6: Broken Fortress (13 page)

“It’s not like I wasn’t one,” Kahlil said, laughing.

“I was an ignorant ass.” Jath’ibaye shook his head. “I should have been better to you.”

“You were plenty good to me. You have no idea.” Kahlil curled a little closer to Jath’ibaye. “You hardly knew me, but you still made me feel so…human. Nothing we did probably seemed special to you but just hanging out with you, watching baseball games and listening to the thunder during all those power outages—those were great times for me.”

Jath’ibaye’s expression went strangely tender. He said, “I wish I could offer you a life here that was as peaceful as that one.”

“I don’t need peace as much as somewhere that I belong,” Kahlil told him, because he felt certain that Jath’ibaye’s values were just the opposite. “If I have a purpose and a place, I’m not afraid to fight for them.”

“As far as I can remember,” Jath’ibaye responded dryly, “you’ve never been afraid to fight for anything.”
 

“I’m wounded by your implications,” Kahlil said, grinning. “I’ll have you know that I picked up numerous conflict resolution skills in Nayeshi.”

“Such as?”

“For one, I’ve learned to listen closely to an opposing point of view before delivering a rebuttal punch in the mouth.” Kahlil tried to keep a straight face but failed.
 

Jath’ibaye just shook his head.
 

“I didn’t smack the smirk off Representative Litivi’s face last night. I think that counts for something.” Kahlil ran his hand over Jath’ibaye’s thick forearm, feeling the tickle of fine, golden hair beneath his palm. “But overall I suppose you’re right. I’d certainly be the first to admit that my greatest skills are pretty much wasted on translation.”

“Yes, as I recall, you were the first to point that out,” Jath’ibaye agreed. He leaned forward and kissed Kahlil’s brow softly, almost absently.

Distantly, Kahlil heard the noise of someone working a waterpump. The first smoky scents of cooking fires drifted up from the stories below them. Soon Jath’ibaye would be inundated with people needing his attention, and Kahlil would be left with nothing but that moldering tome.

Kahlil sat up a little in the bed. Jath’ibaye propped himself up on an elbow. He met Kahlil’s gaze with an expression of curiosity.

“I’m thinking about the invitation Wah’roa offered me last night,” Kahlil volunteered. “He asked me to visit the kahlirash’im’s barracks. I think he wants me to demonstrate battle stances, probably some hard contact maneuvers as well.”

“Yeah, I think that would be a dream come true for Wah’roa,” Jath’ibaye replied. “Do you want to take him up on it?”

“I’d like to give it a try. But Eriki’yu mentioned that you have duties for me. If there’s something you need done, I’ll do that instead.”

Jath’ibaye started to say something but then just released a heavy sigh. He gazed at Kahlil and then looked past him to the model of Basawar spread across his table.

“No, nothing urgent. Just—” He cut himself off and then said, “Try not to show off too much, all right?”

“I won’t,” Kahlil replied offhandedly. Jath’ibaye’s expression told him that they both knew he was lying.

Chapter Sixty

Just as Kahlil belted his trousers, Wah’roa arrived to call upon Jath’ibaye in his private suite. Jath’ibaye stood beside Kahlil, dressed in only the bottom half of his russet long johns; his right hand brushed down Kahlil’s spine in a pleasant, sleepy caress.
 

But the moment Wah’roa stepped into the room Kahlil felt as aware of Jath’ibaye’s fingertips against his bare back as if hot brands stroked his skin. He jerked away, despite the fact that he knew it only made the two of them look all the more guilty.

Oddly, Wah’roa seemed utterly unconcerned to discover Kahlil and Jath’ibaye standing so close and only half dressed. While Kahlil reflexively scoured his mind for any explanation—other than the obvious—for his nearly nude presence in Jath’ibaye’s rooms, Jath’ibaye displayed no furtive behavior whatsoever.

He yawned and absently scratched his belly.

“You’re not taking any chances on missing him, are you?” Jath’ibaye inquired of Wah’roa.
 

