Snare (42 page)

‘Right. My superior officers were suspicious. They wanted to question the lot of them. I told them that I couldn’t imagine Warkannan getting mixed up in anything wrong. So they held off, and they sent me to the Cantons to find out more about Soutan.’

‘And so you needed a way across the Rift without telling anyone why you wanted one. Yes, that makes sense. Were you right about Warkannan?’

‘No.’ He looked away, his face twisted in something like agony. ‘He – they – there’s another claimant to the throne, that Kazraki officer your people found dying in the grass and then saved. Soutan ran across him somehow, and Warkannan’s come to bring Jezro
Khan home and lead a rebellion. The Great Khan’s got a lot of enemies.’

‘Which is why he needs informers.’

‘Damn you! Don’t keep –’ He calmed his voice, but she could see the effort it cost him. ‘Yes, that’s why he needs us.’

‘And this Jezro, he’s got a lot of friends? The rebellion could succeed?’

Zayn nodded and looked away. ‘Do you know what it means if they bring Jezro back to Kazrajistan? Half the khanate goes up in civil war. A lot of men will die, a lot of farms will burn, a lot of innocent townsfolk will starve to death.’

‘I know how bloody your wars are, but you’re lying again. You don’t care about the farmers. You’re doing this for reasons of your own.’

‘I’m not! It’s for the Great Khan –’ He stopped, and his eyes grew wide, his mouth slack as he stared at the space over her shoulder.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ammadin made her voice gentle. ‘What do you see?’

‘In the Mistlands I saw ghosts,’ Zayn whispered. ‘And I saw –’ He shook himself and spoke normally. ‘But that’s neither here nor there.’

‘Of course it is! You know, if you keep lying to me, we could be here all night.’

‘Damn it!’ He rose to his knees, then sat back down again. ‘Why don’t you just let me ride out, and if they kill me, they kill me.’

‘I won’t because you’re a member of my comnee. You may have been lying to us, but we weren’t lying to you.’

For a moment he went so ashy-grey that she wondered if he was going to faint. He tipped his head back and stared up at the smokehole, but she could see that his eyes glistened with tears.

‘I wasn’t lying,’ he said at last. ‘I wanted to ride with you. I still do. I just can’t. I’ve chosen my road, and there’s nothing else left for me now. Some roads never fork or turn.’

‘Now you’re lying to yourself.’

‘I’m not, damn it! What can I do? All right, suppose I decide, oh to hell with the Chosen, I’ll just stay with the comnee. They’ll come after me and kill me. It might take them years, but they’ll find me in the end. We’re good at that.’

‘I see. The Great Khan you honour so much treats his servants like slaves.’

Zayn clapped his hand on the hilt of his long knife.

‘If you kill me,’ Ammadin said, ‘I’ll haunt you from the Deathworld so badly that you’ll beg to die and join me.’

‘Ah may the Lord forgive me!’ Zayn let the knife go. ‘I’d never harm you, Ammi, never.’

He had used her family name. So! she thought. There’s hope for him yet.

‘Look,’ Zayn went on. ‘I meant it when I said I don’t want anyone in the comnee dying with me. I’ll leave tonight. You don’t know how good I am at being on the run. Once I’m alone, they’ll never find me.’

‘You’re forgetting the sorcerer. Soutan. He’s done an awfully good job of finding you so far.’

Zayn’s mouth went slack.

‘Think, you idiot!’ Ammadin snapped. ‘Someone told this Sinyur Alayn exactly what road you were travelling on, didn’t he? There you were, out in the middle of nowhere on a dark night, but they knew exactly where to find you. Soutan must have got a new crystal, and he must have scanned you out.’

For a moment she thought he was going to argue; then he nodded his agreement.

‘Now,’ Ammadin went on, ‘I want you to tell me more. Why did your officers send you after Soutan?’

‘Just to find out who he was and bring the information back.’

‘But now you’ve got this other man to worry about –’

‘Jezro Khan, yes.’

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘Somewhere in Burgunee Canton.’

‘And if you find him, what then? Do you just bring the information back?’

‘No. It would be my duty to kill him. If he reaches Andjaro Province, if he crosses the border, then it’s going to be too late. I know Andjaro. They’ve hated the throne for a hundred years. They’ll raise troops for Jezro fast enough.’

‘I don’t understand why –’

‘The khanate conquered them. It’s a strange place, Andjaro, full of hills and forests, an easy place to hide in. The people that live there are mostly big landowners, who keep armed guards around. Well, they call them guards, but they’re soldiers, really.’

