Skies (4 page)

Farah smirked and Gavin felt a small rush of triumph surge through him as he watched her anger fade away.

“You’re probably right.”

Gavin winked at her and raised a hand—his uninjured one—to run through his hair. “To be fair though, they
have
given us food, shelter, and cared for our wounded. That’s more than we expected to begin with.”

“And they treat us like an odd curiosity,” Farah said. “A chance flower in the middle of the shifting sands. They don’t care about our ways or our troubles, just their safe little hiding place.”

“It’s only been three days since we got here. Give it time.”

“Time? We’ve been down this path before. We thought we’d have time after Kaiden tried to kill us all in the Oasis. We thought we’d have time once Samsin and Nikanor showed up in the desert. We don’t have time.”

Farah’s words resounded in Gavin’s mind, mingling with his own similar thoughts and feelings.

“Peace, Farah. Peace. I need to go handle the fire. I’ll meet you back at the hut when I’m done.”

She took his hand and gave it a brief squeeze, harder than it probably should have been. As much as the motion eased some small amount of his tension, Gavin wasn’t fool enough to think he’d fully calmed the storm within her, but he’d at least succeeded in clearing a part of the skies. If it had been fully light outside, he would have been able to see the scowl he was sure adorned her face just now.

Gavin turned on his heel as Farah’s form faded into the darkness. He walked back along the path they had just taken, his pace almost twice as fast as it had been on the trip down the ravine. The sentries there let him pass without a word, though he knew their eyes followed him.

The Orinai here—though that wasn’t what they called themselves—looked at the Rahuli people with a mixture of awe and incredulity. Suspicion danced within their eyes as well, hidden beneath the awe. It lay just beneath the surface, a silent testament to different cultures, different lives, and the new battle Gavin would have to fight. He knew it now, deep within himself. There were two battles to be fought. One with the people within the camp and one with the Orinai without.

It was simply too much to ask for a respite from the struggle, though Gavin had secretly hoped when they’d found Brisson that maybe they would be welcomed as friends, heroes, and companions. Nikanor had planned all of this, after all. Gavin thought back over the large Orinai man’s sacrifice on their behalf, and their ensuing flight from the erupting volcano. Death greeted him in those memories.

Brisson was no Nikanor. The Rahuli were far from safe now. The only thing they had going for them were the mystics. Brisson’s people had none. At least, none that they knew about. Apparently the Seven Sisters tested and took any able to touch those abilities. Selective breeding left the population devoid of those who could pass on the ability to future generations. Gavin shuddered at the memory of the factual, dry way Brisson had told him about that aspect of their life when the man had discovered Gavin’s relampago abilities. Though Brisson didn’t see it, Gavin wondered if the two of them didn’t have more in common than he thought.

A dot of red broke the darkness on the horizon. There was no mistaking the deep umber of smoldering coals. A wisp of a breeze picked up and carried the scent of a doused fire along with it. Gavin slowed, his boots crunching in the snow and loose rock beneath that white blanket. He shivered and pulled the hood of his cloak lower over his face as the breeze picked up and intensified the biting chill.

A noise pulled Gavin’s attention back toward the reddish glow in the distance. Two vague forms strode toward him, their outlines a dark mark against the red-grey background of the dying embers. Even from this distance, Gavin could see one walked with a limp and, besides that, Gavin could hear the odd click of Cobb’s cane as it hit the ground. Gavin grinned.
Old fool.

The walking pair stopped briefly for a moment once they got near, then Gavin heard the rasp of steel against leather and heard Cobb’s voice pierce the darkness.

“Who goes there?”

“It’s just me, old man,” Gavin said with a soft chuckle. He heard a small curse and the sound of leather against metal again as Cobb sheathed his sword. Gavin’s own sword was a heavy weight at his side.

Cobb cursed under his breath, but Gavin pretended not to notice.

The two figures approached and came within a close enough distance that Gavin was able to vaguely distinguish their features. The second figure was the woman who had taken to following Cobb around lately. Gavin had meant to ask Cobb about it, but the opportunity had never presented itself. He thought she was Cobb’s wife, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Details like that were dwarfed by the scope of the other worries filling Gavin’s mind. She seemed familiar, though, as if he
should
remember her.

