Half Discovered Wings (43 page)

‘
My name is Colan,’ he explained. ‘Hînio Colan. I’ll tell you
all you want to know, if you grant me your protection. I’m no
longer one of the
Caballeros de la
Muerte
.’

Before any of
the others could speak, Sarai said, ‘He seems sincere.’

‘
He does,’ said the magus, ‘but first I want his
weapons.’

‘
I have no weapons.’

‘
The
Caballeros
carry a pistol and a sword. They carry them until are buried
with them. Even an outcast would be allowed to keep their
armaments.’

Hînio Colan sighed, and from a discreet mechanism in his
thigh armour pulled the spout-barrelled pistol, ornately carved
with the timeless mascot of the
Caballeros
: the winged steed. ‘My
sword lies out there. It weighed too much, and I made the foolhardy
decision of leaving it behind.’

‘
You made the right choice,’ the magus said. ‘If you had drawn
a weapon on us, you wouldn’t have woken from unconsciousness just
now.’

Colan tossed
the empty skin back to Gabel. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I gather you
are intending to cross the Plains.’

‘
We do,’ the hunter replied. ‘How far until the edge of this
place?’

‘
The Resting Place goes on for another kilometre, and then it’s
the desert. Why are you not going around?’

‘
We all have reasons,’ Caeles said. ‘But whether we’ll escort
you or not is a matter still to be decided.’

‘
It’s dark,’ the knight said. ‘Please sleep on it. I have
nowhere else to go but the nomads on the other side of the Sinh-ha
Plains.’

~

They made a
fire amidst the tombstones as soon as the sun vanished below the
horizon. Thankful for the chance to remove the filter masks, the
group cheered up slightly and quickly collected fuel for the fire,
though most was damp from the fog that continued to hang all around
them.

The knight Colan was kept tied to the tombstone, bound by
thick ropes that had previously been reins for the horses. The
horses had been left behind in Iilyani as Gabel had known that they
would have found the fog upsetting, and the cracked terrain of the
Plains difficult to traverse. While some of them collected wood,
Colan continued to try and gain the trust of the others, describing
his three-week trek across the desert.

‘
My horse broke his leg after about six days out on the baked
plains,’ he quietly told Sarai. ‘I had to put him down.’

‘
What was he like?’ she asked. She crouched beside the unlit
fire, rearranging the kindling.

‘
A magnificent animal!’ the knight said proudly. ‘His name was
Arlo. As black as your skin, Sarai, and as tall as I am. He needed
modified stirrups so that I could mount him, he was so tall. He had
an ashen mane that moved like water when we rode. And he was
clever, so very intelligent. He was focused and needed no blinkers.
And he was ferociously protective of me, as I was of him. Those
born to the
Caballeros
are raised with their steeds.’

‘
Truly?’ the Scathac said. ‘You are bred to the
group?’

‘
It is a form of conscription, yes. It is not military in
nature, though. At twelve we have the option of stopping our
training, if we wish it. But none ever do: we would lose our horses
if we did. The others, the true
Caballeros
, they are proud of their
beasts. But I … I loved mine.’

‘
And you had to kill him…’

‘
Yes. And I filtered his blood for drinkable fluids. This,’ he
said, opening a small cavity in his chest armour, ‘was his collar.
It was draped over the neck, from the front of the
saddle.’

He passed the
collar to Sarai, who ran the long strip of material through her
gloved fingers. It was colourful, made of greys and golds, with
elaborate pictures sewn into its design. Hundreds of silk-like
threads were interwoven into a beautiful tapestry.

‘
It shows the history of my horse, from birth to death. I’ve
yet to put the final image into it.’

Sarai saw tiny
pictures along the length of fabric, detailed depictions of events
in the animal’s life. All had Colan in them, of course, in his
armour and helmet. And all seemed to involve bloodshed.

‘
The edges are frayed,’ she said quietly.

