The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (95 page)

The tremor of a smile passed over John's face and was gone again, as quickly as the wind in a Koretian summer. His eyes remained serious. He gestured with his hand, and as I had done fifteen years before, I came and joined him at the windowseat. He was wearing the same Jackal-black tunic he had worn earlier, and he still bore no weapon.
"Some vows deserve to be broken," he said, "but I have always tried to obey the will of the gods. So when the god summoned me to become his thief, I obeyed; and when the man whose form the Jackal had taken died of old age, the god called to me again and bid me to wear his mask and speak his words. And since then the man named John has been united with the god, and through both my human powers and my godly ones I have striven to bring vengeance or mercy to this land, as is needed."
His voice was as quiet as it had always been, but it sounded through the room like the whispering edge of a wind that can bring down forests. My throat tightened, and I searched John's face, uncertain now of what creature I was seated beside. "I don't understand," I said. "Are you John, or are you the god?"
For a moment he was silent, and through the window came the faint sound of a jackal's howl, nearly lost in the camouflage of the cicadas' chatter. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft. "That isn't a question I can answer in words. If you wish, I can show you through the manner in which I speak. Or if you prefer, I can do for you what I do for most people I meet: I can submerge my powers deep within me so that I am nothing more than a man. If all that you want from me is the blood brother you once knew, I can give you that. You need never see the god in me."
The moonlight fell carelessly upon us, and then spilled onto the floor of the sanctuary, broken only by the black outlines of our bodies, falling like death shadows before us. I stared at the floor of the gods' house, remembering a scene two days before, when John had seen my face take on a hard mask he had never known. He had accepted me then for what I had become. I said in a low voice, "I would never ask you to be anything other than what you are, John. Even as a child, you were different. The Chara asked me what kind of man the Jackal was. If only I had thought more clearly, I could have told him."
"I tried to tell him myself, when we spoke." John's gaze drifted back to the still mountainside and the city and the country beyond. "I tried to make him see what danger this land faces, but some things John the trader could not tell him, because these things are known only to the Jackal and the governor and a handful of others. War will come here in days, not weeks or months, and when it comes, every man and woman in this land will either kill or die. I have done my best in the past to allow the people's rage to be channelled into my small thieveries, but now, through my murders, I have brought about a state of fear and hatred so great that every Koretian must choose whether to be loyal to me or to betray me. For my people seek blood, and I have chosen to give it to them."
The hair on the back of my neck stood up as John spoke the words that, a few hours before, he had ascribed to the god whom he could not understand. He turned his head back toward me, and his gentle eyes had not changed, any more than they had changed when he tried to kill the soldier. But as I watched, the black eyes burst into golden flames like those of the Jackal's fire that had once eaten the city.
This, then, was what John had offered to hide from me: this terrible union of godly certainty and strength with human doubts and weakness, a union which had always existed potentially within him and which had now reached its full power.
It is no small terror to find oneself in the company of the hunting god. The only fate worse is to find him embodied in one's childhood friend. I remembered John staring with dark vision at the dagger that had nearly killed the Chara's son, and I said hoarsely, "Jackal, what do you want with the Chara?"
The flames faded, and as they did so, I felt the power that accompanied them disappear from the room like smoke from an absent fire. The Jackal had reined in his powers, the god was now deep inside, and all that sat next to me was a young man who said quietly, "Not his death, I hope. I'm bound by my vow to bring peace to Koretia, but if I can do this without killing the Chara, I will. He is your wine-friend, and even if he weren't, it's better that Koretia should live in harmony with Emor than that we should gain our freedom through bloodshed. That's why I wish to meet with the Chara: so that I can convince him to free this land."
"John," I said tentatively, feeling it easier to address the man than the god, "you're asking me to act as ambassador for the Chara, but you must know that when I return to the Chara, I'll tell him who you are before he ever sees you, and then he may or may not choose to use that information against you. Why have you appeared to me unmasked?"