“Hasn’t there been enough death for you to be giving me such a fright, boy?” Cobb’s voice was the rough burr of the aged, though it held steel that Gavin had come to rely on. “What was the point of hiding out here, lurking in the dark?”

The woman clicked her tongue disapprovingly. Gavin almost chuckled, but was able to contain himself.

“Brisson sent me to see that the fire was taken care of,” Gavin explained, falling into step alongside the pair. “When I saw you’d already attended to it, I figured there wasn’t much point to finishing up the walk.”

“Brisson sent you.”

“That’s right.”

Cobb’s silence said more than what words would have in its stead.

“So who is your friend, here?” Gavin looked over at the woman next Cobb.

Cobb grunted, as if acknowledging that Gavin was very tactlessly attempting to change the subject.

“Alright, then. Dear woman, might I ask your name?” Gavin kept his voice light and conversational.

“Maryn,” the woman said, her voice a match for Cobb’s. “I’m his wife.”

Gavin started in mock surprise, but because he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, stumbled on a patch of ice, and nearly fell. He caught himself and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. Cobb chuckled.

“I didn’t know you were married,” Gavin said, coughing into his hand. He said it more to try and draw more information than out of actual surprise. She seemed so familiar . . .

Their group passed the sentries at the mouth of the ravine and started down the steep trail. The first time Gavin had gone down it, he’d been afraid of the inevitable ice and snow that made the path slick and dangerous. However, several of Brisson’s people kept it clear of both on a daily basis. Now the only thing Gavin had to worry about was his cloak catching on a protruding rock.

Cobb grunted again and Gavin decided not to press the issue.

“Samsin’s trial begins tomorrow,” Gavin said.

Cobb grunted again and, for a moment, Gavin thought he would leave it at that, but then the older man spoke.

“It won’t be a trial. It will be their justification for satisfying their own vengeance. No matter what he says, these people will never free him.”

Gavin opened his mouth, but then closed it. He knew Cobb was right and a part of him almost agreed with the slave people’s assessment. Part of him squirmed at the admission.

“I hope you’re wrong.”

“Why?” It was the woman, Maryn, who asked the question. Gavin glanced over at her, even though she was only a vague outline once again. “He probably deserves death for what he’s done. If they only end up leaving him to rot in a prison cell, they’ll be doing him a favor.”

Gavin wrapped one hand around the hilt of his sword, then let go, before repeating the process a few more times. His mouth worked, but he couldn’t think of how to respond.

Maryn snorted. “See, I told you he didn’t have the steel in him to keep leading. I don’t know why you chose them over me.”

It took Gavin a moment to realize she was aiming her remarks at Cobb. Not that he was slow; rather, his mind was still working over her earlier remark.

“Leave it be, Maryn,” Cobb muttered, halting. There was a tired tone to his voice that Gavin had never heard before.

Maryn grumbled something under her breath and turned away from them, the sound of her booted feet crunching in the snow marking her retreat long after her form rejoined the darkness. Gavin waited alongside Cobb, sensing by the undertones of the conversation that there was more going on here than Samsin’s trial. After a long silence, Gavin finally decided to speak.

“I didn’t know you were married.”

Cobb grunted. “She’s a hard woman, but you owe her your life. She sent me into the Oasis walls that night when I saved you and the girl.”

Recognition flooded through him. He’d seen her before, there in the Oasis and then afterward in the Roterralar Warren. Cobb glanced after the spot where she’d disappeared, expression thoughtful.

“She left with the Sidena when the clans split apart. I stayed.” Cobb’s voice trailed off as he spoke, drifting on the wind until it, too, was gone.

“Why?”

“Reasons, boy. Reasons. She’s right though. You’re too malleable with these people. The Rahuli are going to be taken in by these Orinai here and lost. We’ll cease to exist, if you’re not careful.”

Gavin scratched at his beard in irritation. Hadn’t he just led them through the two worst things that had ever happened in their known history?

