Chapter 25
Abass hung somewhere grey and warm and padded in a way that shut out those blue-glass butterflies. At times he felt himself burning up, and other times he thought that a foreign winter had found his grey place and invaded. Something kept him there, though, held him back when he would flee, and so he let himself stay and drift and dream.
Voices fluttered dangerously near him at times.
“He’s dying.” A woman’s voice. “Just do it already.”
“A man should have a choice,” someone else said. Eyl. Names carried pain, but that one was too close to avoid. “Let him wake first. There will be time enough after that.”
“He’s not going to wake,” the woman said. Her voice was hard and tight as caves and stone and darkness. “He doesn’t want to wake.” More softly, as though to herself, she said, “Dreams are the only comfort.”
“A man should have a choice,” Eyl repeated.
“And if he dies? What of your plans then? We wait until we find another good fit? How long has it taken us to find one like him?”
“Put it on him,” a firm voice said. A new voice. “And give him dew. Not enough that he can break free; he still struggles.”
“Father take you both,” Eyl said, but his voice was soft. “Poor bastard.”
Something as cold as a Pathless winter touched his arm, clamping tight around him, the chill threatening to tumble him out of that warm, grey place. Something touched his lips and slid into his mouth. Rich like wine, smooth as the honey, and deep as the night. It ran down his throat. Warmth blossomed inside him, true warmth, and pain that burst like a shooting star. The foreign winter retreated and vanished.
Grey sleep caught him.
Abass woke, heart pounding at the terror of something deep and hidden. A sense of being hunted. He shut it from his mind and stared at the unpainted wood of the wall. Shadows lay across the corner, but there was light enough to see the deep gouges in the planks. Soft linen and smooth, fine wool covered him.
Memory lurked, waiting to spring out at him. A pair of hazel eyes and a severed breast. Scribe dead. Segi dead. Pain clawed at Abass’s heart. He shut the memory away, blinked his eyes dry, coughed.
Cloth rustled. More to escape the memories than out of any curiosity, Abass raised his head, turned to look; he felt a faint twinge in his side, but he barely noticed.
“Abass, thank the tair!” Naja cried.
In two quick steps she had crossed the room. She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him, as though she would hold him together by sheer strength. Abass hugged back, grateful to feel warmth beneath her thin wool dress, to feel life.
“Oh Abass,” Naja said, and she started to cry.
For a long moment, Abass did nothing. Then he wept too, until he thought his heart would break.
When they had both quieted, Naja pulled back from him. She ran one hand through her dark hair—almost black, so rare in the Paths—her honey-colored eyes red. “Tair bless us, I thought I was going to lose you too.”
“What happened?” Abass said.
“I don’t know,” Naja said. “You’d been gone for weeks, and then I came back and found people in my home—the man and woman who brought you here. I found them there, and I found—” She cut off and swallowed. Tears sprang to her eyes again.
“I know,” Abass said.
After a deep breath, Naja said, “You weren’t responding to anyone, and they brought you back here. You wouldn’t wake up, and you weren’t breathing right. Something about your ribs, Eyl told me. They let me in to see you a few times, but you were so pale, so ill. Then they found a new healer to look at you, and you started getting better. It’s been almost a week since I saw you last, but today they let me back in, and now you’re awake, thank the tair.”
“Thank the tair,” Abass said grimly. “The tair. His eses killed Segi and Scribe. I’ll be damned if I thank the tair for one more Father-taken thing in this life.”
“Abass,” Naja said, eyes wide. “Watch what you say—”
“What what I say?” Abass said. “Segi and Scribe are dead, Naja. Dead!”
She nodded and said, “And it won’t help them any if you get yourself killed too, Abass. I need you; tair bless me, I do.”
“Don’t worry,” Abass said. “I won’t do anything stupid.”
Naja laughed. “That sounds more like you, although it only makes me worry more. You haven’t gone a day in your life without doing something stupid. I can’t even imagine what Segi would say if she heard you.”
