174 - A blood-curdling scream in the night

When you go through such a healing, your full awareness comes back to you gradually. Your notice of what is around you, and what ought to be, slowly clears. I was healed enough to be speaking perhaps three-quarters fluently again when I thought, my guards are all armed. On Haiu Menshir.

I had never been there, that I remembered, but I knew what everyone knows: Sailortown, the part of the port of Haiuroru where foreigners stay, is walled off, and there is a gate. It is part of the World’s Compact—a very sacred part—that no weapons ever pass through that gate.

It was a little before dawn. I waited until we’d eaten, then called Krero in, trying to fit it in before Alchaen arrived.

“You know nothing about it,” Krero said cheerily, when I was done struggling to get out the words. “You’re a patient of the House of Integrity, you’re not responsible, don’t worry your head.”

I’d missed him, and his endearing habit of choosing for me. “I’m a patient of the House of Integrity… who has weapon-sense,” I said. “Alchaen knows it; we’ve spoken about it. I can make… an appointment with Speaking Elder Dinerer… tomorrow. Shall it be I… or you… who tells her what’s going on?”

He sat down on my bed in his sulking way, with a sigh. “We all thought it best you be kept out of this… given your condition. I tried. Chevenga, we’ve already gone to Speaking Elder Dinerer, asking for a dispensation.”

Silence hung, as he did not tell me her answer. “And?”

“We did it all properly, trust me, through the ambassador and everything. We were thinking that Mahid, or whatever Kurkas might send after you, would be unlikely to extend the same courtesy before bringing their weapons.”

“She said no.”

He leapt to his feet and paced. “You know what burns me, Cheng? They live here in their perfect, sunny, flowery little world, peaceful and happy and innocent and protected from everything by the rest of us—so they don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, what we have to endure, what we have to do to protect ourselves—and them! They can get away with never lifting a sword, never putting on armour, never raising a sweat. Perhaps they will someday all die for their pacifism. Fine. But you shouldn’t have to.”

“She said no, so you sneaked weapons in.”

“Look, Cheng, Chirel’s at the embassy. In Sailortown. On the other side of the gate. All proper and legal. Someone sent it anonymously from Arko—isn’t that incredible?”

“It’s what I asked… him to do.” I had bequeathed the sword to Skorsas in my Arkan will, but told him I wanted him to send it to the Yeoli embassy on Haiu Menshir, on the chance I’d end up here. Still, to part of me, it seemed a miracle. I wanted to touch it. I needed to touch it, sling it on, draw it, practice with it; more than anything, I saw, that would bring me back to myself, or the self I must be for the next part of my life.

Still, I’d asked him a question. “You haven’t answered.”

“Well… I guess I should take it as a good sign, that I can’t throw you off the chase by a distraction,” he said, with pursed lips, and signed a flicker of chalk. “If the Arkans don’t try anything, no one will ever know. If they do, we’ll have been proven correct.”

I took a deep breath. “Excellent. The semanakraseye of Yeola-e is welcomed as guest and patient…” I took another deep breath. “…onto Haiu Menshir, and the first thing he… does to show his gratitude is… commit what by their reckoning is… an act of war. Good move, Krero.”

“Well, that’s why we thought it best you didn’t know!” he said. “They’re not going to call all the Haians out of Yeola-e for what a mere guard captain arranged. You’re wearing the green ribbon, you can’t even talk straight—kyash, you didn’t even know this yesterday, why do you have to know it today? Can you go back to not knowing it?”

“Krero.” After two years of disuse, my command-voice was there, no doubt because I started using it before I thought about whether I would be able to. “Disarm everyone. Sneak those swords back out.”

“Chevenga…” He stood before me and faced me front on. “No.” Was that the trace of a smile on his lips?

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean no. I won’t. You can’t give me orders.”

“I could have sworn I was the born and duly-approved semanakraseye of Yeola-e, and chakrachaseye by my own appointment.” All-Spirit, I thought. I said that entirely smoothly. But what is he thinking? It is automatic impeachment for a semanakraseye to break one of the major laws of Yeola-e, and I had done that, killing eight Yeolis in the Ring—but I hadn’t told Krero, or any of the Yeolis here, that I’d done that. Had Alchaen breached confidentiality? Or did they know some other way? It suddenly came to me, with horror so utter it made me go cold all over and all the way in: I told Artira my Ring-name in a letter. If they’ve been reading the Pages… they know.

That wasn’t Krero’s reasoning, though. “You are,” he said. “But you are wearing that.” He tapped the back of my wrist through the green ribbon. “While on Haiu Menshir, like in any land, you live by the laws of that land, yes? By the laws of Haiu Menshir, you are incompetent. Meaning, not responsible. Or doing any national business.” Now, he couldn’t help the triumphant smile. He tapped the hilt of his shortsword through his shirt. “These aren’t going anywhere.” Then whipped his hand away casually, as Alchaen civilly tapped the door and came in.

Often after he worked with me I’d end up lying limp, mute and in a sweat, ready only for a swim in the sea and sleep. Best I not wait. Once we were alone, I touched the green ribbon. “What does this mean, Alchaen? Legally?”

