Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (65 page)

“Saved your life,” Idisio said, rather drunkenly. He tried to stagger to his feet. The world spun in strange and unpleasant new ways around him, and he decided to stay close to the ground after all. “She was going to kill you.”

The man shook his head and sat back on his heels, still cradling Ellemoa’s body in his arms. “We all die sooner or later,” he said, ducking his head to draw the back of one hand clumsily across his face, wiping away tears and liquid snot. “She wouldn’t have killed me. Not right away. We had some time. Gods only know how long—but we had
time.”

Idisio began to say, “You’re
entirely
mad, do you know that?”—and stopped as something occurred to him. “Oh, gods,” he said instead. “You’re
Kolan,
aren’t you?”

“Yes,” the man said. He shifted the limp form to rest against one arm and used the other hand to gently stroke Ellemoa’s tangled hair from her face. “And you’re her son. I’d like to say
nice to meet you,
but—” His voice choked off into an ugly mixture of cough and sob.

“I think she loved you,” Idisio said helplessly. “She tried to say you didn’t matter, but I think—I think she really did care. As much as she could care about—anything.”

“I know,” Kolan said. “If she didn’t, she would have killed me years ago.”

He sighed and stood, cradling Ellemoa’s body in his arms; looked down at Idisio for a long moment, then shook his head and turned away.

Idisio made no effort to stop Kolan as he walked away with the body of a madwoman finally at peace. The world was still spinning erratically around Idisio—and his eyes were suddenly too blurred with tears to allow him to see much of anything at all.

“Goodbye, mother,” he whispered as the vague outline that was Kolan faded from his watery vision. “Goodbye.”

The faintest breeze wandered across his face, carrying a whisper that might only have been his imagination:
Goodbye, my beloved son... Goodbye.

She could have killed me.

Kolan laid Ellemoa’s limp body on the grass where leaf began giving way to sand and set about gathering what driftwood he could find.

When her son attacked her—she could have drawn strength from me. She could have killed me, to save herself. I wouldn’t have fought. She knew that.

He built a carefully layered square out of the largest pieces of driftwood; arranged the rest neatly inside, tucking tangled nests of dried grass into the inner layers.

She didn’t even
try
to save herself.

Searching through the plants along the dune-line, he found wild lavender; after a moment’s consideration, he shook his head and passed that by. Instead, he gathered armfuls of sweet thistle and sea-oats, sand roses and morning spice-weed, and worked those, along with an armful of well-dried seaweed, into the bier, leaving plenty of clear space between the branches for airflow.

By the time he managed that much, the stars were turning toward morning. He went along the lower beach, gathering the whitest, least broken assortment of shells he could find; gathered a number of largish rocks and shellrock fragments as well, and slid those latter carefully through the lattice of branches to rest in a rough pile at the bottom of the bier. The shells he set aside.

Returning to Ellemoa’s still form, he knelt beside her, tracing a hand along the side of her cool, slack face. His eyes blurred with tears.

“You only thought you knew how much you gave me,” he murmured; dashed his vision clear with the back of one hand and scooped her up before his nerve could fail him entirely.

He laid her out across the low bier, arranged her with hands folded and eyes closed; set the most beautiful shells he’d found across her brow, chest, and stomach, and set the rest in random patterns around the edges of her body, framing her with the bones of the sea.

He tucked his flawed blue-green marble under her hands, put a single, perfect white sea-rose over them, then stepped back to survey his work.

Someone coughed, not close by but near enough. Kolan turned without haste and found the blackreed retter standing a hefty stone’s throw away, watching him without expression.

“Won’t be enough,” the man said. “That’s hardly enough to heat water, what you got there. Won’t do for putting a body to ash.”

“I know,” Kolan said. He turned back to the bier. Kneeling to pray seemed—pompous, somehow, and out of place for the situation. She hadn’t believed, hadn’t lived by any of the Creeds; hadn’t, by any stretch of human standards, been a good person.

She didn’t even try to fight.

He sighed. “At least you saw the sun again,” he said aloud. “Even if you died in the dark, the way you always feared—at least you walked through sunlight once more, before the end.”

He raised his hands. Red-orange flame rippled along his fingers. Behind him, the retter grunted. Kolan read a dour satisfaction in that small sound, and his own mouth twisted in a bleak smile for a moment; then he stepped forward and thrust his hands deep into the pile of sticks beneath Ellemoa’s body.

Closing his eyes, he drew in a long breath: collected every memory of every day since their shared imprisonment began, every moment of rage and pain and fear and frustration, and blew it out along with his breath.

Burn,
he commanded: wood, stone, shell, and flesh obeyed.

He pulled clear and staggered back, as lightheaded and breathless as though he’d just blown out a thousand candles at once. His hands itched. Looking down, he found a fiery rash of blisters spreading from fingertip to elbow on each arm. Heat hammered at him, a yellow-red glare searing across his vision. He backed up several more steps, gasping, whimpering a little as the pain of scorched flesh registered; but he’d suffered worse, in the darkness under Bright Bay—and usually at her hand.

Why don’t you want to kill her?
the woman outside of Kybeach—the gerho merchant’s renegade wife—had asked, furious with bewilderment.
After what she’s done to you—why don’t you want her dead?

As Ellemoa’s flesh began to char and melt in Kolan’s summoned fire, Kolan murmured, “She never really wanted to do those things to me. For all that she enjoyed hurting me—she hated it, at the same time, and couldn’t ever let anyone know; it wasn’t safe. But I knew. I always knew....”

From a few steps away, the retter cleared his throat and said, quietly, “My boy says you’re a soapy?”

