The Three Lands Omnