No Return (5 page)

The abbey master finally set his cup aside. “I have been mulling over a decision. Oddly, this morning’s event has made it easier to make.” He reached forward and gripped Vedas’s shoulder. “It is not impossible that someone will hold you responsible for the girl’s death. We have been lucky in the past, but we have never lost a Tomen recruit before. I do not want to see you get hurt. Therefore, you must leave the city.”

Vedas nodded, unsurprised. Two months previously, Abse had been given the task of choosing Golna’s representative to Danoor, the decennial tournament between the world’s Black Suit and White Suit orders. For two months, he had pretended to weigh his options. All the while, Vedas had known he would be the one leaving.

Typically, the prospect filled him with anxiety. He had not left Dareth Hlum since passing its borders as a child. He did not relish the prospect of travel with others, spending nights in close quarters. The fighting itself did not worry him—he knew his own strength—but he could not imagine the moments afterward. The congratulations. The tearful thanks. Most of all, he dreaded the speech the winner would be required to give.

The fact of Julit Umeda’s death had temporarily rendered these concerns meaningless.

The master’s smile did not reach his eyes. “I thought I might even go to the tournament, but this works out just as well. Congratulations. You will represent the city of Golna at Danoor on the eve of the half-millennium. It is a great honor, of course.”

Vedas nodded again. The honor was lost on him.

“Vedas.” Abse spoke the word as if it exhausted him. “You could show some appreciation. I take the task of choosing very seriously. There are many worthwhile candidates, and my choice need not come from this abbey. In fact, I would be wise to choose from another order. For political reasons, you see.”

Vedas waited. The man’s chiding tone bothered him, but only slightly. Certainly, Vedas did not let it show. At thirty-four years old, having spent twenty-two years in the abbey, he had long since learned to control his emotions around the abbey master. Their interactions were routine, transparent. They were like father and son. The same waters of love and resentment flowed between them. The same fictions bound them.

“To be exactly truthful,” the master said, as if his thoughts had lingered on the same ground, “I had not seriously considered going myself. Nor had I considered another. It is a hard journey from here to Knos Min, and that is only the beginning of the trial. Golna’s champion must be strong, body and soul.” He gestured with his hands to encompass the whole city. Another shallow smile. “Who else would I choose?”

Vedas met the older man’s eyes. “And the girl’s death is a good excuse. Convenient.”

Abse shook his head. “Its occurrence today makes it easier to rationalize sending you, but I would still prefer it had not happened. It is no minor thing, losing a recruit. A small fortune in bonedust will exchange hands as a consequence—a wage to the child’s parents, a fee for the funeral, and more than likely, a bribe to our local magistrate. We have an excellent record, but no one is above examination.

“Making matters worse, of course, is the child’s lineage. Tomorrow, someone will have to visit her family and assist with the funerary rites according to custom. Of course, there is no guarantee that this will mollify the Tomen community, but to do otherwise is to invite a riot.”

Vedas raised his eyebrows. “Someone?”

“It will not be you. I will assign another person to the task—maybe two or three.”

“I will go.”

Abse sighed. “Do you know, I used to wish you would learn to see the world as your brothers and sisters see it. But I have stopped trying to understand your guilt. I have stopped hoping that you will be anything but what you are. Nonetheless, my acceptance extends only so far. You cannot have everything you desire.”

Vedas regarded Abse, wondering how far he could push the man. He noted the fine lines at the corner of the abbey master’s mouth and eyes, appearing like cracks in porcelain. At times Vedas imagined he could see the sutures of the man’s skull, as if his skin was merely thin veneer over a death mask. The abbey master was an enchanted creature, it was generally agreed, but no one in the order knew just what sort.

For all the mystery, Vedas understood one thing: Abse possessed an odd mind. Even at his warmest, his emotions were never quite believable. Now and then it seemed that a construct stared out from behind his dull eyes, measuring the world in weights and figures instead of souls and personalities. Sectarian battles were mere arguments, a number of triumphs. Deaths were inconveniences, a number of setbacks.

“I represent your best chance for victory at Danoor,” Vedas said. “I demand a wage.”

