The Go-Between (The Nilaruna Cycles Book 1) (24 page)
Read The Go-Between (The Nilaruna Cycles Book 1) Online
Authors: Andrea Ring
And I need to release her from my
heart now, sooner rather than later. I am immortal, and Nili’s life is finite,
even if I save her from the poison. If I spent a lifetime with her, how much
worse would I feel when she died? I remember Kerani and how I felt then, and I
barely knew her. Nili I know inside and out. No, I won’t go through that again.
I stalk the halls of a noble
mansion in Bhutan. It’s my twelfth such visit to a similar place, and I’m
looking for magic, trying to sense its presence. But these halls are like all
the others, empty and lifeless. The nobles here have been effectively duped
about their own powers.
I teleport myself to the stables.
For my own peace of mind, I need to check every possible building to see if
magic is hiding.
I hover above the stalls,
reaching out with my own magic, and the answering zing up my spine almost spins
me to the ground.
Magic! There’s magic here.
I make myself invisible and lower
myself to the dusty floor in the central corridor. I cock my head, searching
for the source of the power.
I hear a young girl giggle.
I look up into the loft. Two
people are rolling in the hay, having quite a good time.
“Tell me you won’t see him
again,” the man says. “You don’t need anyone but me.”
The girl giggles again. “Naag,
there is no one else. I told you I’ve never been with anyone but you.”
“Then why was this so easy?” he
asks. “You haven’t bled. A virgin always bleeds.”
“I’ve ridden horses all my life,”
she says. “Perhaps I rode them a bit too hard. Ow! What did you just do?”
A bolt of magic explodes from the
loft.
“Nothing, I’m sorry, I got carried
away. Forget I said anything. I believe you, my sweet.”
“You do? Oh, Naag.”
Then more, um, noises, and I
reach out and grab a bit of the magic. I move to one of the stalls, hunkering
down in the hay to wait until the lovers are finished.
I put a bit of the magic to my
tongue. It bites me. It’s bitter and sickly and tastes of rotten flesh and
seeping wounds.
This Naag just poisoned his
lover.
It’s not exactly poison, though,
more of a sickness. He made her ill. Why would he do that?
An hour later I’m still waiting.
I’ll give Naag one thing — he has stamina.
“Nilaruna is perfect,” I say to Shiva, handing him a goblet of wine.
“You’ve chosen well.”
Shiva nods and sips.
“It’s a shame, really,” I say.
“She and Kai are a good match.”
“Indeed.”
“So you’ve set Maja free,” I say.
“Is he bitter, or he is still willing to help us?”
“He’s bitter with me,” Shiva
says, twirling his goblet in his hand. “A promise I carelessly made to a
plowman turned into three hundred cycles of exile for him. Still, he’s
immortal. No one’s tricked me into that before. He could be a little bit
grateful.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “He’s
still immortal? Even after you released him from the spell?”
“He’s a god now,” Shiva says.
“Three hundred cycles of worship and a god ye shall be, although he tricked me
into giving it to him early. Better let the priests know, and have a few
shrines set up around the palace. It doesn’t do to ignore a god.”
“A new god,” I say. “And I lived
to see it! So Maja won’t be running off to join the enemy.”
“No,” Shiva says, draining his
glass. “Maja is here to stay. He’s righteous, Jagir, in a good way. He’ll do
right by the kingdom. I don’t know if that serves your purposes or not, but
that’s the way it is.”
“Understood,” I say. “What about
Nilaruna? Will he interfere?”
“Of course,” Shiva says. “He
loves her. Will he have the power to save her? I can’t say.”
I drain my own glass and refill
both. “I don’t know what I want anymore. Meeting Nilaruna…it has changed things
for me.”
“I’ve told you for cycles that
untouchables deserve much more,” Shiva says. “That your treatment of them would
be your undoing.”
I wave a hand in the air. “My
undoing is this bloody problem in my brain. My undoing was Silvia’s accident.
Why, Shiva? Why would you save Nilaruna and not Silvia?”
“I did save Silvia,” he says.
“Her purpose was just different than Nilaruna’s.”
I slosh wine on my tunic. “What
do you mean, you saved Silvia?”
“Do you really believe she fell
off that horse by accident?”
“You didn’t!” I roar.
Shiva smiles. “Of course I
didn’t. Someone deliberately spooked her horse. But I protected her from the
person who was intent on finishing her off.”
“Who?” I say. Shiva stays silent.
“Who!”
“Who do you think most wanted her
dead?”
