning.”

Before Kaden could formulate another question that might lead back to Pyrre, Jakin, and the evening meal, Tan was gone, leaving him in the narrow stone room surrounded by the silent shapes of the bowls and jugs. Kaden worked awhile longer-busying his hands helped to still the worries in his mind-and then curled up in his robe on the hard stone floor to sleep. He woke in the night, shivering so badly, his teeth rattled against one another, and moved up to a hard wooden bench. It was narrow and uncomfortable, but at least the cold didn’t radiate out of it.

He expected Akiil to come that night. Before the dinner had finished, while the monks were still nursing the dark dregs of their tea, Kaden had left Pater with a message for his friend: Find me after the midnight bell. The bell came and went, however, a somber tolling in the darkness, without a sign of the young monk.

He spent the next two days crafting pots and mugs that Tan never bothered to inspect, the following two nights huddled in awkward positions on the small bench, trying to shrink into his robe to avoid the night’s chill. Nightmares filled his dreams-inchoate visions with no real narrative in which his father fought against a host of foes while Pyrre looked on as though nothing were amiss. It was a long time since he’d had nightmares-years, in fact. The Shin believed that disordered dreams were the product of a disordered mind. The oldest brothers claimed not to dream at all. Kaden would have been happy enough to join them, but the visions kept coming, night after night, as soon as he closed his eyes. Finally, on the third night, Akiil arrived, slipping through the wooden door just after the midnight bell.

“Nice jug,” he said, glancing at Kaden’s newest project-a large, two-handled ewer of red river clay. “Too bad we don’t have any wine to go in it.”

“’Shael can take the jug,” Kaden responded more harshly than he’d intended. “It’s been two days. What’s happening out there? Did anyone find what’s killing the goats? What’s going on with those two merchants?”

Akiil flopped onto the bench wearily and spread his hands. He looked bored. Bored and frustrated. His robe, never very clean to begin with, had dirt ground into it, a sure sign that he, like Kaden, had been spending the bulk of his days performing some sort of menial labor rather than lounging around with the strangers. He raked a mop of hair out of his eyes.

“What has been happening with the merchants is what always happens with merchants. A lot of song. A lot of dance.”

“Meaning what?”

Akiil shrugged. “Pyrre and Jakin try to sell us shit. Nin says we don’t want it. Pyrre says, ‘But surely you would enjoy a robe made of these fine silks.’ The abbot says he prefers roughspun. You’re not missing much.”

Kaden shook his head in frustration. “There’s something strange about those two, something … not right.”

“They’re shitty merchants, that’s for sure.” Akiil’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. How do you know? Tan’s had you locked in here the whole time.”

“I was in the dovecote,” Kaden confessed. Quickly, he ran through the whole story-the merchants’ strange entrance, the overpowering sense that Pyrre was holding something back, despite her urbane geniality, that vague suspicion that Kaden felt so powerfully but could barely articulate. “There’s something … something they’re not saying about my father,” he concluded weakly.

Akiil frowned. “Sounds like your imagination has flown the coop.”

“I didn’t imagine it.”

“Halva’s always lecturing me about how we see what we want to see. That could have happened to you. Of course, if I saw what I wanted to see, Pyrre’s breasts would be a fair amount larger.”

“Why would I want to see something troubling about my father?”

“Not that you want bad news, but it’s only natural to worry about your parents-provided you know who they are. It’s an affliction I’ve been spared.”

“I’m looking at Pyrre’s face now,” Kaden replied, his mind filling with the saama’an. For the hundredth time, he tried to pinpoint what it was about the woman’s expression that bothered him so. “There’s … something.” He sighed. “There’s something strange, but I can’t see what it is.”

“Sounds like you’ve been spending too much time buried up to your nose or running around with a blindfold on. That can do things to a man, can do things to his mind-”

“There’s nothing wrong with my mind.”

“That’s up for debate,” Akiil shot back. Then, seeing the blaze in Kaden’s eyes, he raised his hands in surrender. “But let’s assume you’re right. Still, wouldn’t Nin or Tan or one of our aged wards have noticed? I mean, you’re good at the saama’an, but they’ve been going at it hammer and tongs for decades.”

Kaden spread his hands helplessly.

“Of course,” his friend went on, a sly grin creeping onto his face, “old Shin tricks are all well and good, but there’s a way we can get some more … practical information.”

Kaden looked at him. That grin suggested Akiil had devised a plan that would get them both beaten half to death if Nin or Tan found out. Which was all the more reason to make sure they didn’t find out. “Go on.”

Akiil leaned forward conspiratorially, rubbing his hands together, fully engaged for the first time since he entered. “I’ve been watching that woman, Pyrre.” He pursed his lips appraisingly. “She’s not much, compared to the whores I grew up around, but, up here in the mountains, I figure you have to take what you can get.”

“You’ve been spying on her.”

“Let’s call it ‘supervising.’ At any rate, she’s slipped away from the monastery a few times, usually at dusk, when Jakin’s haggling with Nin.”

“Maybe she’s just taking a look around,” Kaden responded. He wanted Akiil to have an idea, but this seemed pretty thin.

