Authors: Kelly McCullough
Now, as she squared off against Jax, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d stepped right out of the real world and into one of the scenes from my earlier nightmares. I wanted to stop them, but couldn’t come up with any way to manage it short of physically stepping between them. Worse, exhausted as I was from my bout with Jax, I didn’t know if I’d be able to do anything about it even if I tried.
I was still dithering when Faran dropped into a crouch and spun a reverse kick at Jax’s shins. Rather than hop over the attack, Jax simply sank one of her swords into the deck. I winced. She placed the sword flat on to Faran’s kick, rather than setting it up for a sliced hamstring, but it was still going to leave a hell of a bruise.
Only, it didn’t. Somehow, Faran shifted her kick, lifting it from a low sweep into a heel strike aimed at the big muscles in Jax’s thigh. At the same time, she interposed one of her cane knives flat on between her calf and Jax’s sword. Striking there, just below the hilt, the impact of Faran’s kick forced Jax to let go of her sword rather than have it ripped out of her hand. That collision between blades slowed the heel strike enough so that Jax was able to hop back out of the way, but it left her leaning too far forward to avoid Faran’s follow up a moment later.
I drew a sharp breath as Faran’s second knife slid up and under, drawing a line straight toward Jax’s throat, but there was simply nothing I could do but watch. If Faran decided she wanted to kill Jax right now, Jax died. Though I hated myself for it, I couldn’t help but think of how much less complicated my life would be if she followed through.
“Sorry about that,” Faran said, an instant later, when the tip of her second knife skidded across the skin under Jax’s chin, leaving a bleeding gash. “I didn’t turn the blade fast enough. You look taller than you are.”
“Point, and I’m tempted to call it two,” Jax said ruefully as she retrieved her sword from where Faran’s blow had thrown it. “Or am I wrong that you
chose
a disarm over breaking my wrist?”
Faran smiled wolfishly. “You’re not wrong. I couldn’t slow my kick down at that point, so I decided I’d better not aim for flesh.”
“Two then, and very well done. I wouldn’t have believed how fast you move those heavy knives around if I hadn’t seen it.” Jax dabbed at the blood dripping off her chin and looked up at me. “She’s good, Aral, she’s . . . are you all right? You’ve gone awfully pale. And you haven’t put your swords away. Did I push you too hard earlier?”
I shook myself. “No . . . I’m fine really. Just the lack of sleep catching up to me.” I flipped my swords around and resheathed them—not sure why I hadn’t done it before. What was I going to do with them, kill one of the women to prevent her from killing the other? “Nicely done, Faran.”
“No worries about me losing control then, Master Aral?” She spoke sweetly, her voice making a sharp contrast to the anger in her eyes. “I did mark her pretty good, after all.”
“An accident,” said Jax who turned away from the main part of the ship and any watchers among the crew before applying a very minor sort of spell to staunch the bleeding. “And, hardly an uncommon one for live steel practice. Hell, I’m already oozing blood from four places where Aral nicked me today, and I’ve had much worse from him in the past.” She laughed. “Remind me later, and I’ll show you the scar that Aral gave me back in the days of our youth—it’s nowhere I care to expose in public.”
“I’ll do that,” said Faran. “Master Aral is concerned about my control, and it would be nice to see how well he did when he was my age. In the meantime, shall we continue?”
Jax nodded, before simultaneously cutting high and thrusting low. Faran blocked both blades, but had to twist hard to her left to manage it, leaving herself open for the elbow Jax drove into her right kidney as she stepped past her younger opponent. It wasn’t a full force blow, but it still sent Faran staggering forward, allowing Jax to turn and tap her on the back of the head with the flat of her sword.
Faran growled, “Point.” Then she pivoted to face Jax, assuming a low guard position.
There’s really not a whole hell of a lot I can do here, is there?
I asked Triss.
No. I don’t like it either, but short of spilling blood or confronting Jax about the Signet, there’s no way to keep them from what should be a friendly sparring match. Honestly, doing the latter’s as likely to set them at each other’s throats for real as anything.
He sighed mentally.
Jax would already be dead if Faran wanted to kill her right now, so I think you have to let it go.
While I reluctantly agreed with Triss, that didn’t make it any easier to watch as the pair exchanged several more passes. Faran was more cautious now, and less vicious, and Jax was likewise taking extra care now that she knew her young opponent was no tyro. The pace increased as the two felt out each other’s style. As the cuts and ripostes grew steadily faster and more potentially lethal, I had to practically nail my feet to the deck to keep from turning away.