“I don’t suppose they’ve left me any clothes?” Abass said. “I think I’ve spent as much time as I’d like in bed.”
With a quick smile, Naja said, “I’ll find you something.”
Abass returned her smile, although it felt flat. Clothes were a step in the right direction. Then a knife. Then Qatal’s throat. Everything else would fall into place after that.
Dressed, his ribs giving him only the faintest echo of old pain, Abass gave himself one more look in the mirror. Although a bit paler than normal, he did not look like a man who had spent weeks in the pits, only to escape with barely his life. Tair, what should I look like?
Naja waited at his side; he had stumbled when he first rose, and now she hovered like an anxious mother-hen. Abass flashed a smile that he meant to be reassuring, but she gave him an irritated frown. Before she could comment, he stepped to the door and left the bedroom.
Voices carried up from below. Abass made his way downstairs and followed the sound down the hallway.
“I won’t have it,” a familiar voice was saying. Familiar, but hard to place. “He’s in too much danger as it is. And he’s been nothing but trouble since the beginning.”
Abass hesitated, then pushed open the door. “Who’s been trouble—”
He stopped, too shocked to continue. Qatal, white-blond hair immaculate, handsome in his green and brown robe, stood against the far wall. His blue eyes narrowed when he saw Abass.
Wordless, Abass sprang at the man, ready to club him to death with his bare hands if necessary. There was no thought behind the action, no memory—just hatred, pure and overwhelming. Before Abass had crossed half the room, someone grabbed him around the waist and pulled him back. For a long moment Abass struggled and kicked, desperate to reach Qatal, to strangle the bastard, to smash his head into the floor.
“Abass,” Naja said, trying to hold his arms. “Abass stop it. Stop!”
Her voice reached him through the haze and Abass stopped fighting. He tried to fall back and realized that Eyl had him in a bear hug. The stout, bearded man was grinning at him.
“Father’s glory,” Eyl said, still holding onto him. “I knew I brought you the right one.”
“Yes,” Maq said. “It seems you were right.” Abass couldn’t tell if the man were being sarcastic or not.
Abass took in the room, forced himself to think. The larger of the sitting rooms, the twin windows covered with thick blue drapes. Chairs with matching blue upholstery sat in a circle near an empty fireplace. Eyl held Abass at bay, while Maq sat in the circle of chairs near Qatal. An intimate gathering, it seemed, with the man who had destroyed Abass’s life.
“You killed them,” Abass said in a low voice. “All of them, you bastard. How could you?” He turned to Maq. “What’s going on here? Do you know who this is?”
Maq nodded. “Our only remaining asset inside the temple. And apparently your brother-in-law.”
“And a kinslayer,” Abass said. “A murderer. Ask him where his wife is. Where my sister is.”
“It was not supposed to happen this way,” Qatal said, face pale. “It’s all gone horribly wrong. She would have been safe, away from here.”
“I was there, Qatal,” Abass said. He pushed Eyl away from him. “I saw you walk her to the cart. Don’t pretend. And you’re all in on this, aren’t you? This is why you hid, Maq? So this bastard could take your spot, and you’d run things from beh
ind the scenes. It didn’t even cost much. Just my sister’s life.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maq snapped.
“I know that I spent weeks of my life in a pit, like an animal, and Qatal came and gloated about it. I should have stabbed you when I had the chance. It would have been worth dying.”
“Do you think I didn’t know you lifted the knife?” Qatal asked. “I all but put the hilt in your hand; what do you think that show of lifting you in the air was all about? Tair, you were always dense. Was I supposed to draw you up a list of instructions on how to escape?”
Abass stared back at Qatal for a long moment. “And Isola? What about her? Father take you, did you give her a knife too? Was that your plan?”
“Sit down, Abass,” Maq said. The older man’s face was smooth, but he pointed to a chair. “You would have heard this all eventually, but it seems you’ll do nothing but act a child until everything is explained. Sit.”
