4: Witches' Blood (3 page)

It was regret, John supposed. Another right choice that he had made that hadn’t been much better than the wrong choice. And what for? So that he could end up here, in this stronghold of repression, lying awake at night fantasizing about Ravishan and praying that he didn’t get them both killed. What consolation was he supposed to take in knowing that his father, an entire world away, knew he was gay?

Pointless, John thought. Sometimes life was simply pointless. He supposed that this entire silent rant of his was much the same. No matter how bad he felt, there was nothing to be done about it. He had made hard and even cruel choices, but in the end they were the ones he knew were right. There was no use in regretting them.

John made another bed, more slowly this time. He wondered, not for the first time today, where Ravishan was and what he was doing. He was probably training, taking his frustration out on some undeserving opponent—or possibly taking it out on Dayyid.

The thought of that, at least, brought a slight smile to John’s lips.

He supposed he should go back upstairs and see if Hann’yu needed him. He picked up two sets of new, clean sheets and folded them to take with him. He’d need to change the beds Fikiri and Thuum had used.

When he reached the infirmary, he found Thuum tucked into a clean bed and lying in a sedated sleep. The canvas panels were drawn closed around the bed that John had left Fikiri in. John poked his head in. Hann’yu glanced up from where he sat on the stool next to the bed. His delicate needles, his spool of fine black thread, and a bottle of astringent sat on the tray beside him. Fikiri stretched across the bed in an unconscious sprawl. A fine track of black stitches arced over his chin. Hann’yu continued his work over Fikiri’s arm, stitching Fikiri’s flesh as if he were sewing nothing more than a shirtsleeve.

“He’ll be fine,” Hann’yu assured John. “It was good you gave him the yellowpetal water. He was beginning to babble.”

“I didn’t mean to knock him out.”

“Oh, you didn’t. I did that myself.” Hann’yu bent back over Fikiri’s arm. “He was going to end up saying something that would embarrass him later, so I gave him a little prick of something. It ensures better stitches anyway. No tossing and twitching.”

“What was he saying?” John asked. He hoped it wasn’t more about Lady Bousim’s offers to him.

“He hates it here. He hates all of us. He wants to go home. He wants his mother. The kind of thing that boys say when they’re hurt and scared.” Hann’yu tied off one stitch and started another. “I suppose you heard a lot of the same when you brought him up the Thousand Steps.”

“Not much,” John replied. Though he vividly remembered Fikiri curled up and sobbing on the frigid steps, it wasn’t something he needed to share with Hann’yu.

“Two years ago this behavior might have been acceptable, but now he’s getting a little too old for it.”

“He’s only fifteen,” John argued, though he didn’t know why except that it seemed that someone should defend the boy.

“He’s an ushiri. A couple of cuts like these are the least of his problems, and calling for his mother isn’t going to do him any good.”

John guessed that Hann’yu was right. Still, what harm did it do anyone when Fikiri cried or complained? It didn’t hurt Fikiri.

But John was beginning to realize that Fikiri’s obvious misery pained the men around him. It pricked at their guilt, knowing that they put these demands upon a child. It would be so much easier if he were strong and silent, if he shrugged off his injuries the way Ravishan did. It would have allowed them all to think that the ushiri’im were made of tougher stuff than other men, that they didn’t feel the hurt as deeply and weren’t terrified in the face of their own agonizing deaths.

John frowned down at Fikiri’s pale face. He really was just a boy. John found that he had to look away. Like the rest of them, he couldn’t stand to think about it.

After a moment, John asked, “Do you need me for anything?”

“You could clean up the beds.”

“I thought the same thing.” John lifted the clean sheets slightly and Hann’yu offered him an absent nod.

John turned aside and let the canvas panel fall back into place. He stripped the stained bedding off one of the beds and quickly spread and tucked in the new sheet. John had just started towards the next bed when he felt that slight shudder of air and that whisper of a chill behind him. Though he disliked the sensation of the Gray Space opening, John also associated it strongly with Ravishan’s arrival.

