The Sword Of Angels (Gollancz S.F.) (50 page)

Jahan did not hear the Eminence approach. Instead he stared into Lahkali’s pond, oblivious to her. Lahkali paused behind a palm tree, her footfalls hidden by the sand beneath her feet. Jahan looked contemplative, and grossly out of place. While the others had gone to feast, he stood alone. For a moment Lahkali considered leaving him, sure that he would prefer the solitude. But then she remembered her conversation earlier with Lukien, and the things the knight had said about Jahan. She watched him, intrigued by him, wondering what had drawn him to the pond, away from everyone else, even Lukien, his friend. He was an enigma to Lahkali, this simple man from an unnamed village, with peasant ways that delighted some and invited scorn from others. The way the sunlight dappled his face flattered his kind features. In his long, tied-up tail of hair, Lahkali decided he was handsome.

Jahan knelt down next to the pond and began speaking, not loudly or clearly enough for her to hear. Was he addressing the fish, she wondered? She inched closer, revealing herself from her hiding place, trying better to discern his words. So far, Lahkali had led a sheltered life. Despite being the great ‘Red Eminence,’ she was but a youngster and well aware of her short-comings, and she had never ventured far enough from home to get to know the many villages like Jahan’s that dotted the countryside. Jahan continued speaking, then finally dipped a hand into the water, cupping a single tadpole. The creature wringled out of his watery palm and splashed back into the pond. Jahan laughed with delight.

‘Hello?’ Lahkali ventured.

Startled, Jahan jumped to his feet. He blanched when he saw the Eminence.

‘Jahan, it is all right,’ she told him, careful to speak softly and slowly. Their dialects were nearly the same, but without Lukien’s odd magic to translate she was unsure they would understand each other. ‘Do you hear, Jahan? It is all right.’

‘Yes, Eminence,’ Jahan replied. He wiped his wet hands on his pants. ‘I will leave . . .’

‘No, it’s fine,’ said Lahkali quickly. ‘This is a good place to come and think.’ She went to him, smiling to put him at ease. ‘You can eat with the others, you know. You do not have to stay here alone.’

‘Thank you, yes, I know this,’ said Jahan. ‘Later, maybe, I will eat.’ His eyes shifted uncertainly.

‘So you came to be alone,’ Lahkali ventured. ‘Like me.’

Jahan nodded. ‘Yes.’

His silence made her awkward. ‘They are safe here,’ she said, looking down into the pool where the tadpoles played. ‘That’s why they come,
too, to get away from the big fish. You and I are not big fish, either. Maybe that is why we both found this place.’

‘No, Eminence, you are a great fish. The greatest fish.’

‘But I am a girl,’ she reminded him. ‘How can a girl be a great fish?’

Jahan puzzled over the question. ‘I do not know. But you are the Red Eminence.’

‘But not what you expected?’

‘No,’ Jahan admitted. His brow wrinkled as he worked the problem. ‘None of this is what I expected. You are all just . . . people.’

Lahkali laughed. ‘Yes.’ She dipped her hand into the water the way she had seen him do. It felt cool on her painted fingers. ‘And I can’t control the rass the way my father could or his father before him. Maybe that’s what it means to be a girl. To be weak.’

‘No, Eminence, do not say so. If my wife heard those words she would scold you!’

‘You are married?’ asked the girl.

‘To Kifuv. To the greatest wife in my village.’ Jahan flushed with pride. ‘Kifuv let me come to Torlis to meet you. She made me promise to tell her about everything I see here.’

‘This is a great journey for you, isn’t it?’ asked Lahkali. She stood to face him. ‘Lukien told me this about you, that you came to meet the Red Eminence and to see Torlis for yourself.’

Jahan seemed embarrassed. ‘This is true, Eminence.’

‘And you came to protect Lukien, because you owe him a debt.’

‘Also true.’

Lahkali manoeuvreed toward a palm tree, where she leaned against its peeling bark. They were alone, the two of them, presenting the perfect chance to get her questions answered. As though waiting to be dismissed, Jahan kept his eyes to the ground.

‘You are welcome here,’ said Lahkali. ‘You must know that by now. Even if I am not what you wanted to find in Torlis.’

‘Yes, Eminence. Thank you.’

‘And Lukien needs you. You trouble him with your silence. He is a stranger here, just like yourself.’

‘He needs my help to find the sword. I have promised him that.’

‘That is good,’ said Lahkali gently. ‘But it is too much for him to have to worry about both of us, Jahan. You must be strong for him. Can you do that?’

Jahan finally straightened. ‘I can. But sometimes I hear my village calling. Sometimes I want to go back to them.’

His loneliness struck Lahkali. ‘I understand. I miss my family, too. My father mostly. But we both have things that we must do, yes?’

Jahan nodded. ‘Yes.’