“A child?” Abass laughed. He took one of the low chairs, closest to the corner, and kept his gaze fixed on Qatal. Qatal looked back at him, face pale. Even from a distance, Abass could see the man’s red eyes, the puffiness in his face. “Father take you, Maq.”
“Explain,” Maq said to Qatal.
Qatal sat in the chair at Maq’s side. “It was going to be so easy,” he said. “She would have been safe, I’d purchased passage for her to Istbya, letters of credit for her to live well until I could join her. Tair bless me, they’d been threatening her—threatening me with her. And then Maq came to me, told me his plan. I would offer her up and be named tun-esis as reward. That night, Eyl and Fadhra would bring her back out again, and she would travel to Istbya—dead to everyone except me.”
“And me,” Abass said.
“You,” Qatal said with a half-laugh. “Tair send me a sister-in-law next time. You, how were you to know? You haven’t spoken to her in years; Father take you, the only time we’ve spoken was at the wedding, and your father almost killed you that night. What? For some reason I was supposed to consider that the boy who almost killed his sister—my wife—might worry about her safety?”
The words hit Abass like a blow. “And where is Isola?”
Qatal put one hand across his eyes and shook his head.
“Where is she?” Abass shouted.
“Easy, boy,” Eyl said. He leaned against the doorframe where Naja still stood, her honey eyes on Abass.
“She’s gone,” Maq said. “Moved to another pit, or perhaps she was never in the one we were told. We don’t know; there are no records kept in the pits.”
“And yet the bastard found me somehow.”
“What a blessing,” Qatal said. “My prayers answered. I search for my wife, and all I find is her thug of a brother.”
“You wish you’d never helped me,” Abass said.
“No,” Qatal said. “I wouldn’t wish that place on anyone, and I’ve never held a grudge against you, in spite of what you may think. I just wanted you out of our life. You’re dangerous.”
Abass shook his head, but a part of him knew Qatal was right. The people he loved always got hurt. Like Isola. Like Scribe. “We have to find her.”
“This is why I didn’t want him to know,” Qatal said to Maq. “He’ll rush in and get himself killed, and it will be more blood on my hands.”
“The blood is on the tair’s hands, if anyone’s,” Maq said. “That’s why we have to work together—to end this.”
Abass laughed. “What? The tair? You will bring the rebellion here, Maq? This may be the last tair, but it is still one of the gods-made-flesh. I should have known you for a madman when I met you.”
“And your sister?” Maq said. “What of her?”
“I’ll do what he can’t,” Abass said. “I’ll find her.”
He turned toward the door. A breeze brushed him and suddenly Qatal stood before him, eyes red-rimmed, face pale as the summer sun. “Will you?” He grabbed Abass by the throat and lifted him, as he had in the pit. “Will you pass the Renewed, then? Will you face them, the way you face me now, like a child fighting a grown man? Tair help you, Abass.”
Abass’s feet hit the ground, and Qatal gave him a shove that sent him tumbling back into one of the upholstered chairs. Abass scrambled to his feet, but Qatal had already vanished, only the stirring air to mark his passage. “Bastard,” Abass shouted.
“He’s right,” Maq said. “You’ll be helpless against a Renewed. As helpless as you were just now. As helpless as when you watched your sister taken before your eyes.”
“And what you offered before?” Abass asked.
He thought he saw a smile play at the edge of Maq’s mouth. The ice-blue eyes caught Abass and held him tight. “There’s a price for that.”
Tair bless me, Abass thought. What else can they take?
“Anything but Naja,” he said. “Leave her alone.”
Maq laughed, relaxing in his chair. “We’re not going to do anything to anyone, Abass. What do you think we are?”
Abass recalled the night he had met Eyl and Fadhra in the caves. What are you? he had asked. He knew better now. Traitors. Rebels. Monsters. And now I am one of them.