Ariah (5 page)

He didn’t ask me if I was sure. He didn’t ask me why I made the choice I did. All he did was give my shoulder a quick pat as he passed by. That was enough to convince us both, I think, that I’d made the right decision.

CHAPTER 3

Dirva, Abira, and I took the train from Rabatha to Tarquintia. In those early days of the railroad, Tarquintia was the furthest out the rails went. We made the rest of the trip on camelback. It was a slow trek. The desert out there is flat and empty; the days of travel were monotonous. My camel and I did not get along very well, and I spent most of the time keeping my feet tucked under me so he couldn’t bite them. It took us a week to reach the walls of the western border. We came to it in one of the empty places, where there was just us, the sand, and the wall. Dirva rode next to me when we got there. “Have you ever crossed the border?” he asked.

“
No. I’ve only ever been in Ardijan and Rabatha.”

“
Crossing the border is something you should go into with open eyes. They will separate us and interrogate us in different rooms. They will search our things and confiscate whatever they happen to like or whatever seems valuable.”

“
We don’t have anything valuable left!” I said. We’d been searched at the train station. They’d taken some books and whatever cash they could find. They had tried to take Abira’s drums, but she managed to bribe a guard to let her keep them by trading most of her remaining City herb. It was, it turned out, one reason she’d brought it. Dirva lectured her about how stupid it was to use illegal drugs to bribe Imperial officials, but Abira pointed out it had worked more than once, and he grew silent and frustrated.

“
They will find something to take,” Dirva said. “They will ask us why we are leaving the Empire, if we plan to return, when we plan to return, and they will ask each of us questions about the people with whom we are traveling. To prevent you from getting detained, you should look through Abira’s and my papers.” He pulled the papers out of his pocket and handed them to me. “Don’t lose them.”

“
I won’t lose them,” I said, frowning at him.

“
It bears mentioning,” Dirva said. “Remember: I am going to the City for personal reasons. Abira is returning home. You are with us because of your training.” He nudged his camel forward and trotted away from me before I looked at the papers.

I had thought I would have trouble keeping everything straight. When I get nervous, when I am put on the spot, often my mind abandons me. I held the papers and wished that Dirva had not said anything. I thought it would have been easier on me. Sometimes when demands surprise me, I fare better than when I know answers will be demanded in advance. Abira’s papers were on top. They were stained and creased, just a sheaf of documents unprotected. Dirva’s, like mine, were protectively encased in a leather sheath, but hers were impractically naked to the whims of the world. Her name was listed simply as Abira, with no patronymic or matronymic attached. It seemed fitting for her, this name that suggested she sprung fully-formed from the ether. She had listed her race as “mostly elf” and had left the ethnicity field blank. She had listed herself as a drummer for both her occupation and her primary magical ability. Her papers, like Abira herself, were flippant and bold and terribly unhelpful.

Dirva’s papers were not what I had expected. He had always struck me as a thoroughly honest man, but his papers were full of peculiar lies. I had, by then, suspicions about the verity of his name, which would be borne out later. His address and his occupation were accurate, but very little else was. He had listed himself as half-Semadran and half-Qin and claimed he’d grown up in Mahlez, a small city in the Empire’s northwest territory. He had listed no siblings and claimed his Qin father was dead. His travel history suggested he’d served as a translator for a Qin caravan, and thus had spent some time in Vilahna and the City for professional reasons. The strangest thing, though, was that he lied about his gifts. He had listed auditory mimicry as his primary ability and listed no secondary abilities at all. His gift for shaping was conspicuously absent.

I gingerly urged my camel to speed up. When I caught up to him, I handed back the papers. He caught the look on my face when I did it and let out a short, sharp sigh. “Yes, the things in my papers are not accurate,” he said.

“
May I ask why?”

“
May I ask you why yours are so truthful?”

I blinked at him. “I…false papers are a criminal offense. I could be jailed.”

“
You could be jailed for anything. There are things in your papers, Ariah, which are not criminal, but could lead to detainment. You will remember what’s in my papers?”

“
Yes.”

“
Then we should make it through the border without difficulty.” He gave his camel a sharp swat and sped up to his sister.

I realized what he meant when we reached the border guards. We followed the wall north until we hit a gate out of the Empire. The border guards had a different character than the Qin policemen in the cities: they were rough-hewn men, dusty and unkempt. There was a rawness, a frankness, to them which made me uneasy. I couldn’t help but wonder what drew them all the way out to the edge and what about the edge kept them there. We were the only travelers there that day: it was just the three of us elves and the fifteen Qin border guards. That alone was enough to set me on edge. They separated us, five guards to one elf, and took us into separate rooms while our camels were fed and watered.

The first thing they did was search me and my bag. They had me strip to my underclothes, and one especially large guard patted me down. I was bright red the entire time, frozen and terrified. I felt exposed and vulnerable. One of the other guards poured out my belongings on the table and sifted through them. The other three guards just watched. Two of them smoked long, hand-rolled tobacco cigarettes; the air in the room was thick and hazy. The guard searching me finally finished after what felt like an eternity. “He’s clear.”

“
His bag is clear, too,” the other guard said. As he said it, I watched him slip all of my ink pens into his pocket. They were not even very good pens.

