The Shattered Gates (8 page)

The chill of the snow soaked through his heavy pants. The night grew darker and colder. Now that he had stopped searching, the pain of his injuries began to cut into his awareness. He pulled both arms in close to his body and tucked his bare hands into the pockets of his coat.

He had no idea what to do now. Where could he go?

Then the fingers of his left hand brushed across something soft and rectangular. Frowning, he drew a worn leather wallet from his pocket.

His memory was bad, but he was sure that he didn’t own a wallet. He was pretty certain that wallets like this didn’t even exist in Basawar. He opened it and found only a torn photograph inside. The young man in the picture wore the expression of someone who thought that his picture had already been taken. The camera’s flash had made his blonde hair look too light and his eyes too dark. His eyes were actually sky blue. He was taller than he appeared in the tiny photo, and his voice was soft and low. This man was important to him. He was the reason Kahlil had come here. He was what Kahlil had done wrong.

Kahlil had failed to kill this young man. The knowledge simply opened within him. He’d killed many men, but he had let this one escape. He started to crumple the photo, then stopped himself. He didn’t want to crush it. The photograph didn’t show it, but the young man had a kind smile. The thought startled Kahlil. Then came a flood of confused memories.

He recalled drinking mulled wine with the man, and the two of them smiling like conspirators. He felt the warmth of the man’s living body against a cold winter night, the smell of his skin and hair, the man whispering his name.

 Kahlil felt like he might cry. He wasn’t sure why, and it embarrassed him. He closed his eyes again and waited for the feeling to pass. These weren’t things he had done. They couldn’t be. But they felt as strong and powerful as true memories.

This just had to be a matter of confusion. Something was wrong with his head. He wasn’t quite himself yet.

He slipped the photo back into the protection of the leather wallet, tucked it into his pocket, and gazed down over all the roofs of the city. There had to be some place he could go. Not too far to the west, he noticed the blurs and colors of crowds moving through the streets. Many seemed to be filtering into the same buildings. Kahlil squinted and shifted his head slightly to catch a clearer image. At last he made out the shapes of big placards hanging over the doors. Taverns, whorehouses, and public baths. There appeared to be a few cheaply decorated theaters as well. Kahlil guessed from the look of the neighborhood that the actresses probably did little more than remove their costumes for pennies.

He made his way there as quickly and directly as he could. Without any money, he needed to go where other men did—and where he would blend in, even with his bedraggled appearance. Pausing before a tavern that bore the emblem of a fat, white weasel, he picked up a fistful of snow and washed the blood from his hands and cheek. His heavy coat hid his other injuries. As he rinsed his hands, he frowned. The sight of his clean, bare, left hand particularly disturbed him. The black Prayerscar that should have been there had vanished.

 Inside, the tavern was crowded and dimly lit. The heavy, warm air hung low, weighed down with the smells of men’s bodies, mutton grease, and lamp smoke. The tables were small and crowded around a tiny, raised stage.

A plump, dark-haired girl, dressed in a few swathes of cheesecloth, stood on the stage singing. She stared out, her face lifted a little higher than any patron’s gaze as if she were not quite aware of their presences. Kahlil didn’t know the song, but it was pleasant. Men made up most of the patrons. Some kept quiet, listening to the singer, but most conversed with each other. Their low voices produced a deep, steady rumble over which the girl’s melody drifted.

 Kahlil found an empty table and crumpled onto a seat like a flour sack slipping from a sure grip. The force of will that had kept him moving through snow and cold evaporated with the relief that came with being inside and sitting down. For a few minutes he leaned on his left elbow, eyes closed, balancing on the edge of unconsciousness. The warmth surrounding him soaked through his coat, easing his muscles. The smell of meat and beer washed over him. His stomach felt raw as it gnawed at its own emptiness. He hadn’t been hungry like this in years. He needed food, and for that he would need money.

He slowly surveyed the men surrounding him. He didn’t waste time taking in their faces or figures. All he looked for were their coin purses. He didn’t see any hanging from the men’s belts, but that made sense. Only he and the other monks at Rathal’pesha had worn coin purses like that. In Nurjima, men kept their money in their coat pockets. He remembered noticing that habit the first time he had come here, when he had been sent to bow before the divine Ushso’Shokri, the head of his order. He had received his Prayerscars then.