The memory of Julit Umeda’s death asserted itself again. The hellhound’s jaws closed around her head. The weight of its body carried her to the ground. Vedas banished the vision from his mind, only for it to be replaced by the memory of breaking the hellhound’s neck, knowing that he was too late. Picking the girl’s limp body up, surprised at how heavy she was in his arms. The smell of vomit rising from her shirt.

“Please,” he said.

For a moment the room was silent. Then Abse nodded.

Fate sealed, the tension in Vedas’s shoulders eased fractionally. He would leave the nation of Dareth Hlum. He would travel the length of Knoori to compete in Danoor, representing Golna’s Black Suits in the near-eternal dispute between the Followers of Adrash and the Followers of Man. In the land of his ancestors he would win glory for the orders and converts to the faith, or he would die.

Before leaving, he would visit the parents of Julit Umeda, offering what comfort he could.

THE 14
^th
OF THE MONTH OF SOLDIERS, 12499 MD
THE CITY OF GOLNA, NATION OF DARETH HLUM

T
he city of Golna, capitol of Dareth Hlum, was an arid splinter in the easternmost flank of the continent of Knoori. Roughly arrowhead-shaped, its southern and northern shores were bordered by the split end of the river Riolsam, which the residents simply called the Sam. On both shores the privileged had built their private estates, beautiful and airy buildings of imported oilwood and glass, outfitted with private docks below broad balconies on stilts.

The clear waters of the sea some men called Jeru and others called Deathshallow lapped perpetually at the broad eastern beachfront, which the poorest residents called home. Though the shore was undeniably beautiful, beasts had a habit of hauling themselves from the water and terrorizing the citizens along the beach. As a result, the slums’ makeshift defensive wall was forever being repaired.

The majority of Golna’s million souls did not live near the water, however. They had spread over the rocky, dry-shrubbed hill that dominated the island, segregating themselves into ethnic communities of various sizes and economic stature. Eventually, each came to embrace and jealously guard a principal industry.

This is how Butchertown became Butchertown. Everyone trusted a Vunni with a knife, as long as it was poised over a sheep or cow carcass. Theirs was not a prosperous community, but it was safe and clean, and it comprised the

northeast tip of the city. Built into the steep side of the hill, its houses leaned at crazy angles toward the sea. Blood ran in channels into the sea.

Butchertown was famous for its butchers, of course. Its pastush bakeries— the only ones of their kind outside Vunn itself—were also quite renowned. The city’s most attractive prostitutes lived on the Avenue of Broken Pottery. And the Anadrashi temple in the Square of Nights, O’men As, was generally considered to be Golna’s most austere.

For close to a decade, however, the community had been known for one thing above all else: the constructed man known as Berun. He had fought in and won many of the fighting tournaments the city had held in the previous eight years. Though strong men had on occasion incapacitated him with the blow of a heavy weapon, only mages and those highly skilled fighters possessing elder-cloth suits stood a likely chance against him.

He lived on the roof of a Black Suit abbey, home of the Seventeenth Order, though he himself abstained from sectarian violence. Every day from sunrise to mid-afternoon he rested, absorbing the sun’s rays for nourishment. In order to get the most sunlight, he allowed his manlike body to relax completely, spreading into a large circular carpet of dull bronze spheres of varying sizes.

The two glowing blue coals of his eyes perched on the roof ’s edge, connected to the main mass of his body by a thin tendril of spheres no larger than green peas. He took pleasure in watching the early morning routines—the corral of cows and sheep, the haggling over wares in the ruins of the Shoen Adrashi temple, and the extinguishing of the red magefire lamps lining the Avenue of Broken Pottery.

The ordinary activities of men fascinated him, though it was a rare occasion when he engaged them on a social level. Too often, such streetside conversations turned into discussions of religion or money, and Berun had little use for either. This afternoon, like most afternoons, would find him in the abbey courtyard, observing the brothers and sisters at practice. Perhaps the abbey master would ask him to help with the training. It amused him to slowly choreograph an attack for the novices, and let them pummel him with their staffs.