One of the smokers came forward and pointed first at me and then the table. I pulled my clothes on in frantic, jerking movements and sat down. My heart beat wildly in my chest, and the pulse of blood in my ears made it hard to hear what was said to me. Panicky sweat tickled the back of my neck. The Qin border guard sat across from me. He sat with an unruffled ease, his cigarette sleepily draped in his fingers. He took a draw on it and blew the smoke at me, then gestured at my scattered things. “You can put them away now.” I threw my things haphazardly into my pack. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“
To cross the border.”

“
No love for our Exalted Emperor?”

My head jerked up. “I…no, of course I…I am grateful for the life he grants me.” The words were a struggle to get out. There was a smattering of rough laughter. The blood drained from my face. I was scared, hopelessly scared. I was scared enough that my fingers went numb and clumsy. “I am here with my mentor, who is traveling to the City of Mages on personal business. I am traveling with him because my training is not yet complete,” I said very fast.

“
What kind of personal business?” The guard spoke slowly, and his words ran together in a slight slur. At first I thought he was drunk. When I screwed up the courage to look directly at him, to face the terrible piercing sharpness of his Qin eyes, I saw that the left side of his face was viciously scarred. The scars pulled the corner of his mouth up in a perpetual grisly grin. They made it hard for him to speak clearly. They were desert scars, not battle scars. I ripped my eyes away quickly, partly out of shame for having seen the scars, and partly to keep the gifts at bay. An accidental reading would lead to nothing good for me.

“
It’s personal.”

“
Yes, you said. What kind of personal business?”

“
It is not my business.”

There was a slight pause. He tapped the ashes from his cigarette. “I will not ask you again.”

I tried to remember the details of Dirva’s papers and could not dredge them up. I knew he’d lied about his parents, and that he’d said one of them was dead, but I couldn’t remember which one. “A relative is not well,” I said.

“
Best thoughts to the relative. You know the relative?”

“
No.”

“
And yet you go beyond borders with him?”

“
Yes.”

“
Hmm.” The guard waved two of the others out of the room. I could not help but wonder why. He thumbed through my papers again. “There is a woman with you.”

“
Yes.”

“
Who is she? Why are you traveling together?”

“
Her name is Abira. She is a drummer. She is returning home. The City is her home.” I hesitated. “We are traveling with her because she’s made the trip before.”

“
Do you plan to return?”

“
Yes.”

“
When?”

“
I don’t know. It depends on my mentor’s relative.”

The guard smoked his cigarette in silence. I don’t know how long the silence lasted, but by the time he spoke again I was drenched in sweat. He tapped my papers with a large, blunt finger. “A shaper at my gate.”

I forgot to breathe. There was danger in his voice. I could hear it. Or maybe I could feel it; I’m not sure. “It is not my primary ability.”

“
It never is.” The guard leaned forward. I stared at the table. “Tell me, Mr. Lirat’Mochai, how can I trust the things you tell me? How can I know that you have not picked what is best for you to say from my mind? I do not like to be tricked, Mr. Lirat’Mochai.”

I closed my eyes, as much to keep me from reading him as to keep him from being read. I, like most of us with this gift, have a terrible tendency to lapse into magic when threatened. It’s involuntary, I think—a pure reaction. Much of the training for a shaper deals with this, that when we grow scared or anxious or threatened we eavesdrop whether we want to or not. “It’s not mind reading,” I said quietly. “That is a misconception.”

“
Ah, so you admit to it.” There was a rustle of cloth, and I believe just then he was performing a warding against the impurity of my magic.

“
No! No, I just…no, I have not used the gift at all since I arrived at the gate. You would have felt it if I had. You’ve been read before, yes? It burns. You would have felt it!”

“
So you say. I am pure. Me and mine are pure. We only know as much about your so-called gifts as you tell us. Yes, sometimes the intrusion burns. But what if sometimes it doesn’t? How would I know? I wouldn’t. You and yours keep secrets from me and mine. I understand why. If I was like you, I would too. But, Mr. Lirat’Mochai, you must understand the position this puts me in. How can I trust you?”

“
If you’re that worried I am dishonest, why not employ a shaper here?”

The guard laughed. “And trust that shaper to tell us the truth about you? Elves will stick together. No, that would be even more dangerous for us. But there are ways to ensure loyalty. I could, for instance, detain you, get you reassigned here, and work you under threat of prison if you don’t tell us the truth. It’s not perfect, such a thing. It does not prevent you from keeping things secret. And it certainly does not make my life or the lives of my men easier. All the time we’d lose just warding you off; think of all the lost time. But I could do it. Should I do that, Mr. Lirat’Mochai?”

“
I do not believe so, sir,” I said. My eyes were still screwed shut. My voice was soft and trembling. “It is my secondary ability. I am not a strong shaper. I would be of little use to you.”

“
You are of little use to me now.”

I dropped my face into my hands. “Are you going to detain me?”

“
I haven’t decided.” Without another word, he left the room. I was alone but for a disinterested border guard posted at the door, one who I understood without having to be told would kill me if I tried to escape. I don’t know how long I was left there alone. There was nothing in me but the wordless panic, a visceral terrible thing that just kept on and on. I felt like I was being strangled from within, that my heart would explode at any moment, and time ceased to really matter. Eventually, the door opened, and the scarred guardsman told the man at the door I was free to go.