Lord of the White Hell Book One lotwh-1 (10 page)

"Do you think you're rested enough to make it to our room?" Kiram asked.

"I've been fine for a while. I was just stalling for time to remember where I put our pies."

Kiram laughed, mostly out of relief to hear a note of humor return to Javier's voice.

Once they located the pies, the two of them raced through the narrow tower halls to their room.

They washed their hands and faces together but Kiram left the bathroom when Javier began to strip off his clothes. While Javier bathed Kiram found a knife and sliced his pie into quarters. When he made an experimental slice in the pie Javier had been carrying he discovered that it was filled with cherries. If they shared, they'd both have a decent meal.

Javier returned from the bathroom wearing his dark blue dressing robe. He looked exhausted but clean. He brushed a wet lock of his black hair back from his face and Kiram caught a glimpse of his left wrist. The wound had closed, leaving that same raw red scar that Kiram remembered seeing the very first day he had met Javier. If he did regular penance then that wound must have been opened over and over again. It must never really heal. Disgust curled through Kiram at the sheer barbarity of the Cadeleonians, but he hid it when Javier pulled a chair up to Kiram's desk in order to inspect the pies.

"We're going to have to eat with our hands, you know," Javier said after a moment.

Kiram shrugged.

They ate messily, sitting side by side, grabbing handfuls of pie and licking gravy and cherry filling from their fingers. Kiram's mother would have been horrified. Actually he couldn't think of many civilized people who wouldn't have been appalled at the sight of the two of them.

When Javier leaned over and sucked a blob of cherry off of Kiram's thumb the action seemed innocent and indecent at once.

"How do I taste, Lord Tornesal?"

"I think I would need another sample to form an opinion."

There was a moment, with Javier so close, that Kiram almost leaned into him, almost kissed his mouth.

Then the night warden's voice boomed through the quiet hallway. He pounded on the door and both Javier and Kiram bolted apart.

The warden pushed the door open and peered in. Kiram shouted out a little too loudly in response to his name. Javier simply rolled his eyes and glared at the old man.

"Lights out," the night warden snapped, then slammed the door closed.

Kiram's heart hammered. What had he nearly done?

He was no longer in the Haldiim district of Anacleto. He wasn't in the company of the young men he had grown up with. He was in the very midst of a Cadeleonian institution with a man who he hardly knew and certainly didn't trust.

He wanted to believe that Javier felt something for him, that Javier was somehow immune to the hatred and prejudice of his society, but he couldn't be sure. From what he did know of Javier, he would be as likely to laugh at Kiram as to kiss him. Either way he would probably confess everything when he attended chapel. That could get Kiram thrown out of the academy or worse, put on trial for corrupting a Cadeleonian.

Kiram stood quickly. "I should wash my hands."

Javier stared at him for a moment and then simply bowed his head.

"Scrub hard and use lots of cold water. You don't want the cleaning women wondering how your sheets got so sticky," Javier called after him.

When Kiram returned from his bath, Javier was already in his own bed, feigning sleep. Kiram wished him goodnight but wasn't surprised when Javier said nothing in response.

I
t took Kiram a few days to fully realize the importance of Javier inviting him to the third table. It wasn't just a matter of better servings of meat or glasses of red wine every Sacreday. It signified his allegiance with the men at that table. It meant that the other students at the academy, from first year to fourth, now considered him one of Javier's circle, one of the Hellions.

No one attempted to trip him as he passed and no one taunted him to his face. At the same time, some youths who had been cautiously friendly towards him no longer engaged him in debates during law class. Watching two of them slink away as he sat down at a study table in the library, Kiram couldn't help but feel uneasy about his new alliance.

Nestor was delighted. The fact that his mother would have been incensed seemed to make it all the more exciting.

"She'd be furious if she knew Elezar and I were called Hellions." Nestor smiled as he glanced up from his sketch of a man in armor. "She's a very religious woman, you know. Doesn't allow anyone in the household to have sweets the entire week of Our Savior's Misery. She would piss blood if she found out."

Kiram's own mother had apparently laughed when she received his letter informing her that he was now considered a Hellion.

Along with her letter, Kiram's mother had sent a package of fresh pen nibs, dried tea, and hard candies. Beneath the satchel of candy was a note from his father.

It congratulated him on making friends and fitting in so quickly with the Cadeleonians, but also warned against getting any tattoos that he would regret later. Apparently one of his cousins was now wearing long sleeves to hide the bare breasted mermaid emblazoned on his forearm with the words 'wet fuck' written beneath her. His uncle Rafie was looking into the removal of the image.

Then, in closing, Kiram's father had encouraged him to keep up his good grades.

Kiram sucked on one of his apple candies and scowled at the thought of grades.

He was doing very well in most of his classes. Now that he was training daily with Javier, he was even beginning to improve in the war arts. Master Ignacio no longer scowled at the mere sight of him. But in history he seemed unable to score the kind of grades he was used to.