“I suspected that he might be more interested in visiting the kahlirash compound than listening to you work out the taye seeding schedule.” The kahlirash commander offered Jath’ibaye a smug smile. “Oh, and I saw Gin’yu’s runners behind me on my way up.”

Jath’ibaye sighed heavily but then gave Kahlil a rueful smile. “You two might as well make your break for it. I’m probably going to end up spending most of the day discussing fish stocks on the Silverlake Islands.”

Kahlil quickly finished dressing and then swung the yasi’halaun over his shoulder. Minutes later, runners from the Silverlake District appeared at Jath’ibaye’s door. A group of taye millers from Greenhills followed them. Jath’ibaye offered Kahlil a quick goodbye before returning his attention to the demands of his early morning callers. Kahlil slipped out with Wah’roa.

After taking in the hearty offerings of the kahlirash’im’s mess hall, Kahlil followed Wah’roa past the high wall surrounding the compound’s training grounds. The crisp, cold air smelled of tahldi feed and gun oil. Captains called out fast commands and their troops responded with varying degrees of perfection. In the courtyards just below Kahlil, uniformed ranks of kahlirash’im performed their morning drills. Experienced riders raced through a maze of obstacles, taking out targets with precise shots, while in another courtyard young kahlirash’im practiced loading and firing their rifles in fast succession. Others charged straw dummies with bayonets or gathered around a heavy cannon to observe its maintenance.
   

Wah’roa pointed out a troop of first-year artillery women. Most of them were young, not even wearing braids yet; their Prayerscars shone like fresh blood on their brows. Their uniforms appeared to be secondhand and faded, but their rifles gleamed as beautifully as the finest gaun’im’s firearms. Despite the all-male training of his own upbringing, Kahlil had to admit that these women handled their weapons with professional speed and determination.

He told Wah’roa as much and the commander looked truly pleased.
 

“I’d bet my teeth on any one of my girls against those soft, spoiled gaun bastards,” Wah’roa pronounced. Kahlil nodded. With their filed teeth and toned bodies, these women seemed an entirely different breed from the demure, sheltered girls who inhabited so many noble drawing rooms and parlors.
  

“I’m not sure that I could teach them anything that you haven’t already,” Kahlil admitted. His breath came out white as steam in the frigid morning air.

“About guns and riding, probably not,” Wah’roa allowed. “But no matter how much they train at battle forms, no matter how fast they can ride or sharp they are with those rifles, it won’t be enough.” Wah’roa’s lip curled up into a snarl, showing his small sharp teeth. “Not if they have to go up against a man like Fikiri.”

Wah’roa pointed across the ranks to where an angular girl stood at attention with her rifle. Even from the distance of the wall, Kahlil noticed the red scar that carved a deep furrow from her hairline down through her right eyebrow and just past her eye. She didn’t appear to be more than fifteen, but something about the resolve in her expression resonated through Kahlil. He had no doubt that he’d worn a similar, hard look in Rathal’pesha.
 

“That’s Pesha,” Wah’roa informed him. “She lost her mother and both her brothers to Fikiri. Nearly lost her own life as well.”
  

“She’s just a child.” Kahlil couldn’t imagine how Fikiri could justify such an act. He’d been a cheat and a snitch, but assaulting a gawky teenage girl seemed low even for him.

“A child is all potential,” Wah’roa stated, “and Fikiri seems set on ensuring that Pesha and others like her never fulfill their potential.”

“What—” But even as Kahlil formed the question, he sensed the air around Pesha shudder and nearly split. Kahlil’s jaw almost dropped in shock. “She’s an ushiri?”

“She could be. That’s certainly what Fikiri fears she will become,” Wah’roa replied. “But right now she has no one to teach her or train her.” His gaze settled on Kahlil meaningfully.

“I’m not a teacher.” He hadn’t even been a particularly good student.

“There are only two of you remaining who travel through the Gray Space, and can bend it to your wills. You and Fikiri.” Wah’roa crossed his arms over his chest. “If Fikiri gets his hands on Pesha again, he’ll end her—her and every other child like her.”

“No, he won’t. As soon as Jath’ibaye gives me the order, I’m going deal with Fikiri,” Kahlil replied.
 

“And if you fail?” Wah’roa asked coolly.

“I won’t.” He couldn’t imagine any way that Fikiri could defeat him.

“He’s clever and he’s grown stronger since you’ve been gone. You shouldn’t underestimate how very devious he can be.”

A distant memory fluttered through Kahlil. He’d underestimated Fikiri once before and it had cost him. For a moment he concentrated, trying to capture the details of the memory. It had been here at Vundomu, but long ago. Fikiri had begged him to help rescue his mother and Kahlil’s sister from Umbhra’ibaye before the Fai’daum attacked the convent. Kahlil remembered agreeing to help. Then the thread of memory escaped him again, degenerating into confused images of bones, blood and smoke.

“What happens when you’re no longer here, then?” Wah’roa’s question snapped Kahlil back to his present surroundings.

“What do you mean?” Kahlil asked. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“When you die,” Wah’roa said flatly. “We all die, don’t we? All of us but him.” Wah’roa’s eyes briefly lifted to the Temple of the Rifter. Its black-tiled walls gleamed in the cold morning sunlight. “He’ll survive us all. It is our duty to see that another generation arises to serve him after we are dust in his shadow.”
 

Kahlil was more than familiar with his own mortality. And he knew that in principal the Rifter would live as long as the world of Basawar itself. But he’d always been so focused on the way that a Rifter could be killed—bled by the yasi’halaun and then sealed within a Great Gate by the deathlock key—that he hadn’t considered the implications of the Rifter’s survival. He hadn’t thought of the passage of years or decades, much less eons. Mountains lasted for thousands of years, didn’t they? And worlds?

Jath’ibaye would live as long as the world. But Kahlil himself certainly wouldn’t. More than likely he wouldn’t outlive those saplings planted beside the barrack guardtowers. Someday someone else would have to take his title and his place as Jath’ibaye’s guardian.

 
He glared down at the neat lines of young kahlirash’im parading across the nearest courtyard.

“So, you asked me here because you want me to train the next Kahlil,” Kahlil said.

“It has to be more interesting than translating that book,” Wah’roa replied, and apparently reading Kahlil’s surprised expression correctly, he added, “Ji mentioned it to me.”

“I’ll think about it,” Kahlil said at last. But he already knew that Wah’roa was right. There would have to be another Kahlil to guard the yasi’halaun after he was gone.
 

Besides, he did need something to do aside from translate that dull botany tome.

“Why don’t you introduce me to Pesha.”

•••

He soon discovered that despite her often hunched posture and lanky limbs, Pesha was quick and coordinated. In the company of other, prettier, girls, she brushed her ragged black bangs over her scarred right eye, but she wasn’t too shy to ask a question or even offer an argument under her breath—all of which reminded him just a little of his sister Rousma.

But most importantly, despite—or perhaps because of—Fikiri’s assault, she was driven to master her innate skill. Only her panicked flight into the Gray Space had saved her the night Fikiri had butchered the rest of her family. Now, she habitually attempted to access the Gray Space. The countless fresh scars and ugly scabs on her hands attested to her relentless efforts.

Kahlil remembered the discomfort of those same injuries from his first years under Dayyid’s instruction. He decided that if nothing else he could teach Pesha to avoid such pointless pain.
 

He brought her heavy leather gloves on the second day of their lessons. Then he spent several hours describing and demonstrating how to sense the right point from which to seamlessly split open the Gray Space. Pesha imitated him enthusiastically, though as the morning stretched into the afternoon, her strength and concentration waned. In a momentary lapse of attention, she nearly slit her own throat when she unintentionally wrenched open an Unseen Edge.

Kahlil lunged forward, knocking Pesha back and blocking the advance of the Unseen Edge with his left forearm. An instant later the edge collapsed on itself.
 

The thin gash across Kahlil’s forearm looked worse than it felt, though he had to repeat that fact multiple times to Pesha and later to Jath’ibaye before either of them seemed to believe him. In truth, he’d suffered worse injuries while bicycling as a runner for the Lisam house. Though he did take an amused pleasure in the additional attention Jath’ibaye paid him that night.