175 - Dupes for tears

People brought lit torches. To our amazement, we’d lost no one, taking only one broken arm and an eye pierced by a dart, not too badly to heal. They’d used nothing but stun-darts; Krero and the others were unconscious but unharmed.

They had orders to take me alive, I thought. So they were taking no chances that they’d inadvertently kill me trying to kill my guards. Hold me hostage, if they got surrounded... A choice from a guard’s worst nightmares; All-Spirit be thanked mine hadn’t had to make it.

We found all six Mahid dead, even the ones I hadn’t been sure I killed; they’d all had poison teeth, and used them. I knew some of their faces. “Kyash, this one’s head is cut off cleanly,” Sachara said. “With a shortsword—how did you do that, Cheng?”

“I didn’t know I could,” I said, shrugging. “I’m crazy.” I flicked the blood off it onto the earth, then wiped it off thoroughly on a dry bit of black shirt.

Merchoser had indeed hidden under the bed; he was still there, curled, face buried in his hands, saying mindlessly, “Anamun anamun anamun…” After nineteen years in the midst of blood and barbarity, he had returned to the home of peace, only to see that follow him here. But our need for his services brought him back to himself.

Full awareness of what ought to be comes back gradually. It slowly dawned on me that we—no, I, alone, the semanakraseye of Yeola-e—had killed six, who had killed none, on Haiu Menshir. It was about then that Alchaen came running, with four House of Integrity strong-arms; they patrol the House woods at night. All five froze as if to stone at the sight of me, then shrank backwards, their usually-calm flat Haian faces twisted in horror. I looked, I realized, as if I’d just got out of a bath of blood, otherwise naked, while my guards laughed in victory and slapped me on the back. I opened my mouth to speak, and nothing came out. Trust my tongue to fail me now.

Alchaen stared at the corpses—those Yeolis who’d been darted had been taken care of, carried off to their quarters and beds—then at me. His look was one I could never have imagined on that face, that had always been understanding, no matter what I told him: as if a monster stood in my place. It cut the heart out of me. I stood feeling all my strength drain away; the sword slipped out of my fingers and landed with a thump on the sandy ground. “You thought he should just let them take him?” Sachara asked Alchaen, in the deadly-calm way he did in the rare times he was very angry. Shut up, he’s Haian! I couldn’t command him. “After all that he went through, that you know better than anyone, you can blame him?”

“Chevenga.” That voice I turned to: my mother. She took my shoulders. “Go to the sea and wash, love.” I obeyed mindlessly. She came with me. Out in the waves, the ghostly water-light glowed green, eddying around my fingers as the blood came off. Water brought calm.

As we went back, I heard talk in the trees. The head House strong-arm was there now. Alchaen said to me, gently, his face gone back to its usual impassive-but-understanding look, “They’re all saying none of them had a hand in any of this, that you did it all yourself. Is that true?” I signed chalk. So much for my playing innocent.

The leaf-houses of the House of Integrity are raised and taken down and moved easily. Once he looked inside mine, the head strong-arm decided that it should be burned entire, except for the posts. I got my things out, and they had it ripped apart and in a flaming heap on the beach in what seemed like moments. I set up a spare bedroll on the floor of my mother’s, but did not sleep.

In Haian heat, the corpses could not be left untended long. At dawn, a messenger came from the Speaking Elder’s office, with six boxes, and a note from Dinerer. She was requesting a visit from Krero, who had barely woken up, was in the grip of the headache, and needed hard convincing that this was neither a dream or a prank, Denaina, who had no idea anything had happened, and me. No mention of my incompetence now. My mother and shadow-father came, for moral support.

The Speaking Elder called Krero in first. No walls or doors are built thick on Haiu Menshir, so I easily heard the young deep voice and the old high one as they rose, then words, at least his. “If we hadn’t, he’d be on his way back to Arko in chains now, and all your fine healing undone! … You can die for your pacifism, but why should he?” Finally it seemed to end without resolution, and he came stamping out, livid and trembling. “Got her in… just the mood… to see me,” I said. “Thanks.” He just growled wordlessly.

She called Denaina in next, fortunately, and that was quieter; she, of course, was a diplomat. When she came out, she said formally, “Semanakraseye, the Speaking Elder invites you in,” but grabbed my arm for a moment and whispered in my ear. “She wants to pull all Haians out of Yeola-e for this. Only one who can talk her out of it is you.”

Dinerer looked over sixty, which meant she was likely over eighty, knowing Haians. Her hair flowed bright white around a slender tawny face, the web-work of wrinkles carven in a kindly mien, but the black eyes all hardness now. She wordlessly gestured towards a chair. Her office was harmoniously stark, in the Haian style. I went down onto my knees before her desk instead of sitting. That gave her a moment’s pause, but she said what she had clearly meant to say anyway.

“You came here seeking necessary healing. In good will, we took you in and gave you what you needed. Your guards, however, spirited some twenty weapons of death past the Gate, though they had already been denied a dispensation. Six Arkans attempted to capture you; to prevent them, you took one of those weapons of death in hand and used it, resulting in the deaths by violence of six human beings on the soil of Haiu Menshir.