‘And the landowners will follow Jezro, right? Very well, so you want to ride off, find Jezro, and kill him.’

‘I don’t want to. I have to. I know my duty to the Great Khan.’

‘And what about Warkannan? If he stands between you and this khan, will you try to kill him too?’

The tears were back, glistening in his dark eyes, and this time Zayn made no effort to hide them. Ammadin let out her breath in a sharp sigh. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’ve got yourself into a really wretched mess, haven’t you?’

Zayn laughed, a dark mutter under his breath. ‘I like the way you put that,’ he said. ‘And the worst thing is, if I hadn’t told my superiors how much I trusted Warkannan, I wouldn’t be in it. Damn him for turning traitor!’

‘Suppose you hadn’t told them. This questioning you mentioned – I’ve heard about your Kazraki courts. They would have put these people to the torture, wouldn’t they, if they didn’t like their answers?’

‘Yes. That’s why I spoke up. Most likely they would have questioned Warkannan’s nephew first. Warkannan would betray God Himself to protect him. Idres would have told us everything.’

‘That’s really repellent.’ She paused to give her words full effect. ‘Really disgusting! Zayn, how could you? How could you join a group like this? Brotherhood you called it. It sounds like a nest of firesnakes to me.’

She was expecting anger, but he merely sighed, looking away, nodding a little as if agreeing with her.

‘It’s because of the demon blood,’ he said. ‘Every member of the Chosen has some of the forbidden talents. That’s why we’re so good at what we do. The demon blood’s damned us. Why should we care what we do?’

‘But it’s not demon blood, as you know perfectly well, so I don’t suppose anything’s damning you, either. That’s a stupid excuse. I have some of those talents, too. Do you think I serve that – what is he? Prince of demons? Iblish? Something like that.’

‘Iblis.’ Zayn whispered the word. ‘The rebel angel. Of course you don’t.’

‘Very good! And as I’ve said about fifty times before, there aren’t any demons who can get women pregnant. I don’t know why you and the Chosen have the talents, but I doubt if this Iblis creature has anything to do with it.’

‘Ammi, you’re tearing me apart. Do you realize that?’

‘Of course. Now, tell me if I’ve got this right. You all grew up terrified, convinced you had demon blood, and that you’d die if anyone found out. What’s more, the blood meant you weren’t even real H’mai, but some kind of outcast to your families, who hated and feared you. So now the men in the Chosen hate everyone in return. You’re getting your revenge.’

He bit his lower lip so hard it bled. With a curse he wiped the blood off on the back of his hand and glared at her.

‘Ah, I’m right,’ she went on. ‘But there are two Kazraks you don’t hate, Warkannan and this Jezro fellow. You did your best to protect Warkannan. The thought of killing Jezro makes you sick to your guts. Well, doesn’t it?’

He said nothing, kept his hand pressed against his mouth, and stared at her as if he were wishing he could kill her with thoughts alone.

‘So, it does.’ Ammadin allowed herself a brief smile. ‘You’re keeping quiet so you won’t have to lie to me, aren’t you?’

‘Damn you!’ He let his hand fall into his lap.

‘Tell me something, Zayn. Why are Jezro and Warkannan different? Why don’t you hate them?’

‘Why the hell should I answer that?’

‘Because I’m a spirit rider, and the other men in your comnee risked their lives to save you.’

He started to speak, merely sighed, looked away, looked back at her. Blood trickled from the cut on his lip. She waited, afraid to speak while his soul tottered on the edge of some inward chasm deeper than the Rift itself.

‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I was a sergeant in Warkannan’s troop, out on the border. The ChaMeech had been raiding steadily. We were out on patrol, and they made a night attack on our horses. It was dark, everything was confused. Warkannan and I got ourselves captured.’

‘Oh gods! So that’s why you hate them so much.’

Zayn nodded. ‘They marched us for two days straight, loping along, dragging us when we fell. They’d stop to sleep for a few hours, then slap us around to wake us up, and we’d be back marching.’ He looked away, his eyes bleak. ‘By the time we stopped, all I wanted was to die fast, because I knew they were going to make us die slowly. I think I would have died earlier, on
the run I mean, but Warkannan kept me going. I’d fall down, and he’d somehow or other talk me into getting up again.’

‘I see. And then you were rescued.’

‘Yes, but we never thought we would be. It’s in the regulations, you see, that if men get captured, they’re officially dead; the post commander isn’t supposed to risk more men going after them. Jezro broke that regulation. He came after us with the whole regiment. They could have cashiered him, you know, khan or not, but he told us that it wouldn’t have mattered to him if they had. Damned if he was going to leave two of his men in ChaMeech hands.’