“And what would you have me do?”

Cobb grunted again. That was getting old.

“I don’t know, boy. But think on it. Long and hard. We can’t afford to simply fade away into this people. Everything we just went through, our entire lives and history as a people, will mean nothing if we don’t stand firm.”

Gavin still stood there long after Cobb disappeared into the gloom.

“Conquest is an odd Progression. To vanquish an opponent, to win, is at the heart of everything constituents of this Path do. They seek mastery, subjugations, enchantment, and—at times—seduction. It is the act of conquest itself that is the key. The destination rather than the journey.”

—From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 17, Year 1171

Gavin had never seen so many people in one place before, not even at the ceremony they’d held for Nikanor. The valley lay choked with people as far as the eye could see, awash with an array of colors that boggled the mind. A low hum of soft conversation cluttered the air with an omnipresent buzz of noise. So many different shades of blues and greens danced through his sight that Gavin found himself watching the crowd itself more than the procession leading up toward the square.

Gavin sucked in a breath and pushed the distractions aside. Brisson stood atop a raised wooden platform alongside several other men in the center of where two roads met. Four guards and their massive prisoner were only one more grain of sand lost in the shifting dunes of the crowd, though it opened up before the group as the prisoner, Samsin, neared Brisson’s position.

“So much color,” Farah breathed, her voice tugging at Gavin’s attention. He nodded numbly without looking at her. “Where does it all come from?”

“All what?” Gavin asked, finally tearing his eyes away from the crowd of strangers pressing in around them. He felt slightly unnerved at the closeness of it all, though the former Orinai slaves left a small space between themselves and the Rahuli.

“This,” Farah made a vague gesture with one hand, sweeping it outward to encompass the entire scene before them. “Where did all this color and food come from? Where did all these
people
come from? What about the Seven Sisters, where do they fit in all this? It’s . . . it’s . . .” Farah’s voice trailed off and she shrugged. Gavin couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her at a loss for words.

In truth, Gavin didn’t blame her. His own mind struggled to comprehend the enormity of it all. The valley in which Brisson’s people lived was a massive, sprawling affair nestled between two mountain ranges. The whole of the Sharani Desert could have fit in just one tiny piece of it. Gavin estimated that over ten thousand people lived here, sheltered from much of the weather by the way the mountains were positioned around them. There were herds, cattle, stores, and supplies enough to keep that massive number of people living lives that—in Gavin’s opinion—were plush and simple when compared to the life he had lived before. These “former slaves,” as Brisson called them, were a pampered group, by the looks of things. And they outnumbered the Rahuli so completely it was almost laughable.

“It’s terrifying and beautiful at the same time,” Gavin whispered.

“It’s sickening,” Farah corrected, her voice pitched even softer than his.

Gavin sighed softly in quiet agreement. He made sure his shoulders didn’t move and that no one around him would notice. The Rahuli needed him to be strong. He was their undisputed leader now, though Gavin wasn’t sure the cost had been worth it. He felt the weight of their needs on his shoulders, mingling with a latent, burning exhaustion that clung to him like a fine grit of sand. His hands itched to massage at his temples, but he restrained himself and finally managed to turn his gaze to Samsin as his guards led the large Storm Ward up onto the raised, wooden platform.

Samsin looked far different than that first day Gavin had seen him hiding with Nikanor in the stoneway. Where he had once walked with a regal, proud bearing, each stride projecting him forward with the arrogant bounce of one used to being obeyed, even worshipped, he now shuffled along in bare feet, eyes downcast and back bent in the shape of a sickle. The thick ropes wrapped around his wrists and connected via a long lead to other bonds around his ankles didn’t help either. His white blonde hair hung in a ragged sheet over his face, though it wasn’t thick enough to hide the purplish bruise on one cheek.

Gavin took a step forward, but stopped himself as Brisson raised his hands and the soft hum of conversation died. Gavin ground his teeth together, but stepped back to where he’d been, hoping no one else had noticed.