“Arko and Yeola-e are equally guilty of bringing your war onto our island, in violation of our trust and of the World’s Compact. You need not make the argument that they were the aggressors, since your guard captain already did. What I will take to the Council of Elders for consideration is the resolution that we call all healers out of both nations.”

What to say, into that yawning silence? Sorry? Excuses? The most necessary thing kept coming back to mind, so I opened my mouth to say it, hoping my voice would be there. “My presence here…” I swallowed, my throat gone too dry, and took a deep breath. “…is a danger to you… we will go.”

“No,” she said, to my surprise. “Your healing is not complete yet, your healer told me, and we will not forsake a patient. Whom we heal, need will dictate, not Arko.”

“But…” I should meet her eyes; I could not bring myself to. “The Mahid… always have one man at the rear… in reserve… in case. His pigeon… will be half-way to… the city, by now. They’ll come b…” Kyash, I almost finished the sentence. “Back.”

“Your difficulty speaking, I take it, is a symptom of your condition?” Small mercies; her voice was a little more gentle. I signed chalk, then, on her look of incomprehension—Alchaen had learned the gesture from seeing me use it, I realized—I croaked, “Yes.”

“You are not ready to leave the House of Integrity.”

The deep breath I took in quivered audibly, not helping my argument. “But… if I cannot… preserve my life… for the sake of my people…”

“It’s been a noted trait of Yeoli rulers, to care for nothing but their people,” she said drily.

“Speaking… Elder…” I couldn’t say that much in more than a whisper now, and then my throat locked up entirely. I’d betrayed Haiu Menshir, betrayed its spirit, violated all it stood for, so the scraps of my nation that remained free, which needed their Haians more than ever, would lose them. I saw the look on Alchaen’s face again, and heard Merchoser chanting anamun—“spirit of life,” it means—in terror again. I wanted to die and rot through the cracks between the wood slats of her office floor. She sat still and silent for a while, watching me half-curl and clench my forelock and fight tears and lose, the one who stood for all Yeola-e representing them this way before the one who stood for all Haiu Menshir.

Then she came around the desk, and wrapped my hands in hers, which were warm and smooth. Haians are healers, without fail. “Let it out, until you reach calm,” she said. She’d been a psyche-healer before becoming Speaking Elder, I was suddenly sure.

So I wept freely, and in time felt more like a child solaced by a grandmother than an official shaming my people, and calm did come. She pulled up on my hands, meaning I should get up, and steered me to the chair, then handed me a kerchief. “Tell me,” she said finally. “What would have happened, if you and the other Yeolis had had no weapons?”

“The Arkans… most likely would have taken me, again.”

“And then?”

“Taken me back to…” My tongue locked solid as rock. I signed as best I could, my mouth, nothing, no.

“Arko?” I signed chalk, then did the up-and-down head-wag Arkans do, thinking maybe she’d know that. “Meaning yes.” I signed chalk again. “And…?” Now even my hands locked up. Alchaen! Alchaen! My soul screamed for him like a baby its mother, I remembered that look and knew I was alone, and then my mind was in smoke and flames, as had not happened for two or three months now, as I began tumbling into the abyss. From a distance, I heard her say, “Arko… you were tortured there, weren’t you? Put your head back.” When I came to myself, I was in the chair, sweat-soaked in the most formal clothes my guards had been able to cobble together, with Dinerer’s hands cradling my head and her voice gentling me.

“And if you had not acted as you had, the same would have ensued,” she said. It wasn’t a question, in truth, so I didn’t answer. The cold formality of her words was odd, against the utter tenderness of her hands. “What you did to the Arkans was far in excess of what was necessary to prevent your capture; am I correct?” I signed chalk, not yet daring to try my tongue. I could have struck to wound or to stun, and not finished those I’d finished; probably it would have made no difference, since they’d had poison teeth, too, but she was still correct. “Why did you?”

All-Spirit… how can I begin to explain? How could I, even if I had full use of words? How could you begin to understand, ancient woman, when you have lived in this perfect place all your life, in the eternal cradle of peace? I thought back, remembered what I’d said when Sach had marveled that I’d beheaded one of them with a shortsword. It’s the most honest answer. I touched the green ribbon.

Dinerer’s spider-wrinkled face faintly softened. All-Spirit... it was the correct answer. “You make the case that what they did was an act of war, while what you did was an act of madness.” Yes, of course; Gods of Arko know that Mahid are bastions of sanity. I just signed chalk, while Krero’s avowal of “You’re not responsible!” echoed in my mind. If that keeps Yeola-e’s healers, I’ll take it.

“I will explain this to the Council... and recommend lenience. And…” She pulled out paper, and rattled off something on it with a cormorant-quill pen, in both Haian and Enchian writing. “Here, give this to... that guard commander.” It was a dispensation for us to carry weapons, provisional until ratified by the Council. “Did your healer accompany you here?” No, but my mama did. I stammered out my formal farewell to Dinerer, and staggered out into my mother’s arms.

“Cheng, you could charm the bark off a tree,” Krero said, reading the paper.

Esora-e burst out laughing. “I know how he did it! Speak to people in the tongue they understand, you always say, lad, don’t you? All Haians are dupes for tears, ha ha ha! Well done, my son.”

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