No Return (30 page)

Churls bought a change of light clothing, a new sleeping roll and blanket, and eventually located a bladesman’s. She selected a corroded vazhe the owner strongly discouraged her from purchasing. He suggested a Tomen rekurv instead, a Fazees cuass, even an Ulomi dueling rapier.

“That will not even slice bread!” he called from the door as they walked away.

Churls ran her hand over the rusty blade. She popped a reddened fingertip in her mouth and smiled. “Castan steel. No substitute.”

They waited in more lines. Vedas and Berun stood back a pace as Churls argued over this price, this item’s quality, this vendor’s attitude. Finally, finished with their shopping, they moved toward the outskirts of the city. Churls maintained a vocal presence in the crowd, striking up conversations, directing slow walkers to step aside.

Vedas watched her, amazed that anyone could be so confident in a foreign land.

He existed in a state of agitation, constantly on his guard. Curious strangers brushed their fingertips over his suit, tried again and again to strike up conversation. Men with features that mirrored his own stood in doorways and peered down from balconies, smoking joss and drinking wine. This was their city, their country. They stared at him through their long, meticulously matted locks, demanding an explanation.

Who are you? Where have you been, and why have you returned?

The answers eluded him. He struggled to feel a sense of brotherhood and failed.

No, Vedas could not call his return to Knos Min a return home.

Berun gawked at the constructs around him. Mostly small creations in the shapes of dogs and cats, there were only a few of more intricate design and obvious intelligence. A giant wrought-iron centipede with the head of a dragon. A centaur of constantly shifting gold plates. They hailed each other with waves of their appendages.

One in particular, whose form was an intricate silver and black elder, struck up a long, convoluted dialogue with Berun as they entered the ragged line of travelers striking upon Grass Trail, the eight-hundred-mile path leading from Ynon to the capitol of Grass Min. Its voice was deep but lacked resonance, grating like the magically recorded lectures Abse played to the Thirteenth’s youngest students. Its tall, finely articulated body clicked metallically as it moved, jerking from position to position. An awful composition of sounds and colors, it was one of the ugliest things Vedas had ever encountered.

“Name is Tou,” it finally got around to announcing. “Remember you.”

“Oh, yes?” Berun rumbled, face turned away from the other construct. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Haven’t. Heard about you.” Tou craned over Berun to peer down at Vedas and Churls. Mechanisms whirred behind its thin, severe face. Four multicolored gems twitched in its eye sockets. “Haven’t heard about you,” it said.

Churls looked up at the hideous face. “Go away.”

“Thank you,” Berun said after the creature had left. “All of these constructs unnerve me. I don’t know how to react.”

“Any time,” Churls said. “Better to not have him around anyway. Seems like the type to spread rumors, not that anyone would understand him.”

Berun chuckled. “At least he’s never heard of you two.”

“Yeah.” Churls poured a pinch of dust into her palm, spit on it, and began polishing her new sword as they walked. “First bit of good news in a long while.”

‡

Grass Trail rose and fell gently on Hasde Fall, the wooded hills west of Ynon. Sugar maples and sycamores dropped their dying leaves on the stone-paved roadway, creating a multicolored blanket that rustled under the travelers’ thousand feet. Sturdy wooden bridges crossed the occasional brook or small river, where fish were plentiful and easily caught. Despite the travelers’ disparate backgrounds and religious perspectives, a congenial atmosphere prevailed. Were the weather not so nice, the surroundings not so beautiful, it might well have been a different story.

For all of the land’s natural appeal, no one veered far off the road. The Republic owned and maintained the land, barracked its soldiers on it, and looked unkindly on those who trespassed. No signs were posted—none were required. Knos Min, for all of its legendary restraint and religious neutrality, maintained the continent’s largest army and jealously guarded its supply of elder corpses. Even in the present age where men feared an end to this supply, The Republic’s magical resources were legendary, as evidenced by the number of constructs owned by ordinary citizens.

Rumor spoke that a bare handful of miles from Grass Trail, Baleshuuk had not only discovered a near limitless vein of elder corpses, but were tunneling to the center of the world. Shielded under megatonnage of rock, mages of all kinds developed powerful new alchemies. Outbound mages trained in rooms where the effects of gravity had been canceled. Armies of constructs and hybrids enacted the great wars of history over and over again, in preparation for a great, continent-spanning war.