“Samsin, thirteenth incarnation of Samsinorna, of the family Creager, First House of Estrelar,” Brisson cried, voice echoing back faintly from the valley walls. “You stand before us to answer for the crimes you and your kind have committed against our people.”

Gavin looked out over the crowd. He expected some sort of reaction, a cheer, a protest,
something
, but only silence answered Brisson’s declaration. The faces of Brisson’s people were grim and set. Even the small children remained still and silent, eyes hard. Gavin shivered.

“Samsin Creager,” Brisson said, turning around to face the Orinai behind him. “You have murdered our families, friends, and companions. You have beaten us and worked us until our bodies gave out and we broke under our own burdens. You have treated us worse than cattle, worse than swine which lay in the mud they create with their own filth.” Brisson’s voice rose in volume until, at the end, it was almost a scream.

Farah stepped close to Gavin and took his hand. Gavin glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and noticed Cobb and Maryn behind her. Maryn’s face was as hard as that of Brisson’s people, though Cobb’s face bore a troubled look.

“Do you have anything to say to us, murderer?” Brisson bellowed.

One of the guards at Samsin’s side gave him a small shove and Samsin stumbled forward, the leads connecting his ankles getting in the way. The silence stretched out into oblivion as Samsin regained his balance and slowly raised his head to stare out into the crowd. Gavin saw a measure of his former pride in the man’s eyes, though his once-fine clothes lay in torn and filthy rags about his shoulders. Samsin squared his shoulders as best he could, adopting a look that bordered on arrogance as he stared down his accusers.

“I have killed dozens of slaves over the course of my life.” Samsin’s thickly accented voice was barely more than a whisper, but it carried through the silence like an arrow flying from a bow. “And never noticed. It is the nature of Great Ones. It is how we are raised. It is how the Empire has existed since it was formed. I do not offer this as an apology, for I am offering none. This is simply an explanation. Who I am, what I’ve done, they’re simply a part of what our religion and my chosen Progression have done to me. Your place is thrust upon you as part of those same paths.”

“You don’t deny what you’ve done then?” Brisson demanded.

A faint hum of voices sounded from the crowd of watchers, the first noise they had made since the trial began. It wasn’t hard for Gavin to picture Samsin doing any of the things of which he’d been accused, but still, Gavin felt uncomfortable with the situation. Farah’s hand shifted in his grip and Gavin realized he was squeezing it far harder than he’d meant to. He relaxed his grip and turned his attention back to the platform.

Samsin turned and looked Brisson in the eye. Even bound as he was, Samsin’s expression bore far more dignity than Brisson’s did. Gavin half-expected the man to start shouting out his superiority over them, like he did when Gavin had first met him, but Samsin simply shook his head.

“I do not. I fulfilled my purpose, as did those I’ve killed.”

Shouting erupted from the assembled crowd. Gavin didn’t understand half the words said, but he recognized the emotions erupting like flames in dry wood around him. Hatred, pain, and anger burst through the crowd like the wall of a sandstorm. The shouts grew to a united, powerful roar.

Something small zipped through the air and struck Samsin in the side of the head. Rotten fruit dripped down Samsin’s face, which was contorted in a mixture of disgust and anger. Another small fruit shot out of the crowd, but before it could strike Brisson leapt in front of it. The fruit spattered across Brisson’s chest. The shouts broke into shards of sharp silence as the fruit’s reddish juices dripped down Brisson’s white tunic.

“Hold your anger, brethren,” Brisson shouted. “There is no honor in attacking a man not yet condemned. Do not dishonor Nikanor’s memory by acting against his teachings and Progression.”

Dishonor Nikanor?
How involved had Nikanor been in all this? Gavin silently cursed his lack of understanding. What little he knew he’d gleaned while trying to attend to the needs of his people. He would fix that as soon as he was able.

“Let the elders discuss what fate awaits this
Great One
. Hold your anger. There will be ample need of it later.”

Brisson held his position in front of Samsin for a long moment, his hard, proud eyes meeting the gaze of everyone in the crowd in turn. The red stain on his tunic stood out like the reminder of a past wound. When Brisson’s eyes flickered over Gavin and his people, Gavin returned the gaze, not fully understanding the odd tingling at the back of his neck. Something was going on here that Gavin didn’t like, even if he couldn’t specify it amidst the chaos of the moment.