He had worked harder on his essay analyzing the reign of King Nazario Sagrada than he had ever worked on any assignment. He'd spent a week combing through the library for original source material. He'd searched through old diaries and ancient tax records.

It had been with a sense of triumph that he had detailed and documented, on page after page, how Nazario Sagrada's excessive violence and persecution of even his own nobles had set in place all of the elements of the civil war that unseated his heir. He had even felt confident enough to point out that the divisions that Nazario had created had later contributed to certain noble families choosing to support the Mirogoths against their fellow Cadeleonians during the invasion nearly a hundred years later.

Kiram had never been so proud of an essay. It seemed nearly as perfect as one of his mechanisms.

And then it had been returned with the lowest mark Kiram had ever received. The ugly red note scrawled across the last page informed him that his lack of understanding of his subject obviously revealed the failings of his earlier Haldiim education.

A month before, such a comment would have made him want to weep. Now-he didn't know if this was a result of constant battle training or just the extent of his outrage-he wanted to beat Holy Father Habalan to a pulp.

He had been so angry that he had paced through the room ranting while Javier sat at his desk, looking on in amusement.

"Would you like me to kill him?" Javier offered offhandedly.

"No, I'd like to kill him myself."

"Ybu can hardly wrestle Nestor to the ground by yourself," Javier replied. "Holy Father Habalan is about three times Nestor's weight."

"I'll roll him into the lake."

"He'll just float on the water like a bloated pig bladder," Javier said. And Kiram laughed in spite of his anger.

"You've got to consider these things when you plan a murder, you know," Javier had added.

A little later, after Kiram calmed himself by bolting together a small housing for a miniature glass boiler, Javier had tossed him an essay of his own.

"What's this for?"

"To keep you from failing Holy Father Habalan's class." Javier hadn't looked up from the book he was reading. Calixto Tornesal's diary. Again.

"I can't just copy one of your essays."

"I didn't say that you should. Read it. Then write your own."

Kiram had read the paper and several others of Javier's since then. They were the funniest and most scathing criticisms that he had ever encountered. Javier described King Nazario Sagrada's reign entirely in terms of the advances made in chastity belts and dog breeding during the king's lifetime.

Kiram remembered snorting with laughter as he read the conclusion:

While other rulers may have contributed more to the art, science, medicine, law, irrigation, architecture, agriculture, political stability and economy of our great nation, it is Nazario Sagrada to whom so many a virginal girl owes her greatest happiness as she cuddles one of this nation's many three-to-seven pound lapdogs.

The genius of it was that it was all true and all written glowingly, as though Javier were really in awe of the literally miniscule contribution of lapdogs.

Kiram couldn't manage the same level of sarcasm, but he had realized that if he wanted to pass Holy Father Habalan's class then he would be wise to resort to minutiae.

Since then he had turned in an essay on the advances in saddles during the civil war and was rewarded with his highest score so far. Another paper detailing the numbingly dull history of the southern warhorses brought his overall grade back up to passing.

But now the class had reached the era of the Mirogoth invasion and Kiram was determined to write his next essay on Yassin Lif-Harun. He already suspected that he would receive low marks for his efforts.

Holy Father Habalan didn't really understand Yassin Lif- Harun's contribution to astronomy or navigation, and he always looked annoyed when the subject came up. There was a chance that he would fail Kiram simply for making him aware of his own ignorance.

It frustrated Kiram that he could write a perfect essay and still be failed, simply because the scholar grading him didn't like his ideas or worse yet, just couldn't comprehend the subject. Things were so much more straightforward with machines. Either they worked or they didn't. Anyone using one knew which it was.

Kiram flipped through the pages of an old diary, scanning for any mention of Yassin. He'd found only one reference so far and it was buried in a list of men who had joined Calixto Tornesal's boar hunt.

"Yassin Lif-Harun was an acknowledged genius at the age of sixteen, and all this idiot can think to write about him is that he wears his hair a little too long for a proper gentleman."

"I'm telling you," Nestor gazed at Kiram over the rims of his spectacles, "Calixto Tornesal is the one to write about."

"Everyone writes about Calixto."

"That's because everyone wants to pass the class."

"I know. But honestly, what's left to say about Calixto? He killed two of his own cousins in duels, opened the white hell, killed every Mirogoth within a hundred miles, fathered a son, and then killed himself. Every other action he took seemed to be killing."

Nestor shrugged and studied his drawing, then he glanced back up at Kiram. "You think Javier wrote about him when he took the class?"

"No, he probably wrote about the nation's brief but shining romance with hard-ball candy, or something."

"You think?" Nestor asked. "That almost sounds…you know…obscene."

"Yes, then I'm positive that's what he wrote about."

Javier loved to provoke the people around him. His jokes could turn quite cruel if he disliked the person, particularly another student. Often Master Ignacio and other instructors turned a blind eye. They expected malice and audacity from Javier; after all, he had no soul.

"Oh, speaking of candy." Nestor interrupted Kiram's thoughts. "You don't have any more of those delicious apple candies left, do you?"

"Dozens." Kiram handed one of the gold candies to Nestor.