“She goes east. Away from the sunset. Away from all the pretty views. Besides, Nin told her the first night about whatever’s been killing the goats. You know many women who enjoy taking midnight strolls around a strange mountain monastery perched on the edge of a cliff when they’ve just learned that an unknown predator is ripping the heads off goats and men alike and then eating the brains?”

Kaden nodded, warming to the idea. “That’s strange. So where does she go?”

“No idea,” Akiil replied. “I haven’t had a chance to follow her-I’ve been shoveling out a new channel for a branch of the White River the past three days. Tonight, however…” He grinned. “I thought maybe we might put some of our Shin tracking skills to work.”

Beshra’an, the “Thrown Mind,” had originated as a way to trail lost livestock or to hunt down predators; it was, in fact, the way Kaden had tracked down the slaughtered goat two months earlier. Following prints in the earth was all well and good, but most of the land around Ashk’lan was rock, not earth. When the prints disappeared, as they inevitably did in the granite peaks, the monks needed another method.

The goal of beshra’an was to slip outside one’s own head, to throw one’s mind into another creature, to think, not like a man following a goat, but like the goat itself. The monks who were good at it could follow animals over blank stone with uncanny success, abandoning their own humanity to sniff out the scent of fresh grass, to tread the fine gravel that the goats favored, to move into the lee of a massive boulder when the storms came. Kaden had had some luck with it, even a few times where he felt as though he really had “thrown” his mind into the head of his quarry. Unfortunately, he’d never tried following a human.

“All right,” he whispered to Akiil once they’d slipped from the monastery proper and out toward the broken land to the east. A gibbous moon hung low in the sky, and once his eyes adjusted, there was enough light to see by. Rock slabs and boulders leaned against one another, casting dark shadows beneath the argent glow of the moon. Crooked branches of the junipers, twisted by the wind, reached toward them, threatening to snatch a robe or scratch an eye. The evening sounds of the monastery were barely audible above the light breeze.

“This seemed like a better idea when we were inside,” Akiil said. His voice was sarcastic, but his eyes flitted from rock to rock, quick and alert. Kaden didn’t have to remind him that whatever killed Serkhan was still out there, still waiting. They had to hope that the staves they’d taken from the goats pens along with the knives at their belts would be enough to discourage it. After all, Kaden reasoned with himself, Pyrre is sneaking around out here every night, and she hasn’t been killed yet.

“We’ll be quick,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as his friend.

“That’s what I told myself right before I cut that purse. The one that earned me this,” Akiil replied, gesturing to his brand. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you can dim those eyes of yours. It’s nice that a goddess fucked your great-great-grandad, but they’re a little obvious.”

“Maybe they’ll scare away whatever needs scaring.”

Akiil snorted.

“All right,” Kaden said, shivering beneath his robe. “You’re Pyrre, a merchant woman from the empire. You leave your perfectly nice monastic cell to skulk off into the rocks. Why?”

Akiil grinned. “I’m hoping to tickle one of these strapping young monks up under that robe of his.”

Kaden considered this. Women never visited the monastery, and there probably were a couple of monks who wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes alone with Pyrre, Akiil chief among them.

“Fine,” he replied, “let’s say it’s a rendezvous. Where do you go?”

“I’m not from here. I go wherever I’m told.”

“All right, then, let’s get into the mind of this hypothetical monk. You want to meet up with Pyrre. Where do you tell her to go?”

“One of the abandoned buildings to the south. The lower meadow, although that’s a little far. Maybe into the dovecote.” Akiil winked. “Someplace with a little romantic character. You got to treat the lady right.”

“I’m sure she’d be flattered to bed you while surrounded by shitting pigeons. What about east?” he asked, gesturing to the rocks in front of them. “That’s the direction you said you saw her going. Would you tell her to meet you up there?”

Akiil hesitated, then shook his head. “Nothing but gullies and fissures. I don’t want to be picking pebbles out of my ass.”

“So she’s on her own,” Kaden concluded. “A monk would have sent her somewhere else.”

“Seems reasonable,” Akiil replied, “but not that helpful.” He gestured to the forbidding labyrinth of rock before them. “You’re her. Where do you go?”

Kaden considered his options by the meager moonlight. There were half a dozen goat tracks leading up into the broken mountain, any one of which the woman could have followed. Most of them were obvious-trails clear as highways to anyone who’d spent time in the mountains-but Pyrre wasn’t from the mountains, at least not these mountains. He tried to look at the land with an unfamiliar eye.

“The streambed,” he said finally. “She’d take the streambed.”

Akiil waved a dismissive hand toward the channel. “What would she want to roll her ankles in the streambed for when there are plenty of good tracks to follow? Doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because,” Kaden replied, “the streambed doesn’t look like a streambed. It’s dry this late in the spring. It’s broad. It’s relatively flat. For someone who didn’t grow up here, it’s the most obvious way through the rocks. She won’t have realized that the rounded stones will make for impossible footing, and she probably didn’t even notice the trails left by the goats. They don’t look like much, if you’ve never tried to follow them.”

Akiil shot him an appraising look. “Have you been tracking women without me all these years? Keeping secrets?”