“No one!” I shout. “She was so
gentle, so kind. There’s no one who would wish her ill.”
Shiva puts his wine down and
stands. “I always thought you were intelligent,” he says. “Perhaps I was
wrong.”
I punch my pillow and shift and wiggle, but, damn the gods, there’s
no way I’m going to sleep.
I must have lost my mind. I just
asked the woman I love to be my mistress!
Why didn’t she yell? Why didn’t
she express some indignation? Nili still doesn’t know her worth, and my
proposal surely didn’t help with that.
But it’s the only way. The only
way to keep her safe and by my side. I cannot lose her. And I certainly cannot
be responsible if something does happen to her — I’d never recover.
I’d…
A tentative knock on my door
awakens me. Apparently I was able to fall asleep.
“Yes?”
“It’s me, Nili,” she says through
the door.
I bolt up and throw on a robe. I
open the door.
“Did I wake you?” she says.
“I’m not sure,” I say, leading
her to a chair. “I was in that strange place between waking and dreams.”
“I love that,” she says. “When
you realize something you’re really hearing has found its way into a dream?
Such an odd thing, the mind.”
“It is,” I agree, taking a chair
beside her. “Did you sleep well?”
“Not particularly,” she
confesses. “But that’s not why I’m here. I’d like to get out of the palace and
mingle with the untouchables. Do you think that’s possible?”
“Possible, but not very safe.
Maybe if you had an escort, but I don’t who I would trust that would be
unrecognizable to the common people.”
“I was hoping,” she says, “that
you could go with me. Maybe wear a disguise?”
Nili twists her hands in her lap,
a nervous habit, I’ve observed. It must be important to her that I go.
“I think I can do that,” I say.
“It’s not even light out yet. Shall we go in a few hours?”
“Now is the best time,” she says.
“The untouchables move around freely before dawn. After that, we’ll have to
hunt for them.”
I stand and call for my servants.
***
Nili and I head down past the
docks to a mini village of sorts. Of course, we’re still in the capital, but
this place is a world all its own.
Shanties and lean-tos line the
road. Most don’t even have walls, and some have cloth roofs. Dirt floors would
be a luxury — most of the people are standing in mud. In their own homes.
Fire pits blaze. Many of the
people are boiling water or drying clothes, a few are cooking beans or rice.
Without warning, Nili approaches an old woman stirring a pot of porridge.
“Dear mother,” she says, “may I
trouble you for a bite?”
The woman smiles, and her mouth
is almost empty, a few rotten teeth hanging on for dear life. She scoops two
ladles of porridge into wooden bowls and hands them to us.
“You are more than generous,” I
say, preparing to pull out a coin to pay her, but Nili puts a hand on my arm.
“Do your teeth ache, mother?”
Nili says.
“Whose don’t?” she says with a
cackle.
“I have bit of skill,” Nili says,
“with healing. May I help you?”
The old woman nods and opens her
mouth.
Nili rummages in the folds of her
cloak and pulls out some leaves. She carefully places them on the woman’s
tongue. “Chew these. They will take away the infection. Do not swallow them.
Throw them away after they lose their taste.”
The woman nods and starts to gum
the leaves.
“Then chew these in two hours.
They will take away your pain. Again, do not swallow.” The woman takes the
leaves and stows them in her skirts.
I have no spoon, so I’m not sure
what I’m supposed to do. I watch Nili tip the bowl to her mouth and slurp the
porridge. I should have thought of that. I take a sip, and while it’s a bit
bland, it’s filling.
We finish, and Nili hands the
woman our bowls. She’s still chewing. Nili reaches for her hand in a universal
gesture of thanks, but the woman shakes her head fiercely. Nili drops her hand
and nods instead. I follow her back to the road.
Why wouldn’t the woman shake her
hand?
“Do you have an orphanage
nearby?” Nili asks as we stroll through the shanties.
“Up near the temple,” I say.
“Would you like to visit?”
“Maybe in a few days,” she says.
“I saw you about to pay that woman. No one here has coin. You have to try to
blend in.”
“Sorry about that,” I say. “It’s
habit.”
Nili holds up a hand. “Wait.
Quiet, for just a moment.”
She continues to walk, but she’s
listening hard. I don’t hear anything except muffled whispers, pots banging,
and the occasional dog barking.
She stops at three people
gathered around a fire. A young man is whimpering, and two other men are
arguing.
Nili approaches slowly. “May I
help?” she asks.
“Not unless you’re the king’s
personal healer,” the oldest says. He grabs a jar of oil. “Now hold still,
Yogesh.”