But somehow I managed to keep watching. It was a rare chance to study Jax’s present style from the sidelines and, as much as I hated to admit the possibility, I might well need any advantages I could get against her later. Faran drew blood again after a bit, though not as much this time. Then Jax put a huge slice in Faran’s shirt, and a much smaller one in the skin along the lower edge of her ribs.
“Point.” The growl was gone from Faran’s voice, replaced by a cold flat emotionless delivery that worried me far more than the earlier anger had.
“Sorry,” said Jax. “I twisted my grip a touch too late.”
“Don’t be. The mistake was mine. I let you in too close. I promise you I won’t do it again. Ready?”
I really didn’t want the bout to continue with Faran in this mood. Then, as if in answer to the prayers I could no longer make, the arrival of one of the
Lamia
’s officers gave me the perfect opportunity to end things. The man had climbed the ladder from the lower deck and poked his head up over the edge of the foredeck but looked deeply unhappy at the idea of getting any closer to the two women and their bared steel. I couldn’t really blame him.
I waved at him and stepped between Jax and Faran. “Hello, can we do anything for you, Master Sendai?” The ship’s Kanjurese sailing master and first officer was a good-looking man, slender and tall like most islanders—though it was unusual to see one of them outside the archipelago.
Sendai swallowed but nodded and climbed the rest of the way up onto the foredeck. “Begging your pardon, sir, but we’re just about to clear the mouth of the gulf, and the captain sent me to ask that you take a brief rest while we treat with the Vesh’An.”
“Of course.” Jax flipped her left hand sword back to an underhanded grip, then sheathed it and its mate. “Can’t let the Vesh’An go waiting.”
The tall man smiled a very fetching smile. “Thank you, ma’am. Much appreciated. If the three of you would like to watch, I’m sure the captain would be happy to have you as his guests for the wandersea ceremony.”
“Wandersea?” asked Faran, who hadn’t yet put up her weapons. “What’s that like? I’ve heard the name, but I’ve never been out on the open ocean to see one before.”
“It’ll be easier to show you than to explain it,” said Sendai.
“Fair enough.” Faran slid her cane knives into the crossed sheathes on her back. “Show away.”
The captain came up on the foredeck. A burly sailor followed along behind him carrying a pair of large brandy bottles. My mouth went dry as I stared at the bottles going by. A drink would make dealing with Faran and Jax so much easier.
As the captain climbed up onto the platform at the end of the foredeck, Sendai directed us to the portside rail for a better view. A few minutes later the ship cleared the headland that marked the mouth of the Gulf of Tien and entered the open ocean. Three fins broke the surface, veeing the water beside the ship.
“They look just like the dolphins I’ve seen in the fish market, except for the black and white markings,” Faran said quietly.
“You won’t
ever
see these dolphins in a fish market, nor anything else with those markings,” Jax replied just as quietly. “No sailor would be insane enough to try to net or spear a Vesh’An.”
“Even if a sailor was crazy enough to try, they’d never make it back to shore alive,” I added.
“It’s strange seeing them in the flesh like this after hearing about them all these years,” said Faran. “Will they really shift?”
Before either of us could answer, the captain trilled out something in a strange liquid tongue that sounded more than half like a series of whistles. It was nothing like what I’d heard of the languages of their Durkoth and Sylvani cousins, but the Vesh’An were the strangest of the Others who shared our world. The leader now leaped high out of the water and trilled imperiously back at the captain. He bowed deeply and responded in kind.
They went back and forth like that two or three times before the captain reached back and took the first bottle from the crewman. With another trill, he tossed the bottle far out over the side. The Vesh’An who’d been trailing along to the left of the leader shot forward and leaped high out of the water. Right at the top of its arc it shimmered and transformed into a woman, naked and inhumanly perfect, though still marked like the dolphin in black and white. She caught the bottle in one hand and plunged back into the sea in a perfect athlete’s dive.
For another few heartbeats she streaked along beneath the surface in a woman’s form. Then the shimmer came again, and she returned to dolphin shape, diving deep and vanishing. When she was gone, the captain repeated the trilling phrase and threw the second bottle. The Vesh’An who caught the tribute this time was male and, if anything, prettier than the woman had been. The captain bowed to the leader and spoke a final trilling farewell. The Vesh’An returned it in kind before disappearing beneath the waves. The captain left then, too, without so much as a nod for his passengers.
“The foredeck is yours again,” Sendai said to us as he started after the obviously uncomfortable captain. “Please try not to scar it up too much.” He flicked a glance at the deep gouge left behind where Faran had kicked Jax’s blade. “He’ll be ever so much easier on all of us if you don’t.” Then he winked at me.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said quietly as he went down the ladder.