“Why would I tell you my secrets? You’re a thief.”

“You wound me, brother. You wound me. I’m a humble monk, devoted to my god.”

“Well, devote yourself to this for a few hours instead,” Kaden replied, gesturing toward the stream.

A few dozen paces into the mountains, they came across the first sign of the woman-an overturned rock. Then there was a bootprint in the soft mud. And then another rock kicked out of its divot. They followed the signs for less than a quarter of a mile until Akiil spotted a low pile of stones. They didn’t look like much, just a few cobbles in a world of rock, not something that would draw the untrained eye. But river stones didn’t mound up like that. The spring flood would have washed them right down the drainage.

“Well, look at this,” Akiil said, lifting one of the stones off the pile. “Let’s see what the good merchants have to hide.”

He was grinning, eyes bright in the moonlight. Kaden didn’t share his enthusiasm. The streambed wasn’t very wide, but he felt exposed beneath the lambent stare of the moon, and despite the cool night air, sweat poured down his back. He hefted the stave in his hand, reminded himself that Serkhan had been attacked when he was alone, tried to believe that two young men together, armed with sticks and knives, would be enough to scare it off. When reason failed, he worked through the Shin exercise to slow his pulse, and bent to the cairn of stones only when his breathing was slow and regular once more.

Pyrre had cached two oilcloth bundles under the pile, and Kaden lifted them out carefully, then handed one to Akiil. He fumbled briefly with the ties binding it shut, trying to calculate whether he could retie them if he heard the woman returning. His fingers were clumsy as though with long cold, and by the time he had opened his bag, Akiil had already spread out half the contents of his sack on a flat rock. Kaden paused to look over the things while his friend ticked them off in a whisper.

“Clean tunic. Clean socks. Disappointingly light purse,” he said, tossing the small cloth pouch in the air so that it jingled when he caught it.

Kaden winced.

“Hat,” Akiil continued. “About twenty yards of rope…” The process was nerve-racking, but the results were not. Nothing that a normal merchant wouldn’t carry on a long trip. Nothing to lend heft to Kaden’s vaguely adumbrated suspicions.

Then Akiil found the knives.

Everyone carried a knife, of course, and a merchant would have more need of one than most. There were harnesses to mend along the road, rocks to dig out of the mule’s hoofs, frayed ropes to slice and retie, dried meat to cut for dinner. There were a thousand reasons Kaden could think of for a merchant to carry a good knife. A merchant would not, however, need a dozen of them. Akiil laid them on the stone one by one, six identical eight-inch blades, the kind men fought with in the killing pits of Annur, honed and polished edges glinting in the cold moonlight.

“Brought them along to trade?” he suggested. His voice had lost some of its boyish enthusiasm.

“To a monastery?” Kaden asked.

They gazed at the weapons for a moment before Akiil gestured to the oilcloth bundle that Kaden was still holding.

“What’s in there?”

Kaden managed to untie the last knot, then reached into the sack. His fingers brushed over wood and steel. When he had finally wrestled the thing out of the bag, he found himself holding a crossbow.

“It could all be for protection,” Akiil pointed out. “It’s a dangerous road over the steppe. The Urghul don’t usually molest traders, but you never know when you’re going to end up on the wrong end of a human sacrifice.”

“If it’s all for protection,” Kaden replied, “then what’s it doing hidden in the rocks?”

They considered the weapons for a few more heartbeats and then, as though responding to some silent command, began packing everything back the way they had found it. The jovial, larking expression had left Akiil’s face. He looked angry as he thrust the various items back into the satchel. Within moments they had returned the weapons to the bags and the bags to their hiding spot under the rocks. Akiil was replacing the final stones on the cairn when something clattered farther down the streambed, stone on stone.

Kaden spun to peer into the darkness.

“Did you hear that?” he murmured, trying to sort shadow from shape in the meager light.

Akiil nodded, hefting his stave in front of him. Kaden dropped a hand to his belt knife, then decided against it. He didn’t know much about fighting, but he didn’t like his odds if whatever it was got close enough for him to use a knife.

A cloud passed over the moon, plunging the ravine into even deeper shadow. Kaden could barely make out Akiil standing only a few feet away. Beyond him, the bare shapes of the cliffs and crenellations loomed, more felt than seen. He turned in a slow circle, leveling his staff, searching for light, movement, anything that might give him a warning of danger before it arrived.

“You see anything?” he hissed.

Akiil’s only response was a low umph, like a cough that never made it out of the chest. Kaden spun just in time to watch his friend collapse onto the streambed. Before he could cry out, a strong, implacable hand clamped down on his mouth.

Kaden was not soft. Eight years of hard physical exercise high in the mountains had seen to that. He could carry a quarter of his weight in water up hundreds of steps from the stream or run all night over rocky paths. He should have been able to put up something of a fight, and yet the hand that held him might have been made of granite. As he struggled, his adversary’s other arm closed around his neck, crushing his windpipe. This is the result of bad decisions, thought the part of him that could still think. In desperation, Kaden threw an elbow, hoping to dislodge his opponent. The man’s stomach was as solid as his arm. Kaden screamed silently as his mind failed.