203 - The world is mine

“I’ll take that under advisement,” she said. It seemed coy to me at the time, Chevenga, but maybe that was the wine. Maybe it was just that natural reserve that women have.

“You know, if you’ve found someone to keep you company... to fill out your four... I’ll throw the engagement party for you,” I said.

Her brows came down. Ehhh, I’d stepped in the kyash again. Men should learn more natural reserve. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said. “You know you’d have heard about it if I had.”

“I’m just saying...”

“If things are going well, why are you saying things like that?”

“Denaina, I’ll wish you love with all my heart,” I said. “I want you to be happy... I’m getting maudlin... I either need more wine, or less, I’m not sure.”

“You need to learn to quit saying the exact opposite of what you really mean,” she said. As she has so many times before.

“What? I don’t understand,” I said. As I have so many times before. Denying it. I’ve done too much of that. I felt Surya peeking over my shoulder. “Well… yes I do. You’re right... but what did I say?”

“Esora-e, everyone with two eyes and a brain around here knows that you want, and will always want, yourself and no one else as our fourth.”

“Well, yes, but if you don’t want me it would be wrong... for me to push.”

“But you’ve pushed all along anyway. You never let a chance go by to show that you don’t and can’t accept what we decided.”

All-Spirit—lad, am I that transparent? You know how hard it is to keep your heart secret… oh no, you don’t. You managed it. You kept your heart completely secret, for twenty years. If I ever really want to, I should come to you for lessons.

“For that... I’m sorry. It was my fear.”

“Fear? Of what?” Her eyes stayed angry.

“Well... I thought it proved I wasn’t good enough for you... the thing I was always afraid of... It just proved you didn’t want to have to deal with the kyash in my soul since I was spreading it to you and everyone around me... I... was afraid of being miserable... so that’s what I got. And passed around. For that... I am truly sorry.” Or something like that, I said. Maybe less coherent.

“I said about a thousand times, Esora-e, that you weren’t not good enough for me. Or anyone. The kyash in your soul you were spreading… yes.”

“I know that,” I said. Though as I read my own words back, it’s clear that I don’t, really, do I?

“Especially on Chevenga,” she said. “That’s what got me.” I just signed chalk. “You know... I think, when I look back, I sensed something about him,” she said. Probably I shouldn’t be writing you this, lad, but I will anyway. “I sensed that even though... you know how incredibly tough he is. But… there was something very fragile about him. Something that needed love, not harshness.” I just sighed. “Maybe I picked it up from Karani, who knew, somehow. She was always so gentle with him, even when I wondered why he needed it.”

“Like glass,” I said. Funny how you see these things clearly only when you look back.

“He always had a sense of bearing too much. It didn’t seem unnatural once he was semanakraseye and then Imperator, but when he was a child... it was weird.”

“Yes. That look he had, of knowing too much, and seeing too much.”

“But I know you were following Krasila’s tenet, greatest warriors, strictest teachers, and you had your heart set on making him into that.”

“Yes. I did that. I hammered on him the way she hammered on me.”

“Arguably he is,” she said. “Or should I say, was”—I’m sorry, Chevenga, but it’s still like a sword through my own heart. “But at what cost?”

I said the truth. “It nearly killed him.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down into her wine-cup, which was empty. “I’m rehashing what you already know. You’ve been over it inside-out and upside-down with Surya. Not to mention the Committee.”

“Why be sorry? It’s the truth, and should be said, not hidden. And you chivied me to eat after they grilled me, with Karani... Did I ever thank you for that?”

“Probably. You’re welcome.”

“May I get you a fresh glass of wine?” I asked her.

She looked almost a little startled, and a little hesitant, but said, “Oh… sure, Esa. Please.”

†

Through the curling chambers of the point-man’s fast but steadily-beating heart wound the stabbing-knife, its blade twisted, like the root of a centuries-old tree on a rock crag. I needed to think only of touching it, and I’d touched it, without thinking of which part of me I was touching it with; not thinking of that was crucial. If I’d had another thought, this is something a healer does, I’d never have done it.