Good luck with that,
Triss said into my mind.
“Do they always use brandy?” asked Faran.
Jax shook her head. “No, though it’s almost always alcohol. What kind depends on what the local clans have been asking for. That’ll be part of the exchange with the captain. When he next comes into port up this way, the captain will leave word at the harbormaster’s office so that other ships will know what to bring.”
“Why alcohol?” asked Faran. “That stuff is nasty!”
“There we are in perfect agreement.” Jax gave me a speaking look. “But the Others invented distilling along with brewing and fermenting back in the days before the god wars, and it’s one of the few things the Vesh’An can’t do for themselves very easily in their watery halls. Since they’ve never lost the taste for it they need a source, so they get it in tribute from us or trade with the Sylvani.”
Jax stretched and rolled her shoulders. “And now, I’m thinking that I should leave you and Aral alone to argue out your unexpected arrival. Hopefully, cutting me up has taken the worst edge off of both of your tempers, and you can do it without further bloodshed.” Then she vaulted over the rail and dropped the eight feet to the deck below before heading back to our shared cabin.
“She’s as nice as I remembered her,” Faran said once Jax had closed the door behind her. “I see why you don’t want to kill her.” Then she turned back my way and her eyes went hard and cold. “Which definitely means I’m going to have to do it for you.”
As she walked away, I found myself wondering where the captain stored those big bottles of brandy and how long it would take before anybody missed one.
Don’t,
Triss sent.
Don’t what?
If you get drunk right now, you’re not going to be able to stop Faran.
Just one drink . . .
It won’t be one. Not when you’re this worried, and you know how that’ll end.
He was right but . . . “Fuck.” I scrubbed at my eyes, trying to erase the vision of a big beautiful bottle of booze tumbling through the air, as though I thought it might work.
10
E
very
assassin knows that beauty and death sometimes walk hand in hand. It’s there in the perfection of the smith’s art expressed in deadly steel, or in the night sky like a scatter of diamonds on velvet, seen from the side of a castle tower. Even spilled blood has a terrible beauty to it, rich and red and royal.
So it was with the oncoming Vesh’An hunting party that passed us on our tenth day at sea. Most of the clan’s warriors slid through the seas in dolphin shape, leaping in and out of the water, weaving a wild pattern in the waves. A few, including the lord and lady and their leading knights, rode in human form astride the backs of great war-whales. There were ten of the black and white beasts, looking for all the world like giant brutish cousins to the dolphin-formed Vesh’An that danced around them. The nobles rode bareback, armored in seaweed and shell. They carried shining swords and deadly lances carved from the bones of dragons. Harder than iron, their edges shone green and gold and blue and silver—all the myriad colors of the sea.
The sailing master ran out onto the bow platform and waved at the Vesh’An as they raced past, calling out “Good hunting!” The lord bobbed his raised lance in response, and one of the knights blew a conch horn. Master Sendai must have seen my curious look, because he crossed to where I was leaning against the rail.
Though the rest of the crew continued to avoid us, and the captain mostly pretended we didn’t exist, Sendai had seemed almost fascinated by us, going so far as to watch our sparring practices from the foot of the bow platform the last few days.
“That’s Clanarch Ekilikik and his people. They’ve done us a good turn more than once. They’re going after one of the great sea serpents or a kraken by the look of their gear, which means some of them likely won’t be coming back. The Vesh’An are the only reason the outer lanes stay open for shipping. Without them, we wouldn’t dare sail beyond sight of land. If they pass again on the way back to their home waters around Ar, we’ll throw them a couple of bottles of our brandy, though protocol doesn’t demand it.”
“How long till we reach Ar?”
I was slowly going crazy trapped between Jax and Faran on the tiny island of the
Lamia
. I wanted off that boat, but at the same time, our arrival in the Magelands would bring the moment when I had to make a final choice about what to do about Jax that much closer.
“If the winds stay as good as they’ve been so far, we’ll hit port late tomorrow,” said Sendai. “That’s where you leave us, right?”
I nodded. “It is.”
“That’s too bad. I’m actually going to miss having you aboard.”
“Your captain won’t.”
“No, but he’s far too much of a traditionalist to be happy with landsmen who run the rigging like old hands. To say nothing of the fact that you frighten him. Hell, you frighten most of the crew.”
“But not you?”
Sendai laughed. “Oh, you frighten me, too, but mostly in a good way. I’d love to get to know you better. . . .”
He let it hang there for a long moment, long enough to make sure I understood the offer underneath. I had to admit I was tempted, at least a little bit. He was an attractive man, both physically and emotionally. I generally preferred women, but had slept with a few men over the years, and Sendai appealed to that part of me. Also, it had been a long time since Maylien, and I hadn’t shared a bed with anyone since.
