The Mirror Empire (40 page)

The tubs in the bathing room were separated by painted wooden screens. He bathed in privacy and wondered what to do next. Another day along snowy roads sounded horrible.

Warm, clean, and exhausted, he made his way upstairs with the hood of his coat pulled up. He fumbled with the key. None of the doors were numbered.

He put his key into the lock of his room at the end of the hall and waited for the click, but the door was unlocked. He pushed it open.

There was already someone in the room.

Anavha thought he had interrupted some scene of sexual congress. He must have chosen the wrong room. The blankets of the large bed had pooled around the floor at the foot of the frame. A large woman lay half on and half off the bed, naked. A naked man sat astride her, big hands gripping either end of a silken cord twisted around the woman’s long neck. Her face had taken on a violent purplish cast. The head lolled back. The eyes bulged, and the pool of her black hair puddled across her bare shoulders.

Anavha did not move. His mind reassembled the images.

The man standing above the woman glanced over at Anavha. He was lean and angular, strong, square jaw, dark stubble, shadows under the eyes. His hair was tangled, short at his shoulders, auburn-brown. Anavha saw the stringy mass of a black wig on the floor. The light of the lanterns rippled along the length of his muscular body: wide shoulders, powerful forearms, a chest too broad to have ever worn a girdle, a torso so firm Anavha imagined he could throw fruit at it and watch it bounce off without any perceivable disturbance of flesh. Men in the mardanas did not look like that. Anavha most certainly did not look like that. The man could have been a creature from another world.

The man’s gaze caught Anavha’s, held him. The man let go of the silken cord. The woman’s body slumped. The man stalked toward Anavha, took his arm. Jerked him into the room. He kicked the door closed.

“Whose are you?” the man said softly, a deep voice rendered all the more ominous by the hushed tone.

“Syre Zezili,” Anavha said quickly. “I won’t… I don’t… Zezili’s coming for me, she–”

“What are you to her?”

“Her husband,” Anavha said.

The man released him. Anavha fell to the floor. The man began to dress, covering – bit by bit – his fantastic body, the sort of body only seen on Saiduan statues lining old roads in Daorian, their faces and genitals defaced. He wore straight-legged trousers and an embroidered tunic – women’s clothes.

“I’ll go,” Anavha said. He made to stand, but the man, dressed now, crossed to him in three long strides and gripped his arm again.

“You’ll stay,” the man said.

“I won’t say anything, please… Zezili will come for me. She knows I’m here. You don’t want Syre Zezili Hasaria after you!”

The man cuffed him.

Pain burst across Anavha’s face. Black spots blotted his vision.

The man crouched in front of Anavha. He took him by the collar of his coat and leaned into him. He smelled of sex and himself, a sharp, bitter scent like the inside of an empty wine barrel. His skin was the bronze-brown of a Tordinian, his eyes a gray wash.

“You’re going to be silent,” the man said.

Anavha opened his mouth. “What will you–” but the man had the silk cord in his other hand. He stuffed a kerchief into Anavha’s mouth and knotted the cord around his head. The cord was so long that he could twist it around Anavha’s hands. The man pulled the cord taut and knotted it well. Anavha’s fingers were numb. His mouth hurt.

The man opened the window. A blast of cold air stirred the room. He hauled Anavha to the window.

Anavha tried to struggle. The man’s grip tightened. The man opened the window that looked out onto the snowy roof of the verandah. He pushed Anavha out. Anavha slid to the lip of the roof and faced the yawning darkness of the drop. He managed to claw himself to a stop with his bound hands, just in time to see the man leap easily over the sill and onto the roof beside him. The man kicked Anavha once.

Anavha lost his hold on the tiles and fell. He tried to cry out but gagged on the kerchief. He landed on his side in a powdering of snow. The air rushed from his lungs.

Before he caught his breath through the clotted kerchief, the man landed beside him. He dragged Anavha out to the kennels. A big black dog was already saddled and harnessed. The man whistled to it. The dog came forward, sniffing and snarling.

The man hauled Anavha up in front of him onto the dog. The man’s body was warm and tense behind Anavha. One strong arm held Anavha against him. The other gripped the reins.

