A Warrior's Path (The Castes and the OutCastes) (30 page)

Jessira
studied his chest, feeling over her work.  The ribs were healed, and the bruise was faded, as though the injury was weeks old.

Rukh
took a deep breath, sighing with relief.  “Thank you,” he said, trapping both her hands in his.

She quickly withdrew
from his grasp.  “You’re welcome,” she said, confused by what she thought she saw in his dark, brown eyes.  For a moment, it seemed like they had held admiration and respect, which was impossible.  Purebloods despised OutCastes. 

“Get some rest,” she said
in a gruff tone meant to hide her puzzlement.  “Healing takes a lot out of a person.”

Are those who choose the path of the Sil Lor Kum evil or merely pragmatic?  The question has been in a thorn in my side for years, and what I’ve decided is that we are both.  We are pragmatically evil.  It is the life of a coward.

-SuDin of Ashoka in year AF 2054
(name redacted)

I
n a nondescript, windowless room in the back of a nondescript restaurant somewhere in Ashoka, the Sil Lor Kum, Suwraith’s Human agents, met for an emergency session called by the SuDin, the Voice Who Commands.  The restaurant was to the south of East Vineyard Steep – the traditional home of the Sentyas – along a road running from Style Rod Privet to Palm Court.  It was a middle class street with nondescript homes, all of them unremarkable in their modesty and well-kept exteriors.  It was always so with the Sil Lor Kum.  Although they were wealthy, they never flaunted their affluence.  It was better to hide in the shadows, in places no one would think to look.  In a place such as this one: a room with unfashionable knotty-pine paneling and a too small fireplace; an ugly, bronze-colored chandelier with a single firefly lamp hanging from each of the arms to provide barely sufficient light; and a rug worn and frayed in the corners, its better days years past but still serviceable.  Everything in the room was perfectly plain and unassuming.

As it should be, the SuDin mused as he glanced around.  He sat in a high-backed chair with sturdy arms at the head of a large, oval, golden oak table.  Around it were the MalDin, The Servants of the Voice.  Despite their submissive title, these men and women were the
true captains of the Sil Lor Kum, standing just below the SuDin in importance.  This was the Council of Rule.  There were seven all told in this room – six MalDin and the SuDin – one for each Caste and each one a hidden power in Ashoka.  As always, the men and women here were masked, wearing stylized visages of their own choosing.  It had always been this way since no member of the Sil Lor Kum – much less the Council of Rule – would have wanted their true identities known.  It was safer for all if they worked in the shadows, in anonymity, as their name itself indicated: Sil Lor Kum: the Hidden Hand of Justice.  Despite their precautions, the SuDin knew the true names of all his fellow Council members.  He suspected some of them knew his as well. 

Certainly, the Rahail did.  Varesea Apter was a lovely woman in her early forties.  She had a way about her: of dressing, speaking,
and thinking…in all ways she was a lady, a woman of many charms.  She and the SuDin had been lovers for ten years now.  At first, their coupling had been that of two people angry at the world and their lives in it.  Now, however, there was tenderness and even laughter in their lovemaking.  It was odd, and the SuDin wasn’t sure what it meant.  He recognized the affection he felt for Varesea.  She was an intoxicating woman, and she made him feel alive as his own departed wife never had.  But he also wondered if their relationship was less complex than he sometimes believed.  Maybe they were two people who liked to live beyond all constraints.  After all, they faced two death sentences: first, their membership in the Sil Lor Kum, and second, their illicit, carnal relationship.  The two of them
were
from different Castes.

As for the others, there was Yuthero Gaste, the Shiyen.  He was young to have risen so high to his post as MalDin, and he was also young to be a Professor of Surgery at Alminius School of Medicine.  Gaste was proud of both accomplishments, rightly believing his intellect and Talent as being the
main reasons for his current success.  He was overly proud, though, never understanding others might be equally brilliant and equally Talented in their own ways.  His arrogance blinded him, leaving him vulnerable to a manipulation he never suspected could occur.  Thus, his greatest assets were also his greatest liabilities.  Nevertheless, he bore watching, but the SuDin didn’t fear him.  Not yet anyway.