Only large gatherings and other interesting events drew him out of the building. Fights and festivals were his favorites, but he also enjoyed taking part in the charitable works the Seventeenth organized on occasion. There were always buildings to be rebuilt, families to be comforted. The west end of Butchertown bordered Querus, a small Tomen neighborhood. Though both communities professed forms of Anadrashism, neither could agree on the particulars. Bombings, alchemical and chemical, were not uncommon.

Humans were odd, in Berun’s estimation. Odd in their preoccupations. Surrounded by others of their kind, knowing their concerns were mirrored a hundred thousand times over the course of generations, they still did harm to their neighbors.

As the sole member of his species, Berun considered this odd, indeed.

‡

In the Month of Bakers he had turned twelve years old. He did not tell anyone, for the age meant nothing. In truth, he was little different from the being he had been upon waking for the first time. Experience left its mark, but his fundamental nature could not be altered.

He had not been created in Golna. The dialect in which he spoke, full of rolled R’s and elongated vowels, was not common in the city. Its speakers, the people of Nos Ulom, had long been banned from Dareth Hlum. The nations were old enemies. Whereas Dareth Hlum took great pride in its religious neutrality, allowing any sect to proselytize and even battle in the street if properly registered, Nos Ulom took equal pride in its conservative Adrashism, the expression of which the government closely monitored.

Dareth Hlum considered Nos Ulom a nation of dangerous extremists.

Oddly, if this had not been the case, Berun would never have been allowed into Dareth Hlum.

Before achieving fame for fighting in the city, he had achieved notoriety in Nos Ulom for assassinating Patr Macassel, High Pontiff of Dolin. The man, arguably the most powerful religious figure on the continent, was killed in his sleep, skull crushed beyond recognition by hands twice as large as a normal man’s.

Berun had not bothered to destroy the elder eyes that had been set into the rafters above Macassel’s bedroom. As dictated by custom, court mages blinded a slave and implanted the elder eyes so that they could be read, after which the manhunt officially began. For twelve days, the royal mount followed the constructed man through the pinefields of southern Nos Ulom. On the morning of the thirteenth, Berun slipped across the border to Casta, leaving forty-two men dead and many more injured behind him.

The government of Nos Ulom tried its best to cover up the story, claiming Macassel had died of natural causes. They never offered an ounce of bone or skin in bounty for Berun’s body.

Their clumsy efforts of obfuscation failed, and Berun became a hero to the various Anadrashi factions of the continent. Adding insult to injury, Nos Ulom’s Royal Redcoats failed to stop locals from burning the home of Ortur Omali, Berun’s creator and the nation’s most powerful mage. Nothing of value was found in the rubble, and few believed the official story that Omali had died in the conflagration.

Of course, these events overjoyed the governors of Dareth Hlum. When word reached them that Berun was living in Casta’s capitol, they sent him an invitation to a tournament in Golna, hoping the constructed man would choose to stay. The fact that Berun himself symbolized a sort of religious extremism was inconsequential. The governors wanted him for the sole purpose of aggravating Nos Ulom.

Their efforts at seduction failed. Berun proved uninterested in creature comforts and money. Fortunately for the governors, Golna had one thing that interested the construct: fighting. He had fought in Casta, where nearly everything was legal, but had not approved of the gambling houses, establishments run by men who thought nothing of pitting a man against a lion if there was a profit to be made. If a man wanted to risk his life, Berun reasoned, he should at least be given a chance.

Violence and camaraderie compelled Berun, not money. He found himself allying with the Black Suits of the Seventeenth, though he had never found reason to hate God as they did. His affection for his new brothers and sisters grew. Their passion inspired his respect. He refused to engage in their violent arguments of faith, but he would defend their abbey and fight alongside them in tournament.

The transaction was simple. He lived on the roof of a Black Suit abbey, home of the Seventeenth Order, and protected his adopted family. He gave his tournament winnings to the abbey master, Nhamed, who then filtered the funds through to the community. In return, Butchertown loved Berun.

Gradually, the White Suits moved out entirely. During the eight years Berun had called the Vunni neighborhood home, the majority of Adrashi had defected to the Black Suits due to his association with them—this, and the White Suits had never gained much of a foothold among the violently Anadrashi Vunni population anyway.