But finally, I smiled and shook my head. “I’m sorry, we won’t get that chance.”
“Already committed elsewhere?” he asked lightly, though I could read disappointment in his eyes. “Or just not inclined my way?”
“Neither, actually. I’ve got no commitments and no objections, but my life’s too tangled up at the moment for me to want to add another twist.”
“I guess I can understand that, but you can’t blame a fellow for trying.”
“No, and another time I might have said yes.”
“Well, if another time comes round at some point, look me up. We mostly make the coastal run back and forth between Tien and the Magelands.” Then he turned and left me at the rail.
As I watched him walk away, I couldn’t help but smile. There was something preciously normal about the exchange. No one trying to kill me or anyone under my protection, no one I needed to kill, just a simple proposition and no hard feelings when it didn’t pan out. He waved at Jax and Faran as he passed them on the lower deck. The pair were perched atop a stack of barrels in the shade of the mainsail, quietly talking.
I was still smiling when Faran got up a few minutes later and came my way. Climbing up the ladder to the foredeck, she crossed to stand in the exact same place Sendai had.
“Did you know that Jaeris and Altia are alive?” Faran asked without any preamble.
I nodded. When Jax and I had been trapped by the storm, she’d told me the names of all the surviving apprentices and journeymen she and Loris had taken in.
“They were my best friends at the temple, along with Omira and Garret.” Faran said rather wistfully. “Jax says she doesn’t know what’s happened to Garret but that Omira turned up on the list of the dead. She’s really dedicated to her students.”
“Having second thoughts about killing her?”
“No. The only reason I haven’t killed her
yet
is that I don’t want to have to deal with a body on the boat.” Faran’s voice came out flat and hard, but it didn’t match her eyes. There, I could see the teenager wrestling with the killer.
“You know,” I said quietly, “it’s all right if you are having trouble with the idea. Better, really. I know that the priests taught us to kill without regret or remorse in the name of the goddess, but times have changed. If you do kill Jax, it won’t be because the goddess ordered you to, it will be because
you
decided that you had to do it.”
Faran opened her mouth, but I touched a finger to her lips. “Wait, let me finish. That decision, should you have to make it, might even be the right one for the moment. But it’s not a choice you should make easily or lightly or without second and even third thoughts. In fact, nothing has ever been as simple as the priests told us.”
Faran looked genuinely shocked. “Are you saying that the order was wrong to do what it did?”
“No, and yes. It’s complex.” I stood up from the rail and leaned toward Faran as I tried to organize my ideas into something I could express—ideas that would once have been bitter heresy, but had increasingly come to dominate my thinking over the past year.
“I don’t think that Namara ever ordered me to kill anyone who didn’t need killing. King Ashvik, in particular, was a monster, and killing him was certainly justice. But that’s not
why
I killed him. I killed him for the simple reason that my goddess told me to. And that’s not enough. Or, it shouldn’t be.”
Faran frowned. “I don’t think I see the distinction. Namara was Justice personified. If she wanted someone dead, surely that meant that they should die. It seems pretty simple.”
She’s right, you know.
Triss sounded almost as confused as Faran, which is part of why I hadn’t been talking with him about this. Despite his shadowy nature, Triss didn’t really think in shades of gray.
No, she isn’t.
I sent back at him.
Aloud, I said, “I imagine that the destruction of the temple and the mass murder of our order seemed a right and simple thing to the forces of Heaven’s Reach.” Faran let out a little gasp of outrage, but I shook my head. “No. Really. Think about it. Speaking through the Son of Heaven, the great god Shan himself, Emperor of Heaven, declared our damnation and ordered our annihilation.”
“That’s different,” Faran said aloud at the same time as Triss declared,
But he was wrong to do so!
“How
exactly
is it different? Their god, who also happens to have been our goddess’s liege lord, told them what they should do, and they did it. You and I and every other servant of Namara may believe that what they did was wrong, but as long as the word of a god is all that it takes to define what is right for anyone, it’s simply one god’s followers against another’s. The only way to make what the followers of Shan did wrong is to accept that there is more to making your choices than the word of any god.”
“I guess I never thought about it that way before,” said Faran.
In my head, Triss remained silent.
I plowed on, “Some days I miss the simple view and I want nothing more in the world than for things to go back to the way they were when Namara was alive. Then, I only had to think about how to kill someone, never why I was doing it. Other days, I wonder what I would do if Namara were somehow resurrected. Is it possible to go back to certainty? Even if it were, would it be
right
to do so?”