For a moment a look of wishing I hadn’t asked flashed across his face. Did he know my sane self that well, or had Krero, or others, spoken to him? “It means you are a patient of the House of Integrity,” he said, as if I needed to hear the part I knew as a preamble. “Meaning, by Haian law, you are resident here, and you are not competent to have… the full responsibilities you otherwise would.”

“Meaning what?”

“It means… such things as, your signature on an agreement would not have standing, nor any agreement you made verbally—”

“What if it’s between me and other Yeolis?”

“Well… what is between you and them is between you and them, so long as no law of Haiu Menshir is breached. But—”

“What if I wanted to speak with Dinerer?”

“Em… on your own behalf? Or… Yeola-e’s?”

“Let’s see what the answer… is… with both,” I said. “Just on my own.”

“Well… what would it be about?”

If he knew, no doubt, he’d be required by Haian law to report it. I didn’t want to lay that on him without being certain I could speak to the Speaking Elder. “Confidential matter.”

“Between you and Dinerer?” His brows arched a little.

“Never mind, then… on behalf of Yeola-e.”

“Well…” He looked a little as if he’d taken a sip of vinegar. I bet he didn’t have this problem with his last client, I thought. “She wouldn’t accept… em… your representation as… truly official… and because of that, em… she wouldn’t hear it.”

I have been too insane, I thought, to notice the constraints of insanity on me. In that sense, it’s a good sign that I’m noticing now... I made the best of it in my mind, but in my heart I wanted to leap up, scream, run, throw rocks. It’s like being back in Arko—no. Don’t think that. That’s the worst thing to think.

When we were done the healing work, and I lay limp on the bed after my swim, Krero came in with a second shortsword under his shirt, lifted my pillow slightly with my head on it, and slipped the sword under. “If something happens, we yelled to you it was there, got it?” he said, with a wink and a grin.

I had been here a little more than four moons, now, with twenty guards. How likely was it that Kurkas’s spies had not found out, when the torturers had scraped me and so must know my first intention was to come here? That, or that they’d respect the World’s Compact, which seemed even more unlikely, was the only thing I had to hope for, so I did. It was, of course, in vain.

A few days later, at the death-hour, weapon-sense tore me up out of an abyss of sleep that had been blessedly deep. Both guards on the roof had fallen off, without a sound, as people do when hit by Mahid darts.

I leapt out of bed, grabbing the sword from under my pillow and crying the alarm with a yell so blood-curdling I was struck by it myself, since it carried all the old terror and fury at Mahid I hadn’t known I had left in me.

But I had forgotten. I was a patient of the House of Integrity. Merchoser, who was watching over me that night—I was still never left alone, or even without a lamp burning while I slept—tried to pull me back into bed, then gasped and froze, seeing the sword. Outside, my guard, two on each wall, didn’t even move, let alone draw, while four Mahid with dart-tubes and shortswords came quietly within dart range. Realization crept over me, crawling like fingers up my spine and sending horror-tingles all down my limbs: a blood-curdling scream in the night from me is a shrugging matter for them. The pair on the back wall, one of whom was Krero, both went down, cutting off his words, “Easy, Cheng, go back to sl—” and the Mahid began slashing their way through the woven reed-leaves.

“Merchoser take cover!” I hissed, and smacked out the lamp; under woods and roof on a dark night it was pitch-black, best for me. Guessing they’d shoot low, at my bed, I sprang up onto one of the logs that ran along the wall, hanging on by one of the posts, and heard two sharp huffs of air; one dart thumped into my bed, the other snicked into the opposite wall. “Light!” one of the Mahid coolly hissed. Where Merchoser was, I could not know, but I did not hear him move; I hoped he was under the bed.

I leapt for the closest Mahid, who had his tube to his lips but aimed elsewhere, and took his head off. Then it was as if I were back in Arko, except that all was well because I had a sword in my hand and was using it. It seemed wrong that Skorsas wasn’t near, in a wardrobe, perhaps, quietly swearing, and the place didn’t smell of ceaseless katzeriks. The only difference was knowing Krero, who had wept with me for Mana, had fallen and was possibly dead himself. There was no reason they must use stun-darts here.

I heard myself laugh, long and ragged and shrill with blood-rage, a maniac’s in the dark. They froze; I moved, Arkan words coming easily to my tongue as I let my hand fly. “I will destroy you, black dogs, I will send you to eternal smothering in Hayel, my nightmares, I drink your blood and dance on your naked dying hearts, your death is my ecstasy, your agony-cry my song, I have always defeated you, I always will, send a hundred Mahid, send a thousand!”

In time my blade stopped finding men and found only air, tedious after the delicious catching of flesh and bone, and the joy of blood spattering warm. Outside Yeolis were coming running, including two with bows (where had they hidden those?). “He’s up in a tree!” I heard, over moaning near my feet, which I silenced with the sword. “Inside! Krero! Se’kras’! Cheng!”

“Where were you for the height of the party?” I said archly to Sach, who had a bow. “Never mind, lend me that.” One Mahid was sliding down the trunk of a tree, another staying still up in another one, in the hope that we wouldn’t notice he was there. It had been two years since I’ll drawn a bow, but my hands hadn’t forgotten. They were both easy shots, and I finished them where they fell; such a pleasure to grab straight hair that I knew was blond, and thrust a blade past onyxine collars.

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