Drawn Blades (6 page)

Given that the order of the day was dusty plodding on dirt roads under a brutal sun, I ditched my shirt and my cowl with its wraparound muffler in favor of a loose vest and a broad conical hat in the peasant style. For lack of concealing sleeves I also took off my wrist sheaths, though Faran kept hers. If we’d been walking rather than riding, I’d probably have swapped boots for peasant sandals as well. Faran’s vest was tighter, but other than that, and the differences in our weapons, there was little to distinguish our outfits one from the other.

Our road ran a touch south of west, loosely following the line of the Zien River as it flowed down from its confluence with the Vang. We had very nearly four hundred miles left to cross before we hit the Great Mountain Way that trailed along the eastern edge of the Hurnic Mountains. Faran had chosen our horses for endurance over speed, and we were lightly packed by horse standards, but even so, we’d be close to a fortnight just getting to the mountains, and then it would take us a month or more from there to the edge of the Sylvain. It wasn’t going to be a fast trip, nor an easy one.

Zhan is a rich country with a dense population and a recent history of war with its neighbors, all of which would help us on our way. Thauvik might have been a miserable bastard of a king where it came to shedding his people’s blood, but he’d valued keeping the roads in good repair to make it easier to move his armies. And lots of people meant frequent inns and lighter loads because of that—we’d only camped the first couple of nights because I’d wanted time alone to think about the meaning of the change in my swords.

That night we stopped at our first inn, a long low building with a raked gravel garden in the middle of the central courtyard. It was typical of the Zhani style, with wide windows and open-walled galleries to catch the summer breezes, while broad overhangs provided cover from the rains of winter.

A young woman in pants and a vest met us at the guesting gate that arched over the turnoff into the grounds of the inn. Her loose brown clothing was cut much the same as the outfits we wore, though they were of a significantly cheaper grade of silk and she had on sandals rather than boots.

“Welcome to the Five Dancing Turtles, noble oyani. I am Yian, eldest daughter of the house.”

Yian called us by the honorific that denoted outland nobility as she bowed low in the center of the gate. While I might have been able to pass for a local lord with a bit of scandalous blood in the ancestral closet, no one would ever mistake Faran for Zhani. Where I was a touch on the dark side, she was simply too pale. But that was no problem given that we were riding the main travel route between the lands that lay west of the mountains and those on the east. Even so deep into the countryside, foreigners were common, and our weapons and the richness of our clothes gave us a courtesy promotion to the nobility.

“Do you wish accommodation, or are you merely seeking refreshment?” Yian asked as she stepped to the right side of the gate, formally inviting us onto the grounds.

“We need two rooms and stabling for our horses.” I slid out of the saddle—it was far from a graceful dismount, as I was some days yet from recovering my seat for riding.

Faran, younger and spryer, hopped down without so much as a wince. By then, a boy had arrived to take care of the horses. Faran and I claimed the smaller saddle bags from the riding horses, then fell in behind Yian.

She led us to a table in the eastern gallery, only a little way from the fountain. “Please wait here. Will you take tea or wine before you bathe? It will be a few minutes before we have your rooms prepared.”

“Cold tea,” I said. I still didn’t much enjoy the stuff, hot or cold, but I no longer hated it.

“I will see to it.” She bowed and headed for the arch that led to the back courtyard and the inevitable summer kitchen.

A few moments later a girl appeared with a tray holding small handleless cups, and a porcelain tea bottle still damp from the cold well. By her looks she was probably Yian’s little sister. She poured our tea without speaking, then returned to the summer kitchen.

It was half an hour shy of sunset and a few of the locals began to roll in while we were drinking our tea. Mostly, they ignored us as they filled in the tables around the central garden. One fellow among a particularly rough-looking set of laborers gave us the once-over of a man thinking about starting a fight. He even started toward our table, but when he got close enough to really see us he suddenly took a deep interest in a previously tight sandal strap. Sensible. By the time we finished our drinks, the place was about two-thirds full, though there was a wide circle of empty tables around ours.