He turned from her and went back to staring into the water. The still pond replied with a wavy reflection. Curious, Lahkali followed him. She knelt down next to the pond and looked at her own reflection. The two of them stared. He was not so different from her, Lahkali supposed. They were both outsiders, surrounded by people who thought little of them.

‘Look at our faces,’ she said. ‘See how alike we are? Is that what surprises you so much, Jahan?’

Jahan studied his reflection in the water, then shifted his gaze toward the girl’s. Lahkali watched his brow knit.

‘In my village, we talk about Torlis like it is a place of gods,’ said Jahan. ‘We believe the Red Eminence can do anything. I told Lukien to come and speak to you. I told him you would know where to find his sword. And you do know. You just won’t tell him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lahkali. ‘I cannot. That’s why you’re here, Jahan – to help him.’

‘Yes,’ said Jahan. His tone grew determined. ‘You are right.’

‘He is a quiet one, Lukien. It is hard to know his heart. But he speaks to you, Jahan. You must be a friend to him.’

Jahan nodded. ‘Lukien needs a friend, yes. He mourns.’

‘Mourns?’

‘For a woman. A beloved.’

Lahkali leaned back on her heels. ‘Tell me about this.’

Jahan shrugged. ‘I do not know much of it. She was his woman, and now she is gone.’

‘Dead?’

‘Dead, yes. She has gone to the next world.’ Jahan retreated a little. ‘Do you have another world, Eminence? Is that what you believe?’

‘Of course,’ said Lahkali. ‘It is only Lukien and his kind that do not seem to believe.’

‘Lukien believes. He did not always believe, but now he does. He has spoken to his beloved. She has come to him.’

‘Really? How?’

‘Like a spirit,’ said Jahan. ‘That is what he told me.’

Lahkali rose. She had not known that anyone beyond Torlis could speak to the dead. She puzzled over this, wondering how much more Jahan knew.

‘That is why Lukien is so dark?’ she probed. ‘Because he mourns?’

‘Yes, Eminence. I have thought about it, and I think he hates the amulet that keeps him alive. He would rather die, I think, and be with his beloved.’

A frown crossed the girl’s face. At last, things were making sense. ‘That’s why he saved your child from the hooth . . .’

‘No, Eminence,’ Jahan insisted. ‘Lukien is brave. He was not afraid of the hooth.’

‘You’re right, Jahan,’ said Lahkali darkly. ‘He’s not afraid of anything.’

A man who wished for death wouldn’t be, Lahkali supposed. Saddened, she knelt again in the damp sand, watching as the tiny fish darted through the water. Jahan had been more enlightening than she’d intended. How had Lukien spoken to his beloved? She was dead, and only the people of Torlis could speak to the dead.

That was the one great gift Malator had given them.

Aliz Nok lived on a busy street, but he was mostly forgotten by the people of Torlis. For five decades he had remained in the tiny house with the shop at the back, even after the death of his wife. He worked in solitude, without helpers of any kind, seeing only those few customers who came to his shop to sharpen their knives or reminisce about the old days. At nearly seventy, Aliz Nok was the oldest blade maker in Torlis, a skill that had long ago given way to quicker, modern methods, leaving Aliz Nok’s quaint shop quiet, the hearth and hammers rarely used.

In his youth, Aliz Nok had been renowned, forging blades for the royal family and its many generals, patiently working long nights in his smoky shop while wide-eyed apprentices watched and learned. The apprentices were gone now, as were his customers, but Aliz Nok had never forgotten his skills or let them decay from disuse. Though no one seemed interested in his fine blades any longer, the old man continued to refine his ancient methods, finding better ways to harden steel and sharpen the edge of the blades he made. He did not stamp out blades the way the modern makers did, with their dies and machines, producing inferior blades in such great numbers that the rulers of Torlis forgot the slower, better ways. Instead he worked patiently with fire and forge, making the metal bend to his will.

Aliz Nok’s bald head glistened with sweat. The stinging heat of his firepit spat sparks and embers into the air, lighting his shop like fireflies. A hammer trembled in his hands, its soiled handle worn to a perfect fit by his strong fingers. Slowly, slowly, he folded the metal over itself, hammering it smooth. Already he had completed one of the blades for the katath, and now its twin took shape on his anvil. He had worked tirelessly on the weapon, honoured by the commission. The one-eyed stranger would soon come to claim it. Aliz Nok did not let his deadline hurry him. Precisely, he hammered out a paper-thin fold of the metal, and when it was perfect bent it back over the countless other folds. Soon, he would encase the blade in clay, leaving only the edge exposed to the air while the blade tempered in his firepit. From there the core would slowly cool, hardening
it, making it unbreakable. Aliz Nok smiled, pleased with himself and the tricks he had learned. He had seen the brittle blades his competitors made, so useless, so easily snapped. Not so with his kataths. His kataths never shattered, and this one would be the greatest of them all.