Moke Urn, a slimy weasel of a man with the unprepossessing build of his fellows, represented caste Sentya.  He was skilled with numbers and seeing a way to squeeze the last profit out of a venture
.  It was for this reason he had been elected to the MalDin.  The man had but two great loves in life.  The first was the Sil Lor Kum.  Urn had been born in poverty, without any hope of making his mark on the world, at least not in the traditional nepotistic Sentya way.  The Sil Lor Kum had offered him the chance to prove his worth.  Second, the oily man was in love with the voluptuous Mesa Reed of Caste Cherid.  Of course, she knew it and led the fool on.  The SuDin doubted Mesa had let Urn so much as touch her, but with every throaty laught at the Sentya’s poor jokes; with every flash of thigh; with every slight bend at the waist to allow Urn to see her décolletage, he could see the man squirm with heat and desire.  A cruel woman was Mesa Reed.  The SuDin was wise not to share her bed, although Mesa had been more than clear on several occasions that she would be happy to share his.

Then there was the personal pain in the SuDin’s backside: the Duriah, Pera Obbe. She was a bundle of anger
, anxiety, and ambition; a woman who questioned everything and everyone.  And yet, she stiffened with outrage when anyone questioned her.  The SuDin wished he could just kill her, but there were no competent Duriahs to take her place.  He glanced at Obbe and tsked in revulsion.  Was there an uglier woman in all of Ashoka?  From her potato nose to her piggish eyes to her jackass laugh, Pera Obbe was hideous.

And finally, there was Ular Sathin, the Muran.  He was
the oldest of them, quiet and unassuming, hardly ever voicing his thoughts in the meetings.  He was efficient and quick with his work, and others in the Sil Lor Kum thought him mousy.  The SuDin knew otherwise.  Ular Sathin might be the most dangerous one of all the MalDin.  He was smart enough to hide his true intelligence and his abilities, the greatest of which was his consummate capacity to lie.  The man could deceive Devesh Himself and bore close scrutiny.  Ular Sathin’s one saving grace was the fact that had he truly wanted the title of SuDin, he would have reached for it decades ago.  His opportunity had long since passed by.

As for the
SuDin himself, he represented the Kummas.  It hadn’t always been so.  In fact, the current situation was actually somewhat unusual.  More often than not, just like in society as a whole the leader of the Sil Lor Kum, was typically a Cherid.  The SuDin had held his position now for almost a full decade.  But very few of his Caste would have appreciated his success or their representation by him in the Sil Lor Kum. If they knew the truth, they would have demanded his head on a pike and his corpse discarded upon the Isle of the Crows.

The SuDin noticed Varesea’s subtle gesture.  He always noticed Varesea.  She had bent over slightly, allowing him a brief glimpse of her breasts.  They were no longer as firm as they had been when they had first met, but the sight still stirred his loins.  He saw the questioning, challenging look in her eyes, and he nodded,
briefly, a bare movement of his head.  They would meet after the others had left.

The rest of the MalDin spoke amongst themselves, and the SuDin allowed it, letting his mind wander as he ignored their inane mutterings.  He reflected on his life in the few minutes before he had to call the meeting to order.  How had he come to this?  The SuDin had once been pure in both heart and mind.  Now l
ook at him.  He was a naaja, a Tainted fornicator with one not of his Caste, and a member of the Sil Lor Kum to boot.  His younger self would have happily killed his older self for either of the two sins.

But time
, loss, and death had provided the SuDin with a perspective his younger self lacked: Humanity was doomed unless a different path was taken, a path beyond the Castes, a path aiming for more than simply surviving Suwraith but actually defeating Her – or at the least thwarting Her. And if he had to commit acts others might deem evil so as to turn back the Sorrow Bringer, then so be it.  He was still a Kumma, and he knew of duty.  He would wear the stains on his soul with pride if it meant Humanity would be free.

He called the session to order.  Today’s meeting would be as momentous as any the Sil Lor Kum of Ashoka had ever had.  It should be interesting to see
how the others reacted.  “The Queen came to me in my dreams last night,” the SuDin began.  No one needed to describe who was meant by ‘the Queen’.  All knew it meant Suwraith.  And dreams were the only means by which She could breach an Oasis.  “We have been given orders.  She comes for Ashoka.”

