“Fine, Evrouin. What would you have me do then? This isn’t right - this isn’t justice.”
“I already acknowledged that,” Evrouin said, staring after Farah’s retreating form for a long moment before returning to look at Gavin. “But you have to stay out of it. You’ve got bigger battles to fight when it comes to this people. No one man is worth more than an entire people.”
“Did Kaiden teach you that?” Cobb asked.
Before Evrouin could answer a strange hush fell over the crowd. Gavin turned toward the platform. Samsin stared out over the crowd with unblinking eyes. Brisson stood at the forefront of the small group of men, arms upraised for silence.
“Samsin, thirteenth incarnation of Samsinorna, of the family Creager, First House of Estrelar,” Brisson yelled, “you have been judged. You are guilty by your own admission.”
Gavin licked his lips, his mouth strangely dry.
“The punishment for murder is death. You shall be stoned tomorrow at dawn.”
Gavin blew out a long, silent breath. The crowd cheered.
“The Progression of Power is more about capacity than implementation. The other Paths can feed into it and create it. Power is the control of an intangible force which allows the holder to act and to do in any given situation. It is the knife in the hands of a murderer, the speed and agility of the thief in the night. Strength, Knowledge, Arts, Honor, Goodwill, and Conquest can all be sources of Power.”
—From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 17, Year 1171
Gavin bolted upright in his bed, sweat beading on his brow and dripping down into his eyes. His lungs heaved and his heart pounded a steady, loud, staccato beat inside his chest. His hands curled into fists at his side and got entangled in his thick wool blanket.
Mind spinning between half-recalled memories and the shattered images of a nightmare, Gavin swung his legs out over the side of his bed and got to his feet. He barely registered the chill bite against the sweat that covered his bare torso.
He strode over to the hearth where the embers of that night’s fire still smoldered a dull red. He absently pulled a heavy wooden chair over next to the coals and sat down, warming his hands over the coals. The remnants of their meal—a dish of meat, cheese, and dried vegetables which had all been so heavily doused in seasoning that Gavin didn’t know what the meat itself actually tasted like—still lay on the table.
Gavin’s stomach growled, but he didn’t get up. Something nagged at the back of his mind like sand inside a dust devil, gnawing away at him and interrupting his sleep multiple times already that night. Though he couldn’t name it, the thought troubled him. Blowing out a long breath, Gavin stood up and ran both hands through his shaggy brown hair.
The floor creaked as he walked and he glanced quickly at two of the three doors leading out of the room. Farah, Shallee, and her baby slept in one, Evrouin and his wife in the other. When houses had been assigned to them, they’d drawn stones out of a bag to see who would have to bunk with whom since there were not enough individual buildings for each family to have their own. Gavin had been delighted to draw the same as Farah, but that elation had quelled considerably when Evrouin had drawn his lot. Gavin had learned all sorts of new words from Farah when she’d heard the news.
Gavin dressed quickly, donning thick clothing and pulling on his boots with practiced familiarity. He would have been a little embarrassed to admit to anyone else that he’d practiced putting on the unfamiliar clothes, but he was glad of it now. Dressed, he threw on his cloak and headed toward the door outside, only stopping to pick up a lantern and a taper with which to light it.
He paused for only a brief moment to light the lamp near the door of his hut. The light flared as the wick caught and Gavin squinted against the sudden brightness. Once his eyes had adjusted, Gavin started walking. Small, squat huts loomed on either side of him, each one a near identical lump of shadow along the path. The Rahuli survivors took up about forty of the huts, though the wounded lived in the medical building near the other side of the valley. Some had lost fingers or toes from the bitter cold through which they’d slogged before finding the hidden valley. There were far too many of those, mostly women and children stricken with what Brisson’s people called “frostbite.” Gavin shuddered at the memories. White, pale skin didn’t look so innocent anymore when it turned into blisters and blackened, dead patches of flesh.