I waited apprehensively to see whether the weaponless peacemaker I had known would speak further of blood. But he must have decided that his earlier words had been demonstration enough of what he now was, for he said simply, "Andrew, you are my blood brother. I could have appeared to you in the god's mask, as I appeared to Ursula when I wanted to be sure that she would become a thief out of more than love for John the trader. But it seems to me that the time for secrets between us is over. I won't hide any more from you what I am, nor will I command an Emorian in the voice of a Koretian god. I give you the god's command through the request of your blood brother: that you hand the Chara over to me."
A heartbeat's pause followed before I said firmly, "I cannot do that."
"I don't see how you can," he replied. He looked back again at the land outside, grey as ash after a fire. "I can't ask you to choose between your friendship to the Chara and your friendship to me, and yet you must make your choice, for there is no other way that I can meet with the Chara as the Jackal."
"Come with me to the palace," I said. "Come with me and tell the Chara who you are in private. He'll listen to what you have to say."
"And if he doesn't agree to what I want, what then? Will you give witness for me at my trial for my murders? Will you stay beside me as they slowly break my body for my treasonous acts?"
Out on the mountainside, the howl of the hunting jackal cut off abruptly at the same moment that my breath did. I opened my mouth to reply, but already John was saying, "I'm sorry. It's not you I'm angry with, but the Emorians, for infecting this land with their brutal and godless ways. That spy I killed had been too long around the Emorians and refused to believe I held the god's powers – and without some small portion of belief in him, he could not deem that what he saw came from the god. The Chara won't believe in my godly powers either, not unless he is a man very different than I take him to be. And if I am not a god-man, then I am no more than a murderous rebel, a man whom no ruler of any sense would negotiate with. He won't negotiate with me if I come with you, and he won't come to me if you tell him who I am."
I sat with my back stiff against the window jamb. "You misjudge him, John. He may come."
"I can't take the chance, Andrew." Something new and hard had entered into the tone of John's voice. It reminded me of how Peter spoke when he was in judgment. "If you leave here tonight and tell the Chara who I am, and he has me arrested rather than talk with me, then war will come. And when war comes there can be only two ends: either we will kill the Emorians and gain our freedom, or the Emorians will kill the Jackal, and his people will be put to the sword. I can risk my own death, but not the death of this land."
I placed my hands over my face, as I had every morning after dreaming of the death of this city. Then something about John's stillness made me look up. He was watching me carefully, and for the first time his eyes were guarded. I put my mind to what he had said, pursued the unspoken words, and said slowly, "The Jackal won't allow me to leave here and betray him."
"No, I will not. If you cannot serve me, then you must be my captive." He paused and searched my face again, as I had seen the palace slave-keeper search mine before he beat me, in order to decide how much punishment I could bear. Then, in the dispassionate voice of a judge pronouncing sentence, he said, "Ursula knows that you are my blood brother, so she did not think of one thing when she brought you here. The Jackal is always in danger when he makes his lair, either in caves or in taverns or in the empty house of a trader who has gone away on business. But I and my thieves are in greatest danger here, close to the city. The governor is so eager to find the Jackal's lair now that we will not be able to stay here more than a day or two longer, lest the soldiers find us, and when we leave, we will be on the move from then on, for war is close at hand. When we leave, we will take only what we can carry, and when we leave, we will not be able to take prisoners with us."
He turned his head then, and I somehow knew that this time he was not staring out at the land, but escaping the look in my eyes as he spoke his final words.
Had he spoken those words the previous day, I would have felt deathly sickness in my spirit. But since that time I had spoken to the subcaptain, and he had brought together images in my mind that had been separate until then. Now, as I looked at John, I could think only of the Chara as he judged me under the flickering torchlight and spoke the words that cut deeper into him than into me.
When John finally turned back to me with his steady gaze, I said, "That's why you went to the priests' house today."