‘
There used to be fasteners. It is a collar after all, part of
the reins. But I removed them. Arlo did not need a
collar.’

‘
Arlo is a wonderful name,’ Sarai said.

‘
Hey.’ It was Caeles, calling to them from across the camp.
‘You two want to help out, or are we doing all the
work?’

‘
I would if I wasn’t bound to this stone,’ Colan snapped
angrily.

‘
Untie him, Caeles. He isn’t going to do any
damage.’

‘
Forget it, Sarai. Start the fire up while I get more kindling.
This whole place is damp,’ Caeles muttered, walking
away.

‘
What’s wrong with his voice?’ asked the knight.

‘
He wasn’t like that before,’ Sarai replied. ‘I think you
damaged his throat. He’s a cyborg.’

‘
A cyborg? You mean, like from the war? He looks old, but not
that old.’

‘
He is, apparently.’

‘
I thought they didn’t exist any longer,’ he said.

‘
They do,’ said Sarai with a deep breath. ‘One or
two.’

~

Once the fire
had been built, Caeles sat next to Rowan, examining her in the
light of the flames.

‘
You shouldn’t condemn Gabel, you know. He hasn’t done anything
wrong.’

‘
He’s a monster,’ she replied, looking over her knees into the
mist.

‘
Not quite.’

‘
You both are, and Sarai too,’ she said quietly. ‘She and Gabel
killed all those people. And Saykaan showed me what you did to the
prisoner before you killed her.’

Caeles was
stroking his throat, rubbing the skin. He was deliberately
breathing hard, making tiny noises. ‘That Spanish idiot broke my
voice.’

‘
You don’t care, do you?’ Rowan said. ‘You
beat
that poor woman. And then you
and Joseph slaughtered all those robed people.’

‘
You know what they were. They did no better to
others.’

‘
And no worse. I despise the Luxers for what they have done.
When I think of what they did to those unfortunate people. But it
seems that you all are just like them.’

Caeles only
proceeded to massage his twisted vocal cords. ‘I sound like I have
two voices,’ he muttered.

‘
One for each side of you,’ Rowan whispered, and buried her
head in her knees. The new slits in her skirt had fallen back,
revealing her legs. Absently, Caeles wondered how she kept them so
smooth.

‘
What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘
You’re all capable of evil. And it comes so easily to you!
You; Joseph; Sarai. Even the magus. You’re all willing to kill if
it serves you. Does that not bother you? Does it not upset
you?’

He didn’t reply. His thoughts dwelt on the events that
occurred on the
Tractatus
; the rusalki had compelled
Gabel to revert almost to a primal state, saturating his free will
with an implacable desire to kill. Only the fact that it was
Rowan’s throat that he was throttling woke him up.

‘
You all have two sides,’ Rowan continued. ‘Two faces. There is
your mask, the one that says, “Let me assist you”. The one that
Joseph wears now.’

‘
He’s only trying to help.’

‘
And there are your true faces! The hideous ones, behind the
masks. The ones I saw as you passed by the hall in Iilyani. Both
you and Joseph had those faces, grinning blackly behind those
facades. That’s the side you really are, only you try to hide it.
When we are attacked, or get upset, or angry … That’s when it comes
out. The masks come off, and I hate what is underneath.’

‘
We need to change to survive, Rowan,’ Caeles said. ‘Otherwise
when we get attacked, we would lose, and when we get upset or
angry, it would take us over. And I didn’t exactly hear you
complaining when I stopped that woman from killing you.’

‘
Yes you stopped her and yes you helped me. But you killed her
and that is never necessary!’

‘
You haven’t a clue, Rowan. Frankly you’re naïve. When you need
to protect the ones you care for you’ll do anything. Even
kill.’

‘
You would kill a lot of people?’

‘
If necessary,’ he admitted. He sensed a new kind of
intelligence developing within Rowan that he didn’t exactly like.
It was laced with shadows, engendered by her recent experiences. He
couldn’t quite see what this new Rowan was getting at
yet.