After a moment, Brisson nodded once and turned to the other men at the back of the raised platform. They formed a small circle and began talking amongst themselves.

“They’ll find him guilty, sure enough,” Cobb said as he walked forward. “Mark my word, boy, he’ll die.”

“Who wouldn’t condemn him?” Farah asked.

Gavin didn’t say anything. Something welled up in the pit of his stomach, like the feeling he got after eating too old meat. He glanced from Samsin back to Cobb and then over to Farah.

“He did help save us, no matter what else he did,” Gavin said. “I won’t condemn him after what he’s done for us.”

“What he did for us?” Cobb’s voice was almost a bark, though a subdued one. The old, grizzled man shot furtive looks to the assembled Orinai slaves around them before continuing. “What did he actually do for us, boy? It was the other one—what’s his name—Nikanor, who really helped. It was by his doing that we had a place to go and we got some warning at least.”

“And Nikanor was the one who held back Beryl until we were able to get away,” Farah added.

“Samsin killed Kaiden. He saved
me
.”

Neither Farah nor Cobb had any response to that, though a small voice in Gavin’s mind had a suitable argument. Replaying the memory of that moment in his mind’s eye, Gavin remembered how close that bolt of energy came to hitting him too, not just Kaiden. He wondered if Samsin would have cared if Gavin had been killed along with Kaiden or if that crackling bolt of energy had missed him simply by chance. In Gavin’s experience, controlling those bolts was like trying to hold back a sandstorm by blowing against it.

“He’s still going to die,” Cobb said after a moment. “When he has no defense at all, not even from his own lips, there really isn’t much question left to it, is there?”

“Maybe someone should give him some, then,” Gavin said, softly.

Farah and Cobb spoke at once, their objections overlapping with one another.

Oddly, the voice that won out wasn’t from Farah or Cobb. It was Evrouin. “What are you doing, Gavin?”

Farah and Cobb stilled their protests enough to fall in on either side of Gavin as he turned to face the tall man. Together, the four of them formed a small circle very similar to the one conversing atop the raised platform behind Samsin.

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Gavin said.

“You cannot be seen or heard to be in sympathy with Samsin,” Evrouin said, carefully, pointedly ignoring the look Farah leveled at him. “Not with this crowd. They are here for blood, nothing more.”

“They’re putting him on trial, Evrouin. This is about justice.”

Evrouin shook his head and furrowed his brow in concentration as his eyes narrowed. His eyes glinted as they locked onto Gavin’s. “I told you once that you were naive, and I meant it then. You still are, in some ways. These people don’t want justice. They don’t want guilt and innocence. This isn’t a trial, it’s justification for their vengeance.”

Gavin noticed Farah’s sharp step forward out of the corner of his eye and reacted instinctively. He caught her hand before she could slap Evrouin. Though he knew Farah wouldn’t regret the act, he needed the man. Both he
and
Farah would have regretted letting that slap land.

“You would know all about justification,” Farah said. “You and the others who followed Kaiden. And don’t you dare call him naive, Evrouin.” She didn’t struggle against Gavin’s grip, but at the same time, didn’t back down.

“Peace, Farah, please. I know how you feel about him,” Gavin said in a voice meant only for her ears. He met her eyes and held them for a long moment before continuing in a louder tone. “Evrouin is free to speak his mind. What he says makes sense. I’ve - I’ve felt those emotions before. Once.” He eased his grip on her arm and rubbed a finger across the back of her wrist. “You will have your say as well. I promise.”

Gavin looked up and met Evrouin’s gaze again and brief moment of understanding passed between them.

Farah wrenched her arm free of Gavin’s grip and strode away, disappearing into the crowd of Rahuli still watching the others debate on the raised platform. Gavin sighed inwardly. He’d have to make it up to her later, but there wasn’t anything he would have done differently. Being the leader of this people required him to do things he would rather have avoided.