The path he followed met up with another going the opposite direction, so he turned left and went that direction. He knew that path would lead him deeper into the valley, but he didn’t care if he got slightly lost. Finding his way back wouldn’t be too difficult in a valley after all. He wandered, his mind sifting through information without settling on any one particular bit. The wind picked up and tugged at his cloak, whipping it around his ankles. Gavin shivered and tugged it closer around his shoulders.
“Who goes there?”
Gavin jumped at the sudden sound and dropped his lamp, which immediately went out. A hand appeared out of the darkness, grabbing him roughly on one shoulder and spinning him around. Light flared, blinding Gavin before he could get a good look at who was attacking him. Instinctively, Gavin reached out with his mind.
A moment passed in the instant between one breath and another. Gavin let that instinct flow within him, rushing toward his powers, then he seized upon it consciously and pulled at the strands of energy around him. The act was like trying to lift a sailfin corpse with his bare hands, as if he were blocked from his powers somehow or they simply weren’t there. For half an instant, a smattering of sparks appeared in Gavin’s hands, glistening in a minute cascade of white light. Then the sparks simply died away. Gavin looked down at his hands, feeling empty inside.
What happened?
Someone swore and the hand on Gavin’s shoulder fell away. Gavin only half heard the sound of men scrambling away from him, boots scraping against loose stone.
“What are you about?” It was hard to tell through the voices and heavy accent, but the man sounded hesitant, almost afraid. Fear was recognizable in any language.
Gavin blinked a few more times and raised a hand in front of his eyes. A few shadowy figures resolved out of the blinding light.
“I’m just walking. Is there something wrong with that?” Gavin kept his voice neutral, but felt the hair on the back of his neck rise in frustrated annoyance. He wished he’d thought to bring his greatsword along with him.
“You’re one of them Rahuli,” one of the shadowy figures said, voice a thin rasp. “Isn’t your lot housed back that way? Mayhap you should return there, I think.”
The man may have made a gesture, but Gavin didn’t see it in the darkness.
“I haven’t finished my walk just yet.”
“Yes, you have.”
Something moved in the shadows and Gavin took a quick step back, readying himself for a fight.
“Let him go, Derric. He’s just walking. Brisson won’t want us stopping him.” This from a third voice.
“You mind yourself now,” the first man, Derric, said.
“Leave off it,” Rasping Voice said. “Let him go. He’s not doing anything but walking.”
Derric grumbled something unintelligible. “Fine then,” he said. “Be off with you. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
Gavin waited for a long moment, watching the small group of men walk away until they became a small pool of light in the distance. After running a pensive hand through his hair, Gavin bent down to retrieve his lamp, gaze lingering on the diminishing pool of light in the distance. The encounter had ended without violence, but it grated at Gavin. It didn’t bode well for their future relations if random patrols felt it within their power to stop him at their leisure.
After a few tries he managed to light the lamp, thoughts troubled. Along with the simple political implications, Gavin’s worry danced back over what had happened when he’d attempted to use his powers. The energy that had flowed so easily in the Sharani Desert was now as elusive as a mote of dust on a breeze. Admittedly, the powers were still new to him, but it had become something he could access with barely a thought before. What leverage did he have here if the mystic abilities were no longer a factor in the coming maneuvers?
Troubled, Gavin resumed his slow, meandering walk.
He eventually found himself standing in front of the medical building. He didn’t remember the journey to get there, but by the position of the stars in the sky and the distance he knew he’d travelled he realized he must have been walking for well over two hours. His arm ached from holding the lantern and the lingering pain from where the arrow had taken him in the shoulder when the “honor squad” of archers had attacked them before the volcano had erupted. Healing moved slowly while in sorrow’s icy grip.
A light flickering in the distance caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Curiosity tugged at him and he turned in that direction. Samsin’s prison. At least that’s what Brisson’s people called it. Half a dozen armed guards stood in front of the squat, square building. Light glinted off metal shields and other bits of metal armor, which was what had drawn Gavin’s eye.
“Hey you,” one of the guards called to him as Gavin approached. “What are you doing out and about at this thrice-cursed time of night?”
Gavin rolled his eyes internally. He’d already had his fill of being questioned. He started to turn away, an excuse on his lips, but then found himself turning back instead.