Anavha expected to see Zezili stride out onto the road, draw her sword, hamstring the dog, and cut open Anavha’s assailant with one clean strike.

But the dog was trotting off at a quick pace, the road streaking behind them. Clouds covered the moons completely. It began to snow.

Anavha was already sore from days of riding, and being jarred in the saddle as the dog leapt forward at a clipped pace was agony. He imagined blisters forming on his thighs.

The hours stretched. Anavha’s whole body hurt. The snow continued. The dog was padding now not across a road but winding through low-lying everpine trees. Anavha’s feet and hands were numb.

They stopped sometime well after dawn in a ring of everpine trees. Anavha’s captor tossed him out of the saddle and onto the snow as if Anavha weighed no more than a rag doll. The man unsaddled the dog but kept its harness on.

The man unpacked food from the saddle bags and fed the dog dried meat. Anavha followed his captor’s progress until the man squatted before Anavha, reeking now not only of himself, but of dog.

“You going to be silent?” the man asked.

Anavha tried to nod.

The man unwrapped the silk cord from Anavha’s hands and mouth. He pulled out the wet kerchief.

Anavha’s mouth was unbearably dry. He sat up painfully and rubbed at his numbed hands. Red welts marked his wrists.

“It won’t be long,” the man said, turning away from Anavha. He handed Anavha a small piece of bread and an onion from his pack. Anavha tried to hold out his hands to receive the offering, but his fingers wouldn’t work.

The man set the food in front of him and walked back to his seat in the snow. He continued eating.

Anavha tried scooping up some snow. The snow felt good as it melted in his mouth. He sat quietly.

“You say your wife will come after you?” the man said. He was looking at Anavha as he ate.

Anavha nodded.

“I don’t doubt it,” the man said. He had a strange accent, one Anavha could not identify, but he figured it must be Tordinian, since he looked so much like one. He continued to gaze at Anavha. Uncomfortable under the close scrutiny, Anavha looked away.

“We’re two weeks from Tordin,” the man said. “Someone else will decide what to do with you once we cross the border.”

“I won’t say anything,” Anavha said softly. He had seen this man kill a woman. It was like sitting with some sort of dangerous animal. But then, Anavha had also killed a woman. Did that make him like this man? Anavha hugged his knees to his chest. He was terribly cold. We’re just animals, he thought. The enforcers will find us. Zezili will cut both of us open.

“It’s not a matter of what you will or won’t say,” the man said.

“Who are you?” Anavha asked.

The man smiled, but it was a tight, forced smile that did not touch his eyes. “They’ll know me as Natanial Thorne of Yemsire.”

Tordinian after all, then. And he had killed a woman in an inn in Dorinah.

“You work for the King of Tordin,” Anavha said.

“I work for a lot of people,” Natanial said, “but yes, he’s the one who’ll decide whether or not you’re useful.”

“Zezili will come for me,” Anavha repeated with conviction. Zezili would always come for him.

Natanial wiped his hands on his trousers. “I certainly hope so,” he said. “You’re worth a nice penny, I’d wager. Get some sleep now. We have a long day ahead.”

Anavha lay on his side, hands bound. He didn’t think he could sleep, but it came eventually. He started awake not long after and froze. Something stared at him from across the remains of the fire. A creature moved in the undergrowth. He heard the huff of its breath, and saw its eyes reflecting the moons’ light.

“Natanial?” Anavha whispered. But he could not see Natanial. He began to tremble.

The beast crept into the moons’ light. It was a giant, mangy wolverine, wild and slavering. Anavha had only seen the things in the papers, drawn up to accompany a story about some horrific mauling. Anavha tried to sit up.

The wolverine growled and pounced.

Anavha shrieked. He rolled just in time, so the beast latched onto his arm instead of his neck. Jagged needles of pain burst through his arm. A blood-red haze cloaked Anavha’s vision.

The undergrowth shivered again. Anavha screamed. Natanial leapt toward him, metal sword raised, as the wolverine shook Anavha like a straw pillow.

Natanial’s sword struck the wolverine. The wolverine released Anavha, and snapped at Natanial’s sword instead.