“Yes,” Kolan said. He wiped a hand across his face. “I was, anyway. What I am now... I don’t entirely know.”

“Well, you’re human enough to grieve for your dead,” the man said pragmatically. “And caring enough over one as you just admitted hurt you to set her up with a fair pretty bier and light the gods’ own blaze for her pyre, however you managed the trick. I figure you’re holy enough yet to be praying over her in one form or another.”

Kolan stared at the fierce flames. The heat had grown so intense that it dried the tears leaking from his eyes as they emerged. “Yes,” he said. “You’re right. Thank you.”

He drew a deep breath, then began reciting the Creeds: every single one. It wasn’t hard; he’d said them over and over, in the darkness, a reminder of what he clung to, a circular path to keep him within the bounds of sanity as madness hammered at his soul.

Harm no living creature, from beetle to boy; all have their place and purpose in the eyes of the gods....

The retter murmured each one along with him, missing a word or phrase now and again, or hesitating as though he’d learned a different version. Kolan kept his gaze on the flames and his attention on his recitation, focusing as tightly as though he were trying to copy a line without blotching the page.

Obedience to the gods requires a clean heart and a dedication to one’s given tasks....

The sky beyond the flames paled as he spoke, and a vibrant orange blush began to build to the southeast, as though the dawn had chosen to reflect the conflagration before him.

Seek not the chaos of the world outside, but be content with the inner truth and strength the gods will always give to those who truly seek it....

As he reached the fiftieth of the Creeds, a ghostly whisper arose, circling his inner ear with a familiar bleak humor:
You and your Creeds....

He smiled, and went on regardless.

Within every man is a monster and within every monster is a man. Before you pick up your knife to attack another, use that knife first to excise your own flaws....

She whispered the words along with him, far from devout but not as mocking as she’d been in life, either; and from that point on, her voice, faint and fragile enough that it seemed a hefty sea breeze would dissolve it, followed along with his, word for word.

As the heat of the fire faded and dawn grew around him, his eyes remained dry and his voice steady. He finished the hundredth and final Creed as the bier sank into a pile of glowing coals and ash:

Those whom the world sees as the least worthy of love, the gods always place first.

“May the gods hold her soul gently,” the retter said quietly, then bowed to Kolan with profound reverence and turned away.

“They will,” Kolan said, not caring if the man heard him. “They will.”

Sunlight streaked the air. A dawn sea breeze, rising, blew the ashes out to sea: leaving behind only a single, clear glass marble.

The closest gate to Peysimun Mansion turned out to be the Red Gate; and that turned out to be closed and heavily guarded, even under daylight. Four guards faced the outer city, their attention roving along the stretch of iron fencing to either side of the gate. Two more stepped out from the thick-walled guardhouse to face Tank as he led Sin toward them.

“Morning,
s’ieas,”
he said, smiling at them with false cheer. Not showing his true feelings was a lifelong habit, the more so when his mood was as brittle and dark as the remnants of a fierce fire; and guards, especially, weren’t safe to show that kind of anger around.

He wanted
out
of this place. Away from anything to do with nobles or people with power; away from any chance of encountering Wian, who he’d managed to avoid on his way out of Peysimun Mansion. Walking to the East Gate, while it would have put him closer to the Copper Kettle and been a shorter walk overall, meant going through noble-held territory for most of the distance.

Tank wanted to walk among
ordinary
people for a while, and remember what
simple
meant. It might ease his thundering headache and black mood.

The guards nodded at him, surveying him with care. The taller, a lean woman with a round face, said, “Morning,
s’e.
Planning to travel through this way, are you? Not something I’d recommend, myself.”

He looked at the four guards and the long stretch of fence: open iron fencing for a goodly distance to either side of the gate, and thick, spear-tipped stone from there on. He looked at the blank, dirty back walls of buildings beyond the bars, and the drifts of trash caught against fence and buildings alike. A shift in the breeze brought a foul smell wandering past his nose.

“Not a good area, I take it,” he said dryly.

She shook her head. “Not these days,” she said. “Most of the rat-chaff blew up along this stretch of town over the past few years. I’m imagining King Oruen will send us through to clear it at some point, but that’s not today. And if you’ll pardon the boldness,
s’e,
that horse and that sword will be worse than useless out there.”

He looked through the bars of the fence, a slow smile working across his face. “Sure to be a fight on the way through, is that it?”

“No question. Your boots alone—” She stopped, her own expression creasing from dour to amused. “Huh,” she said.

“Any chance you could spare someone to walk this beast over to the East Gate, and I’ll come round the long way to collect him?”

She pursed her lips and looked sidelong at her companion, who was openly grinning. “You don’t show up by sunset,” she said, “we keep it all.”

“Done.” He handed her the reins, then passed the other guard his sword, harness and all.

“You registered with the Hall?” she asked, practical, and scratched Sin’s nose fondly. “Nice fellow you got here.”

“Yes. Name of Tank.”

“We’ll let the captain know, if you don’t show up.”

“That’s appreciated,” he said. “But you won’t need to.”

“Huh,” she said, shaking her head, and “Huh,” again; then called for the other guards to open the gate. “We won’t open it for you from the other side,” was her parting warning. “Only one way through these doors,
s’e.”

“I’ll see you at the East Gate,” was all he said; and didn’t look back as the gates clashed shut behind him.

He was limping a little when he collected Sin, a solid two hours before sunset; the guard captain at the East Gate, eyebrows raised, handed over a thick, cloth-wrapped bundle along with horse and sword.

“Bandages and salves and such,” he said. “Kina said you’d likely need ‘em, if you showed. Looks like she was right.”