“I’d like to speak to the prisoner,” Gavin said.
“And I’d like a nice haunch of roast venison smothered in herbs with a mug of fine honey mead,” one of the guards said. His companions laughed.
“How about a nice, roaring fire to go wid it!” More voices joined in with the first.
“And half a gatheriu turning on a spit.”
“Tubers and fruit.”
“Wine!”
When Gavin didn’t say anything or move on, the laughter died off jaggedly, filling the air with a heavy, piercing silence.
“Off with you, then,” the first speaker said at last, tugging at a strap on his metal armor.
“I lead the Rahuli people,” Gavin said in a slow, deliberate voice. “Your prisoner was mine first.
I
captured him. If he is to die tomorrow, I have questions that need answering before he’s no longer able.”
The man swallowed and glanced at his companions, obviously unnerved by Gavin’s calm tone. Gavin took a step forward. Two of the guards stepped back and reached for the swords at their belts. Another licked his lips nervously.
“He’s one of the mystics,” the lip-licker whispered to the first guard. “I’d be doing what he says.”
Gavin gave his best Warlord glare and the man folded.
“Alright, sir, alright. You can go in, but be out again ‘afore long, alright?”
Gavin nodded. It was a sharp, perfunctory gesture—a simple acknowledgment of understanding rather than a mark of deference or equality between them. Gavin could thank Kaiden for that little trick.
Gavin stepped into the room and paused just inside the doorway. Just like the outside windows, bars of thick, black iron cut the room in half. The space it created was further subdivided into three smaller chambers, each containing only a simple bed made of wood and a chamber pot. A lantern hung from the wall inside each of the end chambers. They cast twin pools of light over the occupant of the middle one.
Samsin knelt on the floor with his back to the barred, metal door, posture rigid and upright, knees bent before him with his hips resting on his heels. His half-folded arms rested before him on top of his legs, palms up and resting on his knees. He still wore the simple rags he’d worn at the trial earlier. The lamp light made the bruises on his face appear almost black and mottled, like the pattern of a sandtiger’s pelt right before the seasons changed.
“I thought you would come before the end, Gavin.”
Gavin almost jumped, but was able to restrain himself. He didn’t think Samsin had noticed him. Besides that, how did Samsin know it was him? The Orinai hadn’t turned around to look his direction.
“You remind me a little of him—you know, Nikanor,” Samsin continued. “Neither of you know anything about politics. Achk, this language really is quite barbarous, you know.”
Gavin stepped further into the room.
“What do you mean?”
“My language has much better words,” Samsin said in a soft, highly accented voice. “It has music to it, an ability to make the sounds themselves mean almost as much as the words.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” Samsin took in a deep breath and held it for a long moment, letting the silence stretch until Gavin almost said something again, but Samsin breathed out after a moment and continued. “You should not have come here. It was not a wise move.”
“Well, I’m here already. The damage is done.”
Samsin shook his head and scratched behind one ear. “You are right. It is done. The Sisters will find this place anyway. What does it matter if you’re alive then or not?”
Gavin pushed down the irritation that rose within him. “What is this place, anyway?”
“A monument to one man’s ideals.” Samsin sat down on the bed. “In more exact terms, it appears to be a haven for runaway slaves and the remains of Nikanor’s plantation workers.”
Gavin’s brow furrowed. “How did they get this all built so quickly?”
“I heard one of them telling another that they’d been here for years, some of them at least. That fool, Nikanor, had been sending them up here with supplies and materials to build for decades. Deaths are common on plantations, so they were always in need of new slaves to replace ones they lost. I think Nikanor just sent the slaves he said had died to live up here and then requested new ones. No one even questioned it.”
Gavin scratched at his beard and frowned as he considered it. Slavery in this form was a new concept for him, but it seemed a little too grand a scale to have simply been sneaking a few out of a field or two.
“How many of these worked Nikanor’s plantation?”
“At least a few thousand.”
“There’s three times that number here,” Gavin protested.
Samsin raised his hands and shrugged.