Vedas saw no reason to distrust or believe these rumors. Stol possessed outbound mages and Baleshuuk—surely Knos Min, with its obviously vast magical capability, had developed programs to maintain its position. The specifics hardly mattered to ordinary men.

Yet the second night out, such speculation dominated conversation around the campfire. Nboles, an elderman bowyer traveling to Danoor to sell his wares, sat cross-legged on his wheeled construct-trunk and spoke of the Osseterat, a hybrid ape of immense intelligence. “They live in this forest,” he claimed. “The more they observe men, the more they become like men. They are stronger and faster, however. When and if the white god destroys the world, the elite of the Republic will enter the earth through tunnels only they know about. Like the Baleshuuk, they plan on surviving. The Osseterat will be their servants.”

His voice became hushed and he cast glances into the forest on either side. “But what if they cannot control their new beasts? Maybe the apes won’t want to be servants. Maybe they’re planning, even now.”

Churls laughed out loud. “A bowyer, huh? You missed your calling. But telling tall-tales doesn’t pay as well as selling bows, I suppose.” The elderman managed to look offended without shifting a muscle. Vedas observed the curious interplay between journeying strangers, intimidated and bemused by their easy discourse. He thought wistfully of the day that had passed. He and his companion’s swift progress had made conversation impossible.

Of course, Churls did not mind the conditions. She enjoyed the hearty exchanges, the playful insults and rumoring. Her eyes fairly glittered in the firelight. Unabashedly loud, her voice echoed into the forest. She told a joke, then told it again. Vedas kept his eyes on her more often than not, both compelled by her manner and convinced that if he only focused hard enough on her no one would feel drawn to engage him.

He knew the placement of each Knosi around the campfire. Two women, traveling together. Two men, traveling alone. He sensed their gazes upon him, and wondered what they read in his features. Did he fit the mold of their race, or had time away from Knos Min left a mark upon him? Perhaps he had ceased being a son of the Republic long ago.

And if I’ve relinquished my birthright,
he thought,
what difference does it make? I am Vedas Tezul, of the Thirteenth Order of Black Suits. That is enough.

He repeated these words, as if they might eventually ring true.

Now and then, he ventured a glance at Berun, whose attention could not be wrested from the three constructs closest to him. Concentration formed deep furrows between his brows. Occasionally, spheres rang together deep inside his body, startling those nearby. Vedas felt an intense communion with the constructed man. Surrounded by his own kin, he too struggled to place himself in context.

A voice interrupted Vedas’s pondering: “May I sit?”

Vedas looked up at a thin, dark face. White teeth, though not really a smile. The man wore dun-colored robes and two weapons hung from his belt sash: a short, curved blade and a short horseman’s pick. Rust-colored and painstakingly matted, his long hair wound around his head like a starched strip of cloth.

A Tomen, the first Vedas had seen on the road.

“Of course,” Vedas said, and scooted closer to Churls to make room. The woman to his left, a Castan gladiator built like a bull, rose smoothly and walked away from the fire.

The Tomen ignored this. Slowly, so as not to cause alarm, he removed his sash and placed his weapons on the ground before sitting. The smell of fennel and mejuan, a mild hallucinogen, rose from his robes.

“
Feda Adraas
,” he said, bowing his head.

“
Adraas Esoa
,” Vedas said, surprised to find he remembered the formal greeting:
I curse Adrash—Adrash hears you.
Tomen spoke a distinctive dialect of the common tongue of Knoori as well as several ritual languages, some of the most common phrases of which Vedas had learned in the abbey.

“Thank you,” the man said. “I have had bad luck, finding a place to sit. Fesuy Amendja is my name. Opas is my home.”

“I am Vedas Tezul. Golna is my home.”

Fesuy nodded. Something moved under the skin of his cheek, and he made a loud sucking noise. Though the Tomen only spoke to Vedas, the other travelers had lapsed into silence, watching. Of all the peoples of Knoori, Tomen very likely suffered the most intense prejudice. They were not even liked by most other Anadrashi, and for good reason. Tomen respected Tomen and no one else.

Vedas did not care about this. He merely wanted to be left alone.

