The Mirror Empire (50 page)

The orderlies tucked Luna into bed. Luna saw Roh and beamed.

“It’s not often you get saved by a sanisi,” Luna said.

Roh sat at the edge of the bed. “I wanted to see if you’re all right.”

“Kihin’s already been up,” Luna said. “He worries.”

Roh didn’t think Kihin was much of a worrier. “I only wish it was me who got to ride all the way back to the hold with Kadaan.”

“I bet you do.”

As Roh left the infirmary, Abas surprised him in the hall. Abas cried out in delight and asked to hug him. They embraced. He had a handful of other dancers with him.

“I heard you flushed out Kadaan, the Shadow of Caisau,” Abas said. “Maralah and Kadaan are fighting again, come see. We’ve missed your happy face.”

“Abas has missed your face more than most,” one of the other dancers, Rasandan, said.

The dancers walked out to one of the large secondary courtyards at the center of the hold. Roh stood at the edge of the circle in the sanded snow of the courtyard while sanisi and slaves, kennel masters and blacksmiths, soldiers and clerks, crowded behind him.

The sanisi moved too quickly for Roh to understand how Maralah got the better of Kadaan during their first bout. Like any strategy game, the error seemed to lie somewhere behind them, one wrong move that set all the others in motion.

They began the second dance. Maralah stepped back at the edge of the circle and raised her right foot. Kadaan kicked her foot with his as she moved to strike, caught her off balance, and forged a way through her defenses. Maralah staggered, rolled. Kadaan landed two jabs at her back, then a thumb at her neck, not a strike but a press, a call for yield.

“Yield!” Maralah said.

Kadaan stepped back.

Appreciative calls came from the audience.

Kadaan and Maralah clasped one another’s forearms. Maralah leaned in to say something to Kadaan.

The crowd began to disperse. Abas called for Roh, but Roh walked out into the circle, where Kadaan was buckling on his baldric. Maralah pulled on her coat.

Maralah looked up when she saw Roh. “Your puppy’s here,” she said.

“How do you know he’s not yours?” Kadaan asked.

“The dancers are always yours,” Maralah said. She walked past Roh and back into the keep.

“Are you going to teach me to move like that?” Roh asked.

“Why are you so persistent, puppy?” Kadaan said.

“You’re the one who followed after
me
, remember?”

“Pacifist,” Kadaan said.

“I’m going to be a sanisi,” Roh said lightly. “Why do you think I came here?”

“Youth,” Kadaan said. “Foolishness.” But Roh saw humor in his face as he turned away.

After, Roh tried to slip back into the archives unnoticed, but Nioni caught him on the stair.

“Ora Dasai wants to speak to you,” Nioni said. “In his quarters.”

Dasai’s door was open. The old Ora sat on the couch with a pile of correspondence.

“I wasn’t far,” Roh said. “I just went into the-”

“I’ll be sending you home in a few days, Roh. I’ve written a letter to your parents. They will expect your return.”

“It’s still winter,” Roh said. “No ships will be going to Dhai!”

“There is a ship that leaves every year at the beginning of Siira to bring us Saiduan steel. You and Kihin and Ora Chali will return with it.”

“I think you should ask the Kai first, before you send me back. And… and what about Kihin’s exile? What’s he going to say when you send Kihin back?”

“He will most likely be glad to see Kihin alive. If Kihin perishes, it could make things very difficult with Clan Leader Tir, exiled or no,” Dasai said.

“Ora Dasai, I don’t understand–”

“Then let me make it clear,” Dasai said sharply. “Shut that door.”

Roh did.

“You are an asset to Dhai,” Dasai said. “You’re a fighter. You can see past hazing wards. You think these sanisi are interested in you for your own sake? No. They are owned body and soul by the Patron of Saiduan. We are nothing to them. Dhai is nothing. And those creatures that stepped so easily into the great hall of Kuonrada are going to be descending on Dhai. Your place is Dhai. I am getting you away from here before the Patron demands that you stay. Because if he demands it of me, I will have no choice but to honor him. Do you understand now?”

“No. Who were those men in the banquet hall, Ora Dasai? Where are the invaders coming from?”

“You’re willful and arrogant,” Dasai said. “That will either save you or ruin you. I hope I’m no longer living when you find out which.”