‘
I wonder if this man you once knew, Tan Cleric, thinks
differently. As I understand it, he intends to kill many people for
a reason neither you nor Joseph nor the magus can identify. Perhaps
his mission is right and ours is wrong?’

‘
You’re treading dangerous ground here, Rowan,’ Caeles said
flatly.

She seemed to
concede for a moment. Then she continued:

‘
Father once told me a story of people who called themselves
Romans. They had many gods, like Irenia, only these were all like
individual people. One was named Janus.’

‘
The one with two faces,’ Caeles said. ‘I know this
story.’

‘
Then you know that one face watched the present and the other
saw to the future. Janus saw what was coming.’

‘
The thing about gods is that supposedly they all see what’s
coming. It’s just they never do anything about it.’

‘
Do you believe in a god?’

‘
You’ve asked me that before.’

‘
Irenia must know of the unhappiness in the world,’ Rowan said,
burying her face again. ‘Of my suffering.’

Caeles, putting on his best disinterested expression for a
reason he couldn’t explain, took a clod of dry dirt and began
brushing the grains away with his thumb. ‘If Irenia knows all, then
she knows what’s coming.’

‘
What is coming? What do you see for the future?’

‘
Nothing you’d want to her about,’ he said, feeling
uncomfortable. He clapped his palms together and the dirt split
into a stream of sand grains.

Rowan put a
hand on his arm. He looked around. ‘And what do you see for
me?’

‘
Rowan…’ He looked at her, the curve of her dust-painted face,
the ragged split edges of her shortened hair, the faded colours of
Turenn’s makeup. He looked into her eyes. ‘You really don’t know,
do you?’

‘
Know what?’ she asked. ‘How can I know?’

‘
Rowan, I can’t be the one to tell you.’

‘
Tell me what?’

The flames
magnified their shadows, sending black dervishes spinning through
the mist; the fog was thick enough to reflect the shadows like a
wall, and it looked as if a pair of dark strangers was standing by
them, dancing beside the fire.

‘
Rowan,’ Gabel called, before Caeles could say anything. He
approached them, tipping up his hat in greeting. ‘May I speak with
you?’

She looked at the hunter, then back to Caeles. ‘Later,
then.’

Rowan stood
and walked around the fire, where she and Gabel sat down beside
each other. Caeles watched as they talked, then as she began to
cry, then as Gabel tried to console her.

She let
him.

*

Twenty-Four

THE HUNT

Colan was made
to walk in front, hands still bound by the rope. Sarai, the only
one to not openly distrust him, walked alongside. The others
travelled behind, keeping an eye on the outcast.

‘
That armour really keeps him cool?’ Gabel asked.

‘
He doesn’t seem to be bothered that much by the heat,’ said
Caeles. ‘It looks like it’s the rest of you that are
suffering.’

The fog was
getting thinner. Above them, the sun could be seen as a dull
glowing disk, when before it had been invisible. The air was
heavier and sandier. The filter-masks were a necessity.

When the fog
finally cleared, and the ground changed from gravel to earth to
stony baked sand, they stopped to survey the new environment. They
had come to the edge of the Resting Place, and were finally on the
border of the desert.

The huge graveyard, which spanned hundreds of miles, was now
behind them. But a new wasteland stretched out before the group,
just as barren and equally dead. They could see all the way to the
horizon, and there was only the hard, cracked surface of the
Sinh-ha Plains. The magus decided that they would not rest there,
but would continue to travel as far as they could before resting.
It would be best to cross the Plains as quickly as
possible.

‘
What life is there out here?’ Gabel asked Colan.

‘
None,’ the knight replied quietly. ‘I came across
none.’

They soon found that while the air was hot, super-heated by
the sun
that
bore down on them relentlessly from above, it was much easier to
breathe than the air inside the Resting Place, which had either
been clogged with suspended dust or so thin it made the travellers
dizzy. The filter masks were suddenly no longer needed.