Again he glanced down at the bare back of his left hand and the noted the absence of a Prayerscar. Kahlil scowled at his own untrustworthy memory. It seemed so perfectly real.

He had been barely twenty, and he had knelt naked in the huge chamber while black-robed priests chanted over him. He had closed his eyes, pride bursting through his chest at being Chosen.

First there had been the soft, stroking sensation as the priests painted black ink over the backs of his hands and across his eyelids. Then the ink had begun to burn into his flesh like acid. He had wanted to scream, but he had remained silent. At last the priests had washed his hands and eyes with blessed waters and balms. The pain had faded, but the burns had only grown darker until they had become jet black. And then he became Kahlil.

Again he observed the back of his hand, rubbing it as though the Prayerscar was somehow hidden. Though chapped and red at the knuckles, his skin showed no trace of black. Just as Nurjima had no Black Tower, he had no Prayerscars.

He couldn’t have just made them up. No, they had been real. He felt certain.

Something had happened to his head when he’d crossed between the worlds. His body had been injured, and so, apparently, had his memories. But he was blessed even if he had no Prayerscars to show it. He carried in his body witches’ blood and Parfir’s own bones, and he could prove it to himself right now.

He picked a man at random, a big fellow with a yellow beard and meaty hands. The man sat at a small table ten feet or so from Kahlil. Other patrons crowded in close at nearby tables, jostling each other as they shifted and gestured. Kahlil guessed that a few tugs might not be noticed. He lowered his gaze to the blonde man’s dark brown coat, focusing his concentration on the man’s bulging pocket. Then, casually, he lifted his left hand up close to his mouth and flicked his first two fingers apart.

A shock of biting pain shot through his fingers and bolted through his arm. The sensation startled Kahlil. It shouldn’t have hurt just to open the Gray Space. It was only traveling through that caused injuries. But then he was already wounded and weak. The force it took to open the space must have been too much strain. His body didn’t want to obey him.

Still, he didn’t allow the rift in the space to close. Setting his teeth, he clenched his jaw against the groan that almost escaped him. Steadily, he tore the space wide, and the contents of the man’s pocket began to fall into his hand.

There were coins and a banknote. Then a fat gold watch spilled out. The watch chain, however, seemed to have caught on something. Kahlil closed his fingers around it and gave a tug. The bearded man suddenly looked down to his coat and then to a slim man sitting at the table next to him.

Kahlil released the watch and let the space snap back closed. At the same moment the bearded man jammed his hand into his own pocket. He felt for the coins and banknote and found neither. A look of rage came over him.

“You thief! You think you can steal from me?” he shouted at the slim man next to him. “I’ll damn well kill you!”

The other man barely had time to look up before the bearded man hammered a fist into the side of his head. The slim man fell, and the bearded man kicked him hard, knocking over chairs.

The other patrons drew back as the bearded man continued cursing and kicking the slim man. The singer went silent and stepped back from the edge of the stage. The slim man curled up, attempting to protect himself while the much bigger bearded man stomped at him furiously.

“I’ll kill you, you light-fingered fucker!” The bearded man’s face had gone red with anger.

Kahlil pushed himself up to his feet. He knew he was going to regret this, but he couldn’t let the man on the floor take a beating for him. He shoved his way past the other tavern patrons and grabbed the bearded man’s shoulder.

“Stop it,” Kahlil said.

“Go to hell!” the bearded man roared, and Kahlil could smell the sharp tang of wine on the man’s breath. Then he swung his fist up to smack Kahlil aside. Reflexively, Kahlil ducked and drove his own fist into the bearded man’s nose. A hot gush of blood spilled across his left hand.

The bearded man staggered back and then threw himself at Kahlil. Out of the corner of his eye, Kahlil saw the bloodied, slim man being lifted from the floor by two other patrons. That was good.

Then he crumpled to the ground beneath the immense weight of his bearded opponent. The man’s thick hands locked around his throat. Kahlil twisted beneath the man’s bulk, but his left arm was pinned tight. His right arm lay stretched out against the wooden floor, but Kahlil could hardly make it move. The pain was simply too great. And now he couldn’t breathe.