“Ora Dasai, you can’t–”

“I can. You’re dismissed.”

Roh spent his evening penning letters and watching the light fade from the world outside. What would happen if he went back to Dhai? Would he spend the rest of his life telling this story, about dancing with the Saiduan and talking to sanisi and then… farming in Dhai?

Kihin returned from the archives a few hours after dark. The suns only appeared in the sky four hours a day now.

“Has Ora Dasai told you?” Roh asked.

“Yes,” Kihin said. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone before then.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should know something, Roh,” Kihin said. “Luna and I are going to run away together.”

“What? Where?”

“To Dhai, eventually,” Kihin said. “Someone needs to stand up to the Kai.”

“But,” Roh tried to wrap his head around what he knew of Kihin. “I didn’t think you–”

“We’re in love, like Hahko and Faith Ahya. You’ll see. We’ll remake the country.”

Roh wasn’t sure what to say.

“Be happy for us, Roh,” Kihin said.

“I… all right,” Roh said. “Have you talked to Ora Dasai?”

“We’re not going to ask permission. We’re just going to go. I wanted to tell someone. Before we ran away. So my father knows I’m not dead. But don’t say anything yet. Luna has to get well. I didn’t tell anyone about you sneaking off with Abas. Please keep this secret?”

“I will,” Roh said. “Just be careful, Kihin.”

“Ora Dasai always thought it would be you who ran off. He’s going to be really surprised.”

Surprised wasn’t the word Roh would use.

Kihin went to bed.

Roh lay awake another half hour. Even Kihin was making his own fate. But Roh’s world was spinning back to Dhai again, back to some orchard, the life of a farmer. And he didn’t know how to stop it.

 

Roh woke from a dream of sparrows. They swarmed his body, pecking at his flesh, tearing away strips of meat until they flayed him alive.

Kihin shook him. “We’re summoned, Roh,” he said.

“What? By who?”

“The Patron’s summoned us,” Dasai said from the doorway. Nioni and Aramey were behind him, arguing.

Roh rubbed his eyes. “But why–”

“Come, get Ora Chali,” Dasai called. “We have sanisi waiting on us.”

Roh threw off his blanket. He slipped on his boots and ran into the common room, expecting to see Kadaan. But the three sanisi weren’t familiar.

“Is this all of you?” the eldest sanisi asked.

Chali stumbled into the room, pulling on his coat.

“He’s the last,” another of the sanisi said. “Let’s proceed.”

Roh’s stomach knotted. Why did the Patron want to see them? He glanced at Dasai. Had he shared the book they got from Shodav with the Patron yet?

The sanisi led them on a winding route through Kuonrada, down narrow corridors and up twisting stairwells. They went up and up. Finally, they came to an amberwood door banded in iron. The sanisi in the lead opened it.

They walked into a broad room with a stunning view of the tundra and the hulking mountains in the far distance. The room itself was lush, dominated by a massive bed. Roh saw Saiduan writing on the ceiling, and around the tops of the walls, all in gold. Despite the bank of windows, the room was warm. A fire crackled in the massive hearth opposite the windows.

The Patron stood with four more sanisi at the center of the room behind a long, narrow table. The table looked out of place. It was battered and nicked, made of hard, black wood. On the table was a single piece of paper.

As the sanisi herded Roh and the others forward, Roh tried to make out what was on the paper, but it had been turned over.

“Stop there,” the Patron said. Roh was within spitting distance of the table. The Patron looked weary. He spread his arms and leaned toward them.

“I will give you one opportunity to speak the truth,” the Patron said. “Then I will begin killing you.”

Nioni let out a little cry.

Roh looked at the sanisi’s faces. He didn’t know the four in the room, either. Eight sanisi felt like a lot of trouble for a handful of Dhai.

“My Patron,” Dasai said, pushing his way gently to the front of their group, “we would be most pleased to answer any question you have of us.”

“Which of you wrote this?” the Patron turned over the paper.

Roh winced. It was the letter he had written to the Kai, the ciphered letter that, on the surface, looked like nothing more than banal talk of the weather and how terrible the food was, but once untangled with the cipher said… well, not much more. Only that he had not found what he was looking for. He thought it would be obvious who wrote it, but as he stared at the page, he saw that in tearing open the letter, the signature had been smeared and part of it ripped away, leaving no record of its creator.