“Wait!” Nili says, rushing
forward. She falls to her knees next to them. “What are you doing?”
“I’m putting oil on the burn,” he
says. “Now move out of the way!”
Nili swipes the oil from his
hand. “You will not! Oil will keep the heat in. Trust me. I have some
experience with this.”
She holds out her scarred hand.
All the men look closely.
“That’s a right wicked burn you
got there,” the youngest one says.
“And it didn’t help when my
mother rubbed butter on it,” she says, diving into the folds of her cloak. “I
smelled like a bun, and my burns took twice as long to heal as they should
have. Here. I have an ointment.”
She opens a jar and smears some
of the pink ointment on her fingers. She turns to the whimpering man. “Your
name is Yogesh?”
He’s about eighteen, thin, and
grubby. He’s holding his right arm close to his chest.
He nods.
“May I see?” she asks.
He holds out his arm. It’s not
blackened, but the skin is raw and angry looking, seeping clear liquid. Nili
holds his arm by the elbow so as not to touch the wounds.
“I need strips of cloth, boiled
up clean.”
Nobody moves.
“Now!” she says. “Yogesh is in
pain.”
“You,” I say, pointing at the old
man, “get a pot of water. And you, stoke up the fire. I’ll get the cloth.”
Nili looks at me. I cannot tell
her expression through the veil, but it feels like she’s smiling.
I throw my cloak aside and strip
off my rough-spun tunic. I tear it in half, and then tear the halves into
strips.
Nili is murmuring to Yogesh,
trying to calm him.
We finally get the cloth boiled,
and Nili wrings it out. She takes one and carefully dabs at the wound. Yogesh
howls.
“I know, I know,” Nili whispers.
“Tell me, do you have a girlfriend?”
Yogesh grits his teeth as Nili
works. “A girlfriend?”
“I bet you do,” she says. “A
handsome young man like you. I bet she’s pretty, too.”
“She has breasts like—” and
the old man hits Yogesh upside the head. I chuckle.
“Have some manners!” the old man
says.
Yogesh grins. “Like Parvati,” he
finishes. “Big and round like melons.”
Nili laughs. “You’re a lucky
one.” She smears the ointment over the wound, and Yogesh sighs. She winds cloth
over the ointment and finishes up.
“There you go. Change it every
six hours. Remember to boil the cloth first. The skin will heal, but the bigger
risk is infection. If you take a fever, get to a healer.”
“There ain’t no healers here no
more,” the old man says. “You should know that.”
“We’ve only just arrived from
Dabani,” she says. “I didn’t know that. No one here has skill in healing?”
“The hermit Yoosuf used to come
around and see to us every couple of weeks, but he died two moons ago. And he
had the skill right in his fingertips. Could make the pain in my knee go away
by breathing on it. Can you do that?”
Nili shakes her head. “I’m sorry.
I do not have that skill, just the knowledge and some herbs.”
“We’ll be thanking you just the
same,” he says nodding.
“The honor is mine.” Nili rises
wearily to her feet. She places her gnarled hand on Yogesh’s brow, and he
actually shies away. “I wish you good health, Yogesh.”
Even I can hear Yogesh burst into
tears as we walk away.
***
“Take my hand,” Nili says. “Don’t speak.”
I taker her hand, and a bolt of
energy zaps up my arm. Suddenly, I can hear Yogesh and the others speaking
clearly.
“I know you’re still in pain,
Yogesh, but it will be okay. The pain will pass.”
“It doesn’t hurt so bad,” he says
sniffling. “It’s not that. Did you see her hand? I don’t want to look like
her!”
Nili drops my hand and picks up
her pace. I hurry to catch up to her.
“He didn’t mean it,” I say to
her. “He’s in pain. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“I’m fine,” she says.
“No, you’re not. You just helped
two people. You probably saved their lives, and both disrespected you. You’ve
done enough, Nili. It’s time to go home.”
“But we haven’t learned anything
yet,” she says.
“Then we can try again another
day,” I say. I stop her with a hand on her shoulder. “Come home with me. Show
me how you did that amazing trick so I could hear them talking.”
Nili sighs. “Kai, this is my
life. This is how it’s been since the accident. It might seem like a big deal
to you, but it’s not to me. I’m used to it.”
“I’m bloody sick of hearing you
say that, Nili,” I tell her. “Just because you’re used to it doesn’t make it
right. We’re going home right now.”
I take her arm and drag her back
the way we came. It’s time I showed Nili her worth.