For a moment, out of pure animal reflex, he fought for air, spitting and gasping. The bearded man leaned over him, tightening his grip on Kahlil’s throat.

“No man alive fucks with me, boy,” the bearded man whispered. He grinned, and Kahlil saw that blood from his nose had dripped through his blonde mustache and into his mouth.

 Kahlil clawed at the man’s chest with his left hand. His fingers only gripped into the man’s coat. His lungs ached. This man truly intended to kill him.

 The little air in Kahlil’s lungs felt dead. His lips were numb, and a pulse of blackness edged in over his vision. Then Kahlil felt a desperate, burning force suddenly flash up from deep within him. A surge of power and rage scorched out from his bones. His muscles felt molten. His skin was like fire.

The pain of his injuries seared away to vapor.

He relaxed. Without thinking, he flicked the fingers of his left hand apart. Instantly an edge of Gray Space tore open. Kahlil pushed the edge of it up into the bearded man’s chest. His hand slid into the hot, wet cavity of the man’s body as easily as if he were slipping on a glove. With a flick of his hand, he slid the edge of the Gray Space upward, using it like a razor.

The bearded man hardly had a moment to look astonished before his body split open from sternum to jaw bone. His blood, steaming hot and nearly black with oxygen, gushed from the gaping wound. The bearded man spilled onto Kahlil, who lay still pinned beneath his massive bulk.

He couldn’t sit up; he couldn’t move. He felt sick and exhausted. It was all so familiar.

People stood all around him. Their faces appeared soft and distorted, as if he were peering through warped glass. His eyesight was getting worse, he thought. It seemed much darker now, nearly black. He could discern only indistinct shadows of movement above him. Someone laid a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s going to be all right,” a man whispered close to his face. Farther away, someone else laughed.

 Then a vast darkness, like a new door into a space he had never crossed before, opened up and swallowed him whole.

Arc Two: In the Shadow of  the White Mountain

Chapter Seven

Flurries of snow rolled up in little curls as a sudden wind swept down from the distant, gray mountains. Clouds hung low over the sharp, white peaks. Weeks ago, John had designated the ragged mountains as his marker for north. Sunrise and sunset confirmed that much, even though his compass swung in slow circles, never committing to a single orientation. A compass could easily break, but the solar system was another matter entirely.

And yet when John studied the night sky, he found it alarming. The few evenings that stars pierced through the clouds, they burned brightly. But neither he, nor Bill, nor Laurie, recognized any constellations, though Bill and Laurie gamely offered suggestions.

“Those six there,” Laurie had pointed up to a far corner of the night sky, “they remind me of fireworks.”

“Yeah, and that one looks like a beer bottle.” Bill’s voice always sounded strained now. Both the cold and the thin air scourged his lungs, making him struggle for breath. Even so, Bill couldn’t stand to keep silent. “I think it’s tipping to pour beer over those four stars there. I’m going to call them the sorority sisters.”

A few days earlier Bill had christened the same cluster “the hot dog,” but all of the constellations were so unfamiliar that it was easy to forget which was which. Some nights John almost convinced himself that he recognized the stars of the southern hemisphere in the scattered lights: the crow, the keel, and perhaps the centaur. Other nights they seemed to spread above him in utterly alien configurations.

Either way, he had long ago abandoned the notion of using them for any kind of navigation. Nights were too cold for travel anyway. When John ventured out to hunt among the stands of bare, black trees and deep drifts of snow, he always turned back toward their shelter while a few of hours of light still remained.

In his travels he’d discovered that the land to the east flattened out into a plain and then suddenly dropped into a steel-gray chasm as if the entire world just ended there. The jagged cliffs were treacherous even in the light of the day. Buffeting winds swept up, and  banks of icy fog often hid sheer drops. Occasionally, John glimpsed a rolling, black sea far below. Birds soared up the gray cliffs, riding frigid, salty winds.

John caught small birds when he could. They were scrawny things, plumed in thick layers of dishwater-colored feathers and smelling faintly of bad fish. They tasted better than they smelled—but not much.