‘Are you really going to kill this man if you find him?’

Again he fell silent, staring at her. The flickering oil lamps sent shadows dancing across his face and long spears of light around the tent.

‘I don’t know.’ Zayn’s voice was a bare whisper. ‘But I have to go and see if I will or not.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I keep telling you: I swore I’d serve the Great Khan. If I let Jezro reach Andjaro, then I’ve failed, I’ve gone back on my oath. How could I even think of myself as a man any more?’

‘How can you think of yourself as a man if you kill him?’

‘Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?’ Zayn was whispering again. ‘That’s why I’ve got to go find him. I can’t just pretend I don’t know where he is. I won’t know what I’ll do until I see him.’ He was silent for a long moment, then spoke normally. ‘I don’t know who I am any more. Don’t you see? Ever since the Mistlands, I don’t know who I am. I’ve got to find out if I’m the man who could kill Jezro Khan, or if I’m the man who can’t. It’ll be a start, anyway, on figuring things out.’

Ammadin decided that either he’d gone mad or he was sane for the first time in his life. She found herself longing for her teacher, wise old Yannador, with his eighty years of studying the human heart, but to speak to him, she’d have to journey to the gates of the Deathworld. What would Yanno have said to this man? Zayn sat watching her, his eyes full of tears that never fell.

‘All right,’ Ammadin said. ‘That’s honest. Finding Jezro Khan is like a spirit quest for you. You need to ride it.’

‘Yes.’ Zayn paused, gasping down a breath. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Now listen. You’ll be leaving the comnee to quest. While you were off getting yourself into trouble, Kassidor and I made a bargain so I could go on a quest of my own. I want to ride east with Water Woman to meet Sibyl. Sammador agreed that his comnee will ride with Apanador’s for a while, so Kasso can tend my god figures and protect my people as well as his. I’ll go off with Water Woman, and when I come back, I’ll tell him everything I’ve learned.’

‘A fair enough bargain, I suppose, but –’

‘Just listen! To meet up with Water Woman I have to ride east into the Cantons. So I might as well ride with you – for a while, anyway. It’ll be safer for both of us. I can counter Soutan’s magic, and you can be my bodyguard.’

Zayn started to speak, then merely stared at her.

‘But there’s one thing I will not do,’ Ammadin went on, ‘and that’s use my crystals to find Jezro. I will not join your blood hunt.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to. It’s bad enough I have to.’ He swallowed hard. ‘But it’s too dangerous, riding with me. I’d rather die than have you come to the slightest harm.’

‘You keep talking about dying, Zayn. Is that what you were planning on doing? Riding off and making some stupid mistake so you’ll die and never have to face Jezro?’

He stood up, twisted towards the tent flap, stopped, turned back. ‘You really do have guards out there, damn you!’

‘Yes. Sit down.’

Zayn sat.

‘You must be furious at me,’ Ammadin went on.

‘I’m not, oddly enough. I should be, but I’m not. Maybe I’m just too damned tired to be angry. I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more, maybe. Nothing looks the same as it did when I left Kazrajistan.’

‘Good.’

‘What do you mean –’

‘Judging from what you’ve told me, things must have looked very ugly to you for years.’

‘Oh will you shut up? I –’ He paused for another long breath. ‘I’m sorry, Spirit Rider, but I can’t take any more of your – well, whatever it is you’re doing.’

‘Tearing you apart, just like you said.’ She smiled at him. ‘I will
stop, for now, but Zayn, I oversaw your vision quest. I don’t think you realize what that means.’

‘I didn’t realize then. I’m beginning to now.’

‘Good. Then it’s settled. We’ll ride –’

‘I don’t recall it being settled.’

‘If you really want to die, I’ll have Apanador and Dallador tie you up and turn you over to Sinyur Alayn’s men, who’ll be glad to oblige. Huh, I can see from the nasty look on your face that you don’t want anything of the sort. All right, then, you need my magic, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ He sounded exhausted. ‘I do. All right, it’s settled. We can tell people the truth, that you’re on some kind of quest for hidden knowledge, and I can go on being your servant.’

‘That’s not the truth. We’re both riding quests, and that’s what we’ll say. You don’t have to tell anyone what you’re questing for. If anyone asks, tell them you can’t discuss it because it’s Bane, which it is. In the morning I’ll tie you a charm for your bridle to mark the quest. And one for me, come to think of it.’ Ammadin stood up. ‘I’ll just go tell the guards to leave. You’d better not try to sneak out while I’m asleep.’