‘It will be perfect,’ said Aliz Nok as he hammered down the fold. He could see its perfection taking shape. His white robe soaked with perspiration, he licked his lips to wet them. So thirsty, yet to rest now would ruin his work. He needed to be disciplined, always, for perfection to take shape. His shop had no windows, and Aliz Nok knew not the time. It had been daybreak when he’d begun, and now it was long past sunset. His stomach screamed for food, but he had already eaten once today and that was enough. Lost in his work, the old katath maker ignored the needs of his body, thinking only of the blade.

Would the one-eyed man come, he wondered? He would bring gold for the commission, but that did not matter to Aliz Nok. He would not accept payment for such an honour. Just being remembered was enough for the old man. The stranger had come from Niharn, he’d said, the great fencing master himself. To think of this made Aliz Nok swell with pride. Niharn had remembered him and his craft. The world was not hopeless after all.

‘Work,’ he told himself. ‘It is for her.’

Because she was a girl and only slight of build, the katath had been a challenge. It could not be tall, nor uselessly short. It needed weight, but could not be heavy. But most of all, her katath needed blades that could pierce the hide of the Great Rass and puncture its twin hearts.

And that was why Niharn had sent the one-eyed man to Aliz Nok.

The old man worked tirelessly that night, forging the blade until morning, then carefully encasing it in the clay he had made, leaving the edge exposed so that it would heat and cool quickly. If not tempered this way, the core would cool too quickly, making it brittle. Not so with the edge. To hold its sharpness, it needed to cool fast. Aliz Nok worked hunched over his filthy table, laying the clay lovingly across the curved blade. Already he had made the shaft for the blade and its twin, drying and splitting the bamboo so that it whistled when twirled through the air. He had spun the shaft on one finger to test its balance. Soon he would tan the leather to attach the blades, then carve the shaft with powerful runes. He looked forward to this, for he had long ago mastered the runes of Sercin and was sure that the God would appreciate his handiwork.

When at last he had covered the blade with clay, Aliz Nok went to his firepit to stoke the flames. The hearth roared as he fed it air and coals, lusting for the blade. Patiently he waited for the heat to build, feeling the skin of his face tighten with pain. Then, when the fire was right, he slid
the blade off its paddle and into the burning coals, sending up a shower of sparks.

The katath maker waited.

He watched the flames engulf the blade, searing and hardening the clay around its core. This was the time that always made him anxious. He found his stool nearby and sat down, and his thoughts drifted like smoke toward his dead wife in heaven. He was ready to join her, he decided. Thinking of her made him smile. She was proud of him, he was sure, looking down on him from the realm of the dead, watching as he made his last great blade.

‘It is a blessing to do this work,’ Aliz Nok whispered to himself. ‘Thank you, Sercin. Thank you for sending the stranger to me.’

At last the blade had fired, and the old man took it from the flames with pincers, placing it directly into the urn of waiting water. The water hissed and bubbled, sending steam into his eyes. He turned his face from the spitting urn, counting to himself as the blade cooled. Soon the boiling subsided. Aliz Nok stopped counting. He withdrew the blade from the bath and set it down on his work table, studying the edge and the clay-covered core. The clay had hardened perfectly, without a single crack or blemish. He knew without opening it that he had succeeded. Smiling, he took his hammer and gently smashed away the clay, brushing the dust away to reveal the blade beneath.

Aliz Nok nodded, pleased with himself. Like its twin, the blade was perfect. Exhausted, he left the blade on the table, still half-encased in its clay. The hardest part was done, he decided. He had earned some sleep.

Three days later, Lukien arrived at the home of Aliz Nok. He had not seen the katath maker since giving him the commission, granting the old man the full month he needed to make Lahkali’s weapon. The narrow street was filled with noise when Lukien arrived as mid-day crowds shopped among the many market stalls and bargained with merchants behind pushcarts. Aliz Nok’s humble house sat behind a new, larger home, which cast a sad shadow over the old man’s door. Surprisingly, the door was open when Lukien arrived. He pushed it open to peer inside, noting at once the smell of sulphur and sweat. The windows all remained closed, letting dusty sunlight into the living chamber. The home had not been cleaned since the last time Lukien had been there, and he noted the same bits of debris scattered right where they’d been a month ago. Without a wife to help him, the old master had let his house decay to a depressing sight, and Lukien held his breath against the strong smell of smoke that had polluted it.

‘Aliz Nok?’ he called.

No answer came. Lukien stepped inside and looked around, shutting
the door behind him. Across the dismal living area lay the door to the shop. It, too, stood open. Lukien hesitated. He had been surprised by Niharn’s insistence that the old man could help him, and when he’d first seen the home he had almost turned around. But Niharn had assured him with sincerity, promising Lukien that he would find no better smith to make Lahkali’s weapon. Now, surrounded by Aliz Nok’s depressing home, Lukien’s doubts returned.