Know what is in you, Vyadim. It’s killing you, lacerating on every beat. It has been, ever since you first used it. The sight in his aura—a street in the squalid quarter of Brahvniki, dust-grimed cobbles burning hot from the sun under bare feet; at least we don’t have to worry about finding a fire at night this time of year. Ache of hunger in the stomach, sending us to the market to beg peaches that are half-rotten so no one will buy them anyway, a fish that will be off by tomorrow morning. Or steal if we have to. As good to die spitted by the market-guards as to starve. A fire built of trash, leaning into each other’s shoulders, until sleep takes us curled together like a litter of puppies; talk of the boy we saw skipping in the market with his mama holding his one hand, his papa the other: “What must that be like? He looked so happy.”

The whore-madam, whose sign has the mysterious squiggles that we know say The Pearly Oyster, spits out a string of curses. “This stinking corpse of a drunk lying on my step all the time now, I kick him off, he comes right back, still breathing so the dead-cart can’t take him, Bear-fucking bad for business. Some lives are truly useless.” She looks at me cunningly, beckons me. “No one would suspect someone so young.” She’s still talking half to herself. “Boy,” she whispers in my ear. “I’ll lend you a knife and give you a silver dragonclaw, if you’ll put it through that puddle of shit’s heart.”

A silver dragonclaw… that’d feed the gang for a month. And buy me a shirt, that not even Stehv would begrudge me. My mouth waters. The man looks already dead, just as floppy. Drunks are not even dangerous when they’re still standing, if they’re swaying; whether it was stranger, uncle, papa before he threw us out, we’ve all dodged their fists.

He’s still on her step late that night, a stretched out rag of a man. Stehv and Byor go to either end of the street to look out for the watch, or anyone. His breath reeks to peel your skin; I hold mine as I kneel beside him, heart hammer-banging. Knowing nothing, not every vein and artery as I know now, wondering where his heart is, knife in my fist. She said his heart but he’d be just as dead if I cut his throat, and that’s what she really wants, so she’ll still pay me. A place that beats like the heart under the jaw… praying to the Honey-Giving One, who feeds all, I drive the knife in. His eyes pop open, white all around, mouth too, gasping, while blood spurts out all around my hand, black in the darkness and hot as soup. I am doing this, I am killing a man… I suddenly feel like the Honey-Giving One myself, all-powerful. Strength fills my arms as I grab his hair to hold his head still and work the knife back and forth a few times in his neck, making him gurgle with his tongue sticking out. I’m doing this to you, I, Vyadim the Street-spawn, and I’m going to get a silver dragonclaw for it. He whispers a name through bubbles of black broth, what’s left of his breath still stinking, and his eyes are looking for someone else when they go still.

Me and the knife washed in the horse-fountain at the corner, I give it back to the whore-madam and she hands me the money, in a tiny sack that smells like garlic, telling me to count it myself in front of her so I may be sure it is the correct amount, like a proper businessman. Tomorrow I will go to market with my head held very high, and I will buy whatever we want. Ten years old—round about that, anyway, I think—and the world is mine.

The first power you ever knew, I said to Vyadim in our minds, enough to build a life from; but now you would feel as power and helplessness both at once, the truth, if you allowed yourself to feel anything at all. Never hungry for thirty years, but your mouth still waters when you sign a contract. Feel it. The scream that wanted to tear out of him he swallowed so that it was no more than the faintest of moans in the back of his throat.

He sank to his knees, his breath frozen by his act of will as much as by terror. His two comrades’ first thought, naturally, was that someone else was doing what they themselves were doing, so they clapped dart-tubes to their mouths without a sound and spun slowly all around, controlled, peering into the darkness, trying to aim for whoever had darted him. Silence yawned, but for his ragged breaths, that he kept quiet with savage will.

“There’s nothing… no one.”

“I didn’t think this damned place was spring-darted!”

“No, just shennen haunted… don’t you fikken feel it?”

“Skorsas, quit with the superstition.” The Enchian steadied the point-man by the shoulder. “Vyadim, say something.”

“I’m… done…” he whispered. He thought his heart was failing. “Go… do it.” Don’t abort the mission to save me. The other two exchanged a glance for only a moment, and then the Arkan took the kraumak from Vyadim’s trembling hand, palmed it in three fingers and reached with thumb and forefinger for the door-latch, blow-gun in his other hand and close to his lips. Just another contract, he intoned inwardly, just another contract. I realized I could hear it because of how firmly he was saying it to himself. “The moment we see him, no matter where he is,” he whispered.

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