 
He turned, expecting to greet Ravishan, only to find himself smiling inanely into Dayyid’s glowering face.

“Is he with you?” Dayyid demanded.

“What?” John was too startled by Dayyid’s unexpected presence to reply properly. “Who?”

“Ravishan?” Dayyid almost growled the name.

“No.” Then a worrying thought came to him. “Is he missing?”

“He’s been gone since last night.” Dayyid’s scowl deepened the lines of his weathered face. “Even when he is disobedient, he doesn’t stay away for a whole day.”

“Maybe he’s lost,” John suggested. Though he thought that Ravishan was just avoiding him. This was probably wise for both their sakes…though it seemed somehow very unlike Ravishan.

“He doesn’t get lost,” Dayyid stated flatly.

“I’m sure he gets lost sometimes.” John remembered Ravishan telling him that he had claimed to be lost when he had wanted to slip away and visit him. He would probably make the same claim now.

“No.” Dayyid gave him a look of sheer contempt. “He claims to have been lost, but he never is. His bones are the god’s own. There is no place on this world unknown to them.”

Because the world itself was the god’s body, John quickly filled in the unspoken reasoning that Dayyid had to be following.

“Perhaps he’s tired.”

“Or injured,” Dayyid countered.

The thought sent a sharp stab of worry through John. He’d left Ravishan in an ugly part of Amura’taye. Ravishan obviously hadn’t returned to Rathal’pesha.

“He’s never stayed away for an entire night before?” John asked.

“Never.”

“Is there any way of tracing where he might have gone?” John asked.

“Certain men can feel the Gray Space.” For the first time, Dayyid looked directly into his face. “I have the ushiri’im looking for him, but it never hurts to have another man.”

“What do you need me to do?” John asked.

“I didn’t mean you.” Dayyid smirked. “Tell Hann’yu that I want to see him as soon as he is done here.”

John scowled at Dayyid. But Dayyid had already turned away. He didn’t spare John a glance as he strode out of the room. The door simply fell shut behind him. John hurled the clean sheet onto the mattress with unnecessary force.

“Ravishan really hasn’t been up to see you today?” Hann’yu called from behind the panel.

“No.” John frowned down at the sheet.

There was no further response from Hann’yu. John picked up the sheet but didn’t move on. Finally, he said, “Do you think that I should go look for him?”

“Do you think you could find him?” Hann’yu asked back.

“I might.”

“Then go,” Hann’yu replied. “The beds will still be here when you get back.”

John hardly heard the rest of Hann’yu’s response. He was already heading for the door.

John closed his eyes, allowing himself to simply feel the scored lines that the ushiri’im often left when they tore into the Gray Space.

The walkways, walls, and the very air of Rathal’pesha were rough from the countless invisible abrasions. If he concentrated, John could feel them all. Lifting one hand into the air, he traced the finest imperfection, a sensation not unlike running his fingers across a pane of glass and having his skin catch on the razor thin scratches marring the surface.

In the wastes he had occasionally been able to feel Ravishan’s passage by following the abrasion in space. But here in Rathal’pesha, the constant practices of all the ushiri’im made it impossible to distinguish one from another, much less track a single trail.

He supposed it wouldn’t have mattered in any case. Ravishan hadn’t returned to the monastery.

If he wanted to find Ravishan, he guessed that he would have to hike back down to Amura’taye. It would take the better part of the afternoon. He would arrive well after sunset. An ushiri could traverse the distance in an instant, so Dayyid probably already had several of them searching the town.

If Ravishan was there, they would eventually find him.

But then, there was no guarantee that Ravishan would be in Amura’taye. He was the strongest of the ushiri’im, able to cross mountain ranges in a moment. He could be anywhere in Basawar.

John leaned his head against the stone railing of the walkway. He shouldn’t have left Ravishan the way he had. If anything happened to him, John knew he wouldn’t forgive himself. He wished that he could just know if Ravishan was safe. Even if he couldn’t find him, just knowing would make all the difference.