“Golna, yes,” Fesuy said. “I recognize it, your accent. I am well traveled. Still, it is a surprise. There are not so many far easterners in these parts. Are there Knosi in Golna?”

“Yes, two communities exist. I don’t visit them often.”

Fesuy spit a mejuan pod into the fire. He reached into the folds of his robes, brought forth a leather bag, and popped another pod into his mouth. He offered a second to Vedas.

Vedas stared at the proffered drug as if it were a live coal. “No, thank you.”

“Not for you,” Fesuy said. He tipped his head to stare at Churls.

Churls shrugged, reached across Vedas’s chest, and took the gift. She bit the stem off and spit it into the fire. Fesuy followed, and they toasted before putting the pods in their mouths.

Berun’s glowing eyes shifted from one to the other, obviously curious. The ritual seemed to satisfy the rest of the travelers, as wine bottles were suddenly uncorked and passed around. The elderman bowyer lit two long pipes and passed them in opposite directions. Conversation renewed.

With attention now shifted away from him, Vedas relaxed.

“I know your faith,” Fesuy said. “No drugs, correct?”

“Yes,” Vedas answered. “And alcohol only during celebrations. In my order, even that is discouraged.”

“This is a shame. Traveling through life without release.” Fesuy leaned back, and Vedas followed his gaze. They cursed Adrash together, one set of fingertips touching horns, one palm blocking out the Needle. The Tomen sighed. “I have seen only one other blackskin on the road. People say the rest came through weeks ago, from all over the continent. You are late for the revelry, yes?”

“Yes,” Vedas admitted. “Though I hope to be there in time to fight.”

Fesuy looked him up and down appraisingly. “Out of all Golna, you were chosen?” He smiled. “I am indeed honored to sit with you. Perhaps my worries about reaching Danoor in time are unfounded, for this is an auspicious sign—one that I will mark in the morning with an invocation. If you allow it, of course. Will you accept this small gesture in your honor?”

Berun shifted next to Churls, who raised an eyebrow when Vedas looked at her.

“Sure,” Vedas told the Tomen.

‡

Pressure built in Vedas’s chest, staring at the dead woman.

She was built like a bull. Her bulk lay on the paving stones, and her skirt was pulled up around her hips. Her neck had been expertly cut, deeply enough to sever the spinal cord without severing the flesh at the back of the neck. After death, her head had been tipped to the side so that the gaping wounds were exposed. Then her killer had shat on her face. Flies buzzed around the mess. A line of ants crawled through the blood to reach her.

Vedas refused to look at the horrible thing the killer had done to her womanhood, but an Ulomi man named Spofeth had no such inhibitions. He knelt at the woman’s feet and stared. He claimed to have once acted as a policeman in the Pontiff of Dolin’s Army, but he spoke too finely to convince Vedas of this. His wife had found the body before most of the others woke.

“Easy answer, here,” Spofeth said. “We all saw her walk away when the Tomen sat down. Clearly, he didn’t like that.”

As much as he disliked the man’s tone, Vedas could not but agree. The cut was too fine to have been done with a straight sword. And they had all seen the gladiator insult Fesuy. It was enough for the travelers to condemn the man. It was enough for Vedas. The Tomen had seemed pleasant enough in the short time they had conversed, but that was immaterial.

Will you accept this small gesture in your honor?
the man had asked.

Sure
, Vedas had told him, not knowing what it meant. How could he have known?

A Knosi man stepped forward. Vedas recognized him from the fireside. His white cassock marked him as an Adrashi priest, though Vedas did not know the variety. The man had seemed kind enough the previous night, had even smiled at Vedas and offered him wine which Vedas refused. A scar ran from the corner of his left eye to his jaw. It twitched as he looked at the dead woman. His mouth worked at words before they came out.

“We will bury her, and I will perform rites.”

Spofeth pointed to the tattoos of serpents winding around the gladiator’s heavy thighs. “She was an Usterti, Father. Witches don’t believe in Adrash.”

“That is irrelevant,” the priest answered, iron in his voice. “Whether she believed in Adrash or not, Adrash knew of her existence. Did anyone here know her? No?” He turned to Vedas. “You knew her killer. You talked to him. Now you will carry his victim’s body.” He cut Vedas’s reply off with a gesture. “I am not placing blame. Adrash has simply put you here now to do this thing.”