Something flickered in John's eyes, and the shallow guard he had placed against my next words disappeared, as though he had expected any statement but this. "You told me to trust the god," he said simply. "So I went to the priests' house and spoke to the Unknowable God who had refused to tell me why I must fulfill my blood vow to him by luring and perhaps killing my blood brother. I told him that I would do as he wished, without any questions. And then he gave me the understanding I had sought before. If needs must, I will kill you to save my land, and you will die rather than betray your own land. In doing so, neither of us will break the vows we made to each other. I still love you, and we will always be blood brothers, beyond betrayal and beyond death."
The night was very quiet. Outside the door I could hear a rustle that might have been the thieves, awaiting the results of their master's interview as they had waited the night before and two weeks before that. Down the slope of the mountain I heard the low, muffled boom of the priests' bell as it called the hour. And at the foot of the mountain, past the wild-berry bushes and the golden cave, I could almost hear in my mind the light chatter of Koretians in the city market and tavern.
I said, the words bitter on my tongue, "You are right when you say that I cannot choose between you and Peter, between the Jackal and the Chara. I love you both and will always love you, whatever I do to you or you do to me. But one thing you have said falsely tonight: that I love Emor. I have never loved Emor, only its Chara, and so I will betray the Chara because it will save my land."
Then I hung my head, and for a long while there were no words between us, only John's hand on my arm.
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Some time later, I sat in a windowless cell, resting on a thin pallet upon a stone bed. A wooden, candle-lit table stood next to the bed, holding the dinner which had been brought to me but which I had not touched. As I stared blankly at the wall, seeing nothing but darkness ahead of me, a soft knock came at the door. I mumbled something unintelligible. The door opened a crack, and I caught sight of pale skin and dark hair.
I beckoned, and Ursula entered, shutting the door behind her. She seated herself beside me, bit her lip, and then burst out, "I'm so sorry, Andrew."
I looked at her, and some tenderness that she seemed to bring out in me caused me to force a smile and say, "At least I once again know how I love this land, and that's something that I hid from myself for too long. It's good to be home again. I've missed the smell of wild-berries."
Ursula looked at me, and then at my abandoned dinner plate. Without a word, she reached past me to take it and hand it to me.
I bowed my head to her in obedience and forced myself to eat the food. She did not speak until I was finished, when she said, "John and the others have gone into the city to spread word among the thieves there of what will happen. John believes that kidnapping the Chara may itself provoke the war we expect, and he wants his followers to be prepared. He said that you wouldn't be leaving until the morning."
I placed the tin dish back upon the table. "John told me that it would be better to carry this plan out by daylight, when the Chara would be less likely to suspect danger. And I told him that, though I was known in the Chara's palace for my discretion and impenetrable thoughts, I doubted I could deceive the Chara for an entire evening. Peter was my only friend for many years, and he knows me too well."
Ursula sat with her arms hugging her legs. "I wouldn't have wanted to be you, having to choose between blood brother and friend. It's a choice that would have driven some men mad."
"Perhaps it would have, if I'd been forced to make it as a boy." I stared at the corner of the cell where a bit of candlelight had become caught in a spiderweb. "I owe Peter the gift of teaching me to love when it is painful, but I owe this much to my previous slave-master: he taught me to do everything else when it is painful. I feel as though I've been dropped into a bottomless pit, but I felt that during my time as Lord Carle's slave, and I knew then how to do my duty." I closed my eyes; little changed from the darkness I had seen before. I added quietly, "All these years, I've been troubled at night by a dream of the day when I left Koretia. I watch my mother die and my blood brother die, and I lose all my blood kin. Since then, Peter has been my kin, and I may have to watch him die as well. . . . I don't think I'll ever dream my old dream again, but I think this will be a sleepless night in any case."
I felt Ursula stir beside me. Fearing that my words were bringing her pain as well, I opened my eyes and tried to look at her in a reassuring manner. Her usual quick movements were stilled, as they had been during our first exchange, as though she were controlling some deep emotion inside her. She looked quite young, and I reached out to touch her, placing my hand on hers.