Anavha shook so violently, his teeth chattered. Blood soaked his arm, his torso. He saw a bubbling gush of it pumping from his arm, and felt suddenly light-headed. The air around him grew heavy. He saw a blinding sheen of glittering red mist boil down from the sky and cling to his body like a lover.

It was happening again.

“Help me,” Anavha said.

Natanial skewered the wolverine with his sword. Looked back.

“Please,” Anavha said. He could not keep the panic from his voice. The mist collected his blood into a syrupy whirlwind. The air condensed. He felt a terrible pressure.

Then the world opened up.

“Fuck,” Natanial said.

And Anavha fell into the void.

 

33

The world outside lay hushed under a heavy curtain of snow. Darkness ate the mornings and the evenings. One day soon, Roh knew, daylight would be but a moment between sunrise and sunset, turning day into one dusky evening. Winter’s grip was relentless.

Inside Kuonrada, in a small cramped room brimming with preening dancers stepping through bad brazier lights, Roh decked himself in a long skirt and billowing trousers. His eyes were rimmed in kohl, shadowed in green, his lower lip painted red, his hair lengthened with braids of human hair. It was the Festival of Para’s Ascendance. Today was the day the world’s parajistas would reach the full measure of their power. Or, at least, the day the stargazers had given as their best guess. After today, Para was in decline. Roh and the others who shared his star would lose just a little bit of power every day. Roh expected he would feel different today, but he had not yet tried to draw on Para. He was a little afraid to.

Abas caught him gazing at his own reflection and said, “You could almost be a dancer.”

Roh smiled. It was the closest Abas would get to saying he’d become one of them. They waited with the other dancers outside the massive eating hall at the center of the hold. The hall was a stir of voices and low laughter. It was a great honor to dance at any festival, but for Roh, this one meant a great deal. It marked the end of something. There would be no more dancing after this. No more distractions.

The Saiduan celebrated and mourned the day as well with a dance that Roh had at first thought was a little strange. It was the story of the Dhai and their annihilation of the Talamynii. When Roh asked Abas if this was the dance they usually did for this celebration, Abas said no – on Para’s Day of Ascendance, they chose more uplifting pieces. But the Patron had requested this one specifically.

To remind us we’re not so different, Roh thought, but he dared not say that out loud.

When they were announced, Roh and the dancers purled into the room. Roh took note of the room as he swept in, aware that he would not have time to measure it properly again until after the dance. There were three long tables adorned in sinuous carvings: the heads of snarling men, fanged wolves, and other creatures Roh only knew from books. The high table stood on a dais of pale stone. Seated at the lower tables were dozens of northern soldiers with purple ribbons at their collars. A dozen lower-ranking sanisi sat with them, marked by their infused blades and dark clothes. The Dhai scholars were there as well, though Roh’s gaze did not take in individuals, merely the blur of their paler faces. At the high table was the Patron. Sitting with him were the most prized of his sanisi. Slaves removed empty dishes and replenished the bread. Roh saw more women among the servants than he had in all these weeks in Kuonrada.

And then Roh was dancing.

Roh lost himself to it. He was no longer himself but one of the Talamynii fighting foreigners from a distant shore – fighting the Dhai, the empire that had once stretched from Saiduan all the way south to the opposite pole, before the middle of the world sank into the sea. Abas was not his friend but his enemy, a shadow, his face a stony crag of cruelty; he played the Dhai emperor. Green eye shadow licked the faces of the dancers playing Talamynii from eyelid to eyebrow.

Roh’s people were overwhelmed. They retreated to the hearth, ducking and cowering as the sanisi approached. Abas was supposed to pull one of the other dancers, Taralik, from the stir of others before the sanisi put them to the sword. Taralik was to be the last living Talamynii, all that remained of the brown, green-eyed race the Dhai had purged from this continent four millennia ago.

But as Roh and the other Talamynii crouched by the hearth, Roh watching as the paint melted from the faces of his fellow captives, Abas’s hands fell not to Taralik’s shoulders but Roh’s.

Abas pulled Roh from the condemned. Behind them, the dancers playing the Dhai circled the Talamynii, and the Talamynii gave great cries. Roh and Abas continued to regard one another, Roh breathless, Abas’s gaze filled with mirth.