‘Hello? Aliz Nok, are you here?’

Again the old man did not respond, prompting Lukien forward. He went across the living area to the shop, sticking his head over the threshold. The room stunk of oils and metal and burnt out coals. The firepit stood at the far side of the chamber, cold. Bent bits of iron blanketed the floor around the workbench, where scattered tools lay. Lukien cleared his throat against the smell, looking for a window to open but not finding one. Instead he found Aliz Nok, sprawled on the floor, his body partially covered by a blanket. An old, soiled pillow cradled his head. His mouth stood open, but no sound came from him. Concerned, Lukien went to stand over him, watching for any sign of breathing. When the old man’s eyes opened it startled them both. Aliz Nok bolted up with a shout, making Lukien jump.

‘I’m sorry!’ Lukien cried, catching his breath. ‘It’s just me – Lukien.’

‘Lukien?’ The old man shook the sleep from his head. ‘Yes . . .’

‘Fate Almighty, I thought you were dead! You gave me a scare, Aliz Nok.’ Lukien put out his hand and helped the man to his feet. ‘This is where you sleep?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Aliz Nok. ‘When I am busy. I have been very busy for you.’

Just as it had for everyone else in Torlis, Lukien’s amulet translated the man’s words. The remarkable feat had stunned Aliz Nok at their first meeting, convincing him Lukien was something special.

‘It’s been a month,’ said Lukien cautiously. ‘Have you had enough time?’

‘I have,’ replied the old man. A strange smile crossed his wrinkled face. ‘You will be pleased.’

‘It came out well, then?’

‘No, not well. Perfectly.’

Aliz Nok let go of Lukien’s hand and went to his silent workbench. Beneath it lay a long box of polished wood, perhaps four feet in length. He held it out before him, beaming. A proud twinkle lit his ancient eyes.

‘Is that it?’ asked Lukien excitedly. ‘You made that box as well?’

‘It is a special weapon, Lukien. It deserves a special place to rest. Come.’

As Lukien approached, Aliz Nok noisily cleared the debris from his workbench with his forearm, then set the box down. Carved into the top
of the box was a symbol Lukien had seen before in Torlis, a rune that twisted like a snake – the mark of Sercin. With Lukien hovering over his shoulder, Aliz Nok began undoing the box’s tiny golden latches. A long, gleaming hinge ran along the back of the top, and when the old man had finished with the latches he lifted the top on its silent hinge, revealing the weapon gently cradled in a cushion of velvet.

‘Here it is,’ said the old man. ‘A katath unmatched.’

What he saw in the box made Lukien’s eyes widen with delight. Inside were two separate shafts of split bamboo, each one lovingly carved with exotic symbols and both fitted with metal collars to lock them together. Separate from these was the head of the katath, two precisely matched blades, each curved and forged together in a V-shaped hook. Lukien could see the edge on them, gleaming dangerously in the dim light. A collar similar to the ones on the shafts lay at the base of the head, ready to fit it to its body. To Lukien’s admittedly untrained eye, the katath looked exactly as Aliz Nok claimed.

‘Perfect.’ Lukien reached out to touch it, then pulled back his hand. ‘May I?’

‘Of course. It is yours now, to give to the Red Eminence.’

Its beauty amazed Lukien. He could easily tell how the thing went together, but instead asked the old man to do the honour for him. Aliz Nok nodded proudly and began assembling the katath, first fitting the two shafts together, then snapping the bladed head in place. When it was done he held the weapon out before him, showing its balance by holding it only by a fingertip.

‘You see? Just as you asked. Not big, not heavy.’

‘And the blade?’ Lukien asked. ‘Is it sharp enough?’

‘My friend, you will not find a blade sharper, not anywhere. I have worked until my hands bled to make these blades. They are the finest I have ever made, sharper than the teeth of the Great Rass itself.’

‘They need to be, Aliz Nok,’ Lukien reminded him. ‘They have to get through the hide of that beast.’

‘They will, I promise. If you can train the Eminence to get close enough, my katath will do the rest.’ The old man turned the weapon upright, showing off its two-bladed head. ‘Look, you see how hard these blades are? They will not break, never. And the edge is soft enough to hold its sharpness. She may train with it, but it must be sharpened before she fights the Great Rass. Do not let it dull, Lukien.’

‘I won’t,’ said Lukien. Finally he took the weapon from its maker, at once loving its weight and balance. It seemed to have no weight at all, yet there was heft in its ornate shaft, enough for easy thrusting. He rolled it carefully in his hands, admiring its entire length. ‘Aliz Nok, it is remarkable,’ he said. ‘Niharn was right about you.’