The entire walkway seemed to sway beneath him. John bolted upright, staring around him, but nothing moved. The stone walkway remained solidly where it had always been. There were no signs of a tremor in any of the surrounding towers or trees.

It hadn’t seemed like an earthquake in any case. The movement had been silent and smooth. The land had seemed to simply slide beneath him as it so often did in his dreams. John remembered the same sensation coming to him the night before he had arrived in Amura’taye. Miles of land had whipped beneath him, leading him up from the flood plains, through the thickening forests, over the terraced farms of the mountain, and straight up to Rathal’pesha. It had taken him directly to Ravishan.

John lowered his head, again resting it on the railing. He closed his eyes, concentrating. Slowly the walkway slid out from under him. He drifted over the monastery grounds, seeing gardens and stone paths pass beneath him. He recognized Samsango, lounging beneath a twisted pine with two other elderly ushvun’im. A moment later, John swept up over the walls and the watchtowers and then began to rise up the face of the mountain itself. The air was colder and thinner. The few trees that grew there were scrub, and as he ascended higher, even those disappeared. Soon, there was nothing but jutting stone and deep drifts of snow.

Ravishan was there, crouched beneath an outcropping of gray rock, staring down at the monastery below. His black hair blew across his face and he pushed it back. Absently, almost carelessly, he turned his black-bladed knife through his hands.

John opened his eyes.

He felt a slight shock as the surrounding stone walls and walkways of Rathal’pesha instantly rushed over him. Reflexively, he gripped the walkway railing, as if the world had truly shifted beneath him. For a few minutes, John simply stood where he was, wondering how he had just seen Ravishan.

His first instinct was to disregard the experience. For all he knew, it had just been an effect of a sleepless night, deep guilt and wishful thinking.

It wasn’t as if he’d opened the Gray Space or caused spontaneous combustion. He’d just imagined Ravishan, whose image came to him all too often and too readily.

Still, John decided that it was worth following. Seeing Ravishan turn the sharp knife through his hands so carelessly had disturbed him. Even if his vision had been completely wrong, John knew he had to go up the mountain.

He went quickly, only stopping to get a heavy coat and gloves.

#

John followed the narrow animal tracks leading up between the outcroppings of rock and scrub pines. A few wild goats paused atop jagged stones to watch him pass beneath them. He climbed higher and the air began to burn in his lungs. Despite the snow and wind, sweat beaded his body.

It was tiring work, and yet not as difficult as he had expected. He had anticipated more trouble keeping his footing, but that, at least, seemed to come easily. Even scaling the face of a steep incline, with his body pressed against the frigid rock, hand and footholds seemed to simply open where he needed them. It gave him an odd feeling of security, as if the mountain itself were cradling him, and it would not let him fall.

Just the kind of thought that would come to a man suffering from oxygen deprivation, John told himself. He shook his head and continued climbing. He was almost there. He could already see the outcropping where Ravishan knelt. John picked his way closer. Ravishan’s black coat and hair stood out sharply against the white snow.

Ravishan’s gaze was distant, almost unseeing. He raised his empty hands to his mouth and breathed over his fingers, presumably to warm them. A rush of relief washed over John as he saw that Ravishan had sheathed his black curse blade. Slowly, Ravishan shifted his gaze from the distant sky to the field of gray stone and white snow surrounding him. When he suddenly saw John, he looked as startled as if John had leapt out from nowhere.

John smiled and gave a tired wave.

Ravishan seemed expressionless. He straightened and stood. For a moment, John thought Ravishan might just slip away through the Gray Space. Instead, he remained where he was, watching as John closed the distance between them.

It was only when John stepped in close to Ravishan, sharing his shelter beneath the stone outcropping, that a red blush spread across Ravishan’s cheeks. Then it seemed incredibly natural for John to wrap his arms around the other man and draw him close. Ravishan surged into the embrace, hugging John so hard that it was almost painful. When he pressed his face against John’s neck, his skin felt icy. The fragrances of incense and pollen still clung to Ravishan from the night before. His body felt so good in John’s arms.