As expected, the others greeted the news with hisses of dismay.  "How will we survive?" Pera Obbe wailed as the others, even Varesea, asked similar
ly nonsensical questions.

Their fear was understandable.  The MalDin controlled all shady commerce within Ashoka, everything from
gambling to prostitution to illicit drugs.  If it involved debauchery, the Sil Lor Kum had a hand in it, and the small-minded criminals who ran the operations never knew for whom they really worked.  The money from such enterprises was the reason for the fabulous wealth of the Sil Lor Kum in general, and the Council of Rule in specific.  It was a great attraction and temptation, and the MalDin feared to lose all they had worked so hard to acquire.  So, yes, the SuDin understood the source of their fear, but he had little sympathy for it.

They should have known
better.  Joining the Sil Lor Kum meant more than merely making money or gaining power.  It was more than just running a gambling house or funneling drugs to various restaurants and bars.  At its most fundamental, joining the Sil Lor Kum meant service to the Queen, and if She demanded their obedience, then obedience would be offered – up to and including – aid in the destruction of their homes.  The MalDin had never expected this day would come, blinded as they were by ambition and the easy acquisition of money and power.  But now the Queen was calling in Her chits, and the MalDin had to pay.  They were afraid.

Frag them.  The SuDin listened with contempt as they bleated on about surviving
Suwraith.  They were all fools.  They should have better prepared for this eventuality.  The Queen was coming and no one had
ever
survived Her, possibly not even the Sil Lor Kum.  A man of vision, though…he could save his Caste or maybe even the entire city.  The SuDin smiled.  And the Queen had perhaps even given him the means to do so.  She had given him the Withering Knife, the legendary blade that myths claimed could steal
Jivatma.

He rapped his knuckles and told the MalDin a mixture of lies and truth.  He showed them the
Withering Knife, but feigned ignorance as to how it worked.  They listened closely as the SuDin explained his plans, a small alteration of the one with which Suwraith had charged him.

“And we’re to survive how exactly?” Pera Obbe asked in her grating voice.

The SuDin smiled generously, as if happy to field her question.  He answered, assuring Pera and the others of their safety.  He told them what they wanted to hear, letting them believe that places had already been prepared for them in cities throughout the world.  He continued on, explaining how easily their wealth would be transferred to these new homes abroad.  All of them would survive in prosperity and happiness.  They stared at him after he finished speaking, wearing the hungry and desperate looks of the condemned who suddenly saw a means to their survival.

He
wanted to laugh in their faces.

None of it was true.  They would all die, and the SuDin would be glad.  He would miss Varesea, though.  He glanced and caught her gaze.  She knew he was lying.  He could see
the realization in her eyes.  She understood there was much he wasn’t telling them.  Varesea knew him too well, and he could see he would have to explain his plans more fully to her later tonight. It went without saying: she would not hear the entire truth.

Smooth lies continued to flow from his lips as he gave false hope to the MalDin.  Suwraith would kill them all.

*****

S
teen Trist awoke early in the morning, well before dawn.  He read through his anatomy notes one last time, trying to burn the information into his head. 
The origin of the long head of the biceps brachii is the supraglenoid tubercle of the scapula, while the short head originates from the coracoid process.  The two heads then insert into
…!  Where did they insert?  Damn it!  The radial tuberosity.

Idiot.

Why couldn’t he remember something so basic?

Steen glared at his notes in frustration.  He was a first-year student a
t Verchow College of Medicine, and he had his finals in anatomy later that day.  He felt woefully unprepared.  The test would only cover the upper extremities and the thoracic cavity, but it was still a lot to learn.

His parents were extremely proud of Steen, and he wasn’t as afraid of failure as he was of disappointing them.  Their family hadn’t produced a physician in
over three generations, and although the larger Shiyen community did not look down upon them – his parents were skilled craftsmen and quite well-to-do in their own right – they both still felt an underlying sense of doubt about their own worth.  They were Shiyens and Shiyens were supposed to Heal.  It was the Talent of the Caste.

But, to become a physician, a person had to do very well on the rigorous entrance exams, and only the best were selected to attend either Verchow or Alminius, the two medical colleges in
Ashoka.  Steen had been overjoyed, just as his entire family had been, when he had been accepted to Verchow.