“Do you regret killing Ashvik?” asked Faran.
“No. Not at all. He oppressed and murdered his people, and even killed members of his own family. He slaughtered thousands of Kadeshis for no apparent reason, and tried to start wars with Kodamia and the Magelands. Ashvik deserved to die.”
“Then why does the distinction matter?”
“Justice is rarely such a simple thing, no matter how much we might like it to be,” I said. “Most killers aren’t monsters. They’re people who made the wrong decision for what might have seemed at the time to be perfectly good reasons. That’s why we have laws, and why in places like the Magelands there are courts and juries who try to interpret those laws.”
“But the courts can’t or won’t touch the high nobles in places like Zhan, or even the Magelands sometimes,” countered Faran. “And there are no courts in the Kvanas or Kadesh, only the word of the khans and warlords.”
“Which is where we come in, or did.”
“I thought you just said you didn’t want to go back to the way things were,” said Faran. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Maybe I’m not,” I agreed. “I’m not entirely sure what I want or don’t. I believe that the world needs a way to handle the Ashviks and the dukes of Seldan, and I think that almost has to look something like what the Blades of Namara once were. But I also believe that doing things just because the gods tell us to has to stop.”
“And what does all this have to do with whether or not I kill Jax?” Faran asked, looking more than a little frustrated. “Her working for the Hand seems pretty straightforward to me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re smarter than that, Faran. The situation here is the most tangled I’ve ever had to deal with. Jax is my friend and was once much more than that. I care about her deeply.”
Faran looked away, so I put my hands on her shoulders and gently turned her so I could look her straight in the eye. “I also care about you. I don’t want to see the two of you in conflict, but I also understand that ultimately what Jax chooses to do in the face of pressure from the Hand is on Jax. She may put you, or me, for that matter, in a position where killing her is the only answer. I don’t want that to happen. I understand that it might.”
“You’re trying to make me think again, aren’t you?” she demanded. “Well, it won’t work. And I won’t feel bad about it if I do have to kill her.” She sighed. “You really are a horrible old man.” But then she gave me a hug.
“I try, my young monster. I do try.”
Faran pulled free of my arms. And then, with a very thoughtful look on her face she crossed to the nearest section of the rigging and went aloft. I wasn’t sure if I’d really gotten through to her, or if it would change anything even if I had, but at least she seemed to be considering it.
What do
you
think?
I asked Triss, since it was the first time I’d run most of it by him as well.
I think that if the goddess were still alive you would be facing a heresy trial.
Nicely dodged.
He hissed something in Shade that sounded obscene, then sighed.
I don’t know. Some of what you say makes sense, at least from the human perspective, but I’m not so sure that justice is as difficult as you make it out to be. We were right to do as Namara ordered. The goddess was
just
as well as Justice.
What does that make Shan?
A legitimate target.
That made me blink.
Shan is a
god
, Triss. Even if I agreed with the sentiment, I think that Namara’s death pretty well demonstrates that he is beyond the reach of justice.
Some said the same about Ashvik after he killed the first Blade that came for him. More said it after he killed the second. Most agreed when he killed a third. That did not stop us from making an end of him.
Are you seriously suggesting that we try to kill Shan?
I asked.
Because that sounds more like suicide than justice.
No, I am not, but if the opportunity should ever present itself . . .
I’ll keep that in mind, but now I’m confused about your position on gods.
It’s simple. Namara was good because what she wanted to see done was good. Shan is bad because what he wants to see done is bad. Why is that hard to understand?
Who makes the decision?
Me. You. Anyone. The fact that they are gods only tells us that they are powerful. It says nothing about whether they should be revered or reviled.
I’m beginning to think that I’m not the only heretic in this partnership.
No. My thinking is perfectly normal for a Shade. You, however, are a very strange Blade, and a rather odd human on top of that.
I laughed, though I couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking. Triss and I have been together so long that I sometimes forgot that he’s not even remotely human. It’s always something of a shock when I’m reminded of the fact. I was trying to decide what to ask him next when I noticed Jax coming up the ladder from the lower deck.
“Hello.” I nodded as she got closer.
“That was very well done,” she spoke cheerfully enough, but her expression was troubled.
“What was?” I asked.
“How you handled Faran, just now.”
I felt my stomach clench. I hadn’t seen any evidence of Jax pointing a hearsay our way, but I’d been too intent on paying attention to Faran to even spare a glance for Jax. Stupid. Really stupid. The kind of stupid that would have Master Kelos spinning in his grave . . . if he weren’t still alive and a traitor. How the hell did my world get so fucked up?