Roh opened his mouth to tell the Patron everything – about the Kai cipher, the book they’d gotten from Shodav–

“I wrote it,” Dasai said.

Roh started.

“You?” the Patron said. “Did you think me a fool?”

“Not at all,” Dasai said. “I accept full responsibility for this correspondence and accept whatever justice, vengeance, or mercy you choose to grant me.”

“Do you understand what it is to rule a people?” the Patron said.

“I do not,” Dasai said.

“Ruling a people means you are responsible for them,” the Patron said. He slowly made his way toward the front of the table. “It means that when they suffer, you suffer. When you retreat, they retreat. It is a heavy burden.”

“I cannot imagine,” Dasai said.

“No, you cannot,” the Patron said. “My intelligence officers know a ciphered letter when they see one. Give me the cipher.”

Roh reached for Dasai’s sleeve. Dasai moved his arm away, turning it into a shrug. “I’m afraid I can’t share the cipher with you,” Dasai said. “It is not mine to gift. But I can tell you the correspondence did relate to the number of Saiduan here in Kuonrada. The Kai wished to understand how thinly your forces were stretched, so that we may assess the threat the invaders will pose to us. We know they will come to our shores soon.”

“I invited you here,” the Patron said, low. “I fed you. I clothed you. I invited you to my own table!”

Dasai handed Roh his cane. Roh tried to meet his look, but Dasai’s gaze was downcast. Dasai slowly, and with great effort, began to get to his knees. Roh offered his hand. Dasai leaned on him. The old man grimaced. Once he reached his knees, he extended the full length of his body before the Patron and lay prostrate.

“I am yours,” Dasai said.

Roh watched Aramey and Nioni. They looked at Dasai with expressions of naked horror. Kihin and Chali stood close to one another. Roh thought Kihin was trembling. Chali met Roh’s look, eyes wide, and gave a single shake of his head. Roh knew that look, that gesture – shut up, he was saying. Don’t run into this. Don’t make a mess of it.

Roh gazed at the sanisi. He called up the litany he would need: a vortex about the size of the room, a vortex whose heart he and the other Dhai could stand safely within for… as long as he could hold them.

“I will not have traitors in my house,” the Patron said. He made a cutting gesture with his hand.

The sanisi beside the Patron stepped forward. They took hold of Chali and pushed him against the table.

“No, no!” Roh said. Kihin grabbed his tunic. Held him back.

The sanisi made Chali put both of his palms on the table.

“You’re the lucky messenger,” the Patron said to Chali. “You are spared for one purpose. You will go back to your scheming Kai and tell him I uncovered his treachery and meted out justice. Tell him his spies are all dead, and I look forward to seeing these invaders destroy his country as they have destroyed mine.” He gestured to the sanisi.

They cut off Chali’s hands. Chali screamed.

Roh tried to charge forward, but a blue curtain of Para’s breath came down in front of the table.

“Remove the messenger,” the Patron said.

The sanisi dragged Chali from the room screaming. Roh heard his screaming from the hall. Blood leaked across the room.

“This is not necessary,” Dasai said. “These are children–”

“Kill them,” the Patron said.

Roh pulled on Para, so much, so quickly, his head buzzed and his skin burned.

A wall of air thumped into his chest. He was flying. Roh smacked hard into the far wall. The breath left his body.

The blades came down quickly. They took Dasai’s head from his body. Roh saw a great gout of blood. Nioni and Aramey were run through by the sanisi flanking them.

Kihin bolted between them to the doors, toward Roh. Roh clawed toward him, gasping for air. The air around him trembled. He recited the Litany of the Palisade to create a shield of air to cut off the sanisi from him and Kihin.

Kihin slammed into another wall of air. Not Roh’s. Roh heard Kihin’s head crack on the floor. Saw blood. The sanisi descended on him. Black coats flapped. Blades flashed.

Roh yanked the doors open. Four more sanisi burst in. Roh scrambled away. It was like something from a terrible dream. He saw Kadaan at the head of them, blue blade drawn. He moved Roh out of his way with a broad motion of his hand, sending a gout of misty blue air his way. It knocked Roh to the floor.