"I'd write an essay on these if I knew anything about them," Nestor commented as he sucked on the candy.

"I'd tell you everything I know but it isn't much." Kiram scanned through a long description of dice tricks Calixto Tornesal could preform. "My mother will only share her recipes with my sister."

"That's stupid, isn't it?" Nestor asked. "You're the one who will be inheriting the business, aren't you?"

"No. We Haldiim pass property and businesses through the women. So my eldest sister will take over the candy shop after my mother."

"Doesn't that leave you out in the cold, then?"

"My father has money of his own that he gives to us boys but eventually I'll have to support myself."

"Or marry a rich wife," Nestor suggested, though even as he said it he frowned slightly as if the idea sounded wrong even to him.

"I'm planning on supporting myself."

"That's probably a good idea," Nestor agreed. "Not that you couldn't attract a wife, but you know, if it didn't work out."

"I understand," Kiram assured Nestor. "It's best to be able to take care of yourself."

Nestor nodded and Kiram returned to his fruitless research. Now and then he glanced up to watch Nestor fill out the details of Calixto Tornesal's cold expression and shining armor.

It was only later that day, as Kiram watched Javier flip through the pages of hellscript that filled his ancestor's diary, that Kiram wondered what Javier actually thought of Calixto Tornesal's decision to bind his bloodline to the white hell.

For the rest of the students, Calixto's decision was only relevant as history. His defeat of the Mirogoths made dramatic fodder for an essay, probably for hundreds of essays. But for Javier, Calixto's actions had personal ramifications. They bequeathed both burden and power to him even before he had been conceived. The very core of Javier's identity seemed forged by the hell-brand his ancestor had taken a hundred years before. Kiram couldn't imagine what it would be like for Javier to know that there was one man who was so directly responsible for all the power and all of the isolation in his life.

"I have to write another essay for Holy Father Habalan," Kiram said casually.

Javier glanced at him, then went back to his book.

Kiram added, "We're studying the era of the Mirogoth invasion."

"From the year 1242 up until 1250," Javier said thoughtfully, "the silky native Cadeleonian thickening agent used for most puddings suffered a significant decline and was almost completely replaced by a clumpy foreign imitation. Some of our best desserts might never have been recovered had it not been for the tireless effort of a short, balding cook named Vences Aniparo. Little is remembered about the man himself but his legacy remains with us today, as a variety of viscous gravies and glutinous desserts."

Kiram laughed and felt oddly sad at the same time. He had known Javier would not mention Calixto.

Even among the Hellions, Javier never spoke of anything that troubled him. Listening to his banter and watching him both bully and amuse the other young men, it would have been easy to believe that Javier lived without a care.

Yet Kiram knew that something drove him to seek penance nearly every morning. And Kiram couldn't forget the pain in Javier's voice when he had spoken of the curse that had killed his father and left Fedeles a half-wit.

There had been one night when Kiram could not sleep and had found himself staring at the white beams of moonlight falling across Javier's pale body. Then Kiram had seen Javier raise his hands over his face and almost claw at his own skull as if he couldn't bear the thoughts inside. Javier had opened his mouth as if to scream but no sound escaped.

But the next morning Javier had sat with the Hellions, taunting and inciting them as he always did. He had bitten Morisio's ear but only hard enough to make the other man flush and sputter. Then Javier and the rest of the Hellions had laughed uproariously. Kiram had realized that Javier would never allow any of them a deeper glimpse of his true self than this.

Elezar aside, Kiram doubted that any of the Hellions would have believed that Javier cared in the slightest about his ancestry. Certainly none of them would have imagined that he spent so many nights pouring over Calixto's worn leather diary. Kiram imagined that Javier had the entire book memorized by now, and yet he returned to it again and again, the way another man might turn to a consoling scripture.

Kiram sighed. Contemplating Javier wasn't going to get him any farther with his essay. Kiram stared down at the page of pitiful notes. After three days of searching through old academy records and decayed diaries he had managed to glean little more than was common knowledge about Yassin Lif-Harun.

He had been widely known as the bastard son of Demolia Helio by a Haldiim mistress. At an early age Yassin had shown amazing talents, particularly at mathematics but also in his mother's holy garden. If his father had not decided to send Yassin to the academy as a study companion for his legitimate son, then Yassin would have become a Bahiim.

As it was, he had charted the courses of the stars while the Mirogoth invasion advanced towards the academy. He finished the last of his calculations only two days before the Mirogoth forces reached the academy walls. They had come intending to seize the last living Sagrada heir and everyone in the academy knew as much.

Yassin had been among the students who volunteered to defend the academy while the war master secreted the young prince to safety. Few of the students survived, though they succeeded in keeping the Mirogoths from discovering that the prince had already fled.

Yassin had died sometime during the second night of the ensuing three-day siege.

Kiram wondered if Yassin had lived long enough to know that Calixto had opened the white hell. Had he seen it happen? Surely someone had documented it, most likely Calixto. And then suddenly Kiram wondered if Calixto might not have also mentioned Yassin in his diary.