Yian came to lead us to the baths then, showing us which rooms were ours on the way. Like most public baths, the one at the Five Dancing Turtles had lockers where we could tuck our gear before scrubbing down and plunging into the big hot pool on the highest terrace. I laid a light spell of alarm on the lock, more out of habit than concern. With so many of the locals just finishing work, the baths were crowded, but a large space opened up around us as soon as we entered the soaking pool.

No one was rude, of course, but it was obvious that we made many of them uncomfortable, as what had been a lively group conversation faded into several smaller and much quieter groups. After a few minutes of everyone politely ignoring us, one ancient woman with a pile of gray hair pinned up on top of her head half walked, half swam over to us and bobbed her head in the bathhouse equivalent of a bow. I nodded back.

“Soldiers?” she asked in politely curious voice.

I shook my head. “No. Just simple travelers.”

She laughed. “Pull the other one, young man. Simple travelers do not have such scars.” She pointed to the sharp white line that ran across my chest at collarbone height where the Kitsune had very nearly managed to kill me, and then the scar that nearly took Faran’s left eye.

“True enough,” I said in the same moment that Triss sent,
She’s got you there.
“Though, we’re still not soldiers. . . .” I trailed off, letting silence ask the question for me.

“Call me Auntie Hua. My family owns this inn.” She cocked her head to the side. “I won’t ask, so don’t bother making up false names. Warriors, but not soldiers, and not bandits, not with the clothes you wore in. Foreign. Hmm . . . Oyani for real, perhaps, or mages. That or couriers or some other type of royal agent. Safe enough. I hope your stay with us is one you remember fondly.”

She bobbed her head again, then turned and glided back to the place where she’d been talking with a few other old woman. The atmosphere grew much more friendly after that, and the invisible wall that seemed to travel with us got a bit smaller.

Dinner was fried pork with mushrooms and broccoli—one of the last of the winter vegetables—on a bed of thick brown noodles. There was also a carp soup, and sweet rice balls.

The Five Dancing Turtles was typical of the bigger inns along the western road. From here on out we could rely on cash to feed and house us and other hands to deal with grooming the horses and getting them saddled in the morning. Which is exactly what we did, with one day blurring into another all the way to the mountains.

There, we turned south onto the much less traveled Great Mountain Way—north-south trade mostly traveled by ship along the coast. Add in the history of raids back and forth across the border with Kodamia and the villages became smaller and more scarce. With them went most of the inns and taverns. Though we would be able to put up at farms some nights, we provisioned up before leaving the western road.

Once again I was glad Faran had talked me into horses. It meant we would eat better. I’d walked thousands of miles on tight rations in service of my goddess back in the days when she had sent me all over the eleven kingdoms bringing death’s justice to those the law couldn’t touch. They were some of the best years of my life, but there were parts I didn’t miss at all. Bad food and cold nights on hard ground without enough blankets were high on that list.

The landscape changed now, with large patches of dense woodlands starting to appear on both sides of the road. Here, closer to the mountains, the weather was consistently cooler, and that was reflected in the trees, which looked more like those in the forests of my homeland than the remaining patches of coastal jungle around Tien.

Three days after we turned south, we were laying our bedrolls out under the stars again. We camped near a small brook where Ssithra and Triss amused themselves by fishing up some fresh stirby for our dinner. I set our fire against a rocky ridge that hid the light from the road, and cooked the fish with a bit of pepper sauce and noodles, while Faran added in some berries she’d picked for dessert.

We’d had a long hot day on the road, and not long after sunset both Faran and I quickly fell asleep. Triss and Ssithra had mostly slept the day away to avoid the sun. Now, with night rolling in and darkness bringing them into their greatest strength, they took over watch duty. Very little could get past a single Shade in its element, much less two.

Which is why I was very surprised to wake suddenly in the cold hours before dawn with the distinct feeling of being watched.

Triss?
I sent.

You sound worried. What is it?

I don’t know. I just have a feeling we’re no longer alone. Have you sensed anything moving in the night?

A fox, two skunks, more bugs than you’d care to count.

But nothing big?

No. Let me consult with Ssithra.
A brief mental silence followed. Then,
No, nothing.

That was when I saw the face in the stone. The little cliff we’d built our fire against was a mottled gray green, taller than a man on horseback, and roughly flat on the side facing us. I hadn’t paid much attention to it beyond that, but I was quite sure it hadn’t possessed a face when I had gone to sleep. I’d have noticed. Especially this face.

The features were human in number and order, but genderless, and utterly inhuman in their perfection. Even the most beautiful of mortals has flaws, one ear a fraction higher than the other, a faint scar under the eye, eyebrows that come too close to meeting. Something. This face looked like something out of a dream . . . or a nightmare. The eyes were blank spheres the exact same color as the rest of the face and the stone around them, and the expression was equally blank. Again, inhuman.

“Durkoth.” I flipped my blankets back and sat up, crossing my legs as I faced the Other in the stone. “What do you want?”

The face’s expression retained the same blank stare but it moved now, sliding slowly upward until the eyes were on a level with my own. It also pushed forward a few inches, so that most of the ears were exposed. As the face moved, the rock flowed around it like water passing smoothly around a stone. It was a profoundly unnatural effect, and I knew that I would never find it anything but discomforting.

“Your kind usually prefers to start a conversation with inanities,” said the face, in a voice as genderless as its features. “Yet you have chosen to speak directly to the point. May I ask why this is?” Though the Durkoth was asking a question, neither tone nor expression betrayed any sense of curiosity.

I glanced over at Faran’s bedroll and saw that she was no longer in it. “Certainly,” I said to the face. “Though, I’m surprised you care. I didn’t think the Durkoth found us ephemerals all that interesting.”

“Most of us do not. As for me? Of yourselves, no. But I am a speaker. It is my role to hold converse with the lesser races. I have performed this task for some thousands of years, and it is my experience that behavior that does not fit the normal pattern sometimes points to a shift in societal patterns, and sometimes is merely an individual peculiarity. In the former case it is important for me to take it into account in future conversations. In the latter, I needn’t concern myself with it. So?”

“Individual peculiarity.”

“Noted. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I note that your features remain the color of the surrounding stone. The Durkoth I have met before have generally reverted to a pure marble white at some point. I had taken that to be your natural color, but you have not shifted. Am I incorrect?” I tried to keep my voice as neutral as the Other’s.

The Durkoth actually smiled then, a small enigmatic gesture, quite possibly assumed solely for my benefit. “That is something of a philosophical question among our kind, at least when phrased as you have put it. Generally, we live in stone and reflect the color of the stone around us. It is only when we venture into the outer air that the colors of the earth leach out of us. Since spending time above the earth is unnatural for us, can the color we assume in that circumstance be said to be anything other than unnatural itself?”

“Interesting. And now, for indulging my curiosity, it is my turn to thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

“Which puts us back where we started. What do you want?”

“To continue the conversation we have begun.”

I found myself blinking at that. “I am . . . surprised. Is the conversation a goal in itself? Or, did you have a specific thing you wished to discuss with me? In either case, if we’re going to continue to talk, it would be nice to have a name for you. Can I offer you tea or . . . anything? You’re welcome to join me by the fire.”

The face smiled again, and this time I thought it might be genuine. “Let us begin with names. You may call me Thuroq, which is as close a rendition of mine as your speech apparatus will allow. I
do
have a specific thing I have been directed to speak with you about. And, thank you, but no. I will remain within stone while I converse with you. Your companion killed many of my people during the unpleasantness that first brought you into our awareness. I would prefer not to give her the opportunity to add my name to her ledger.”

Faran’s voice spoke out of the darkness. “You think that rock wall would protect you? I’m holding a blade of the goddess in my hand. I could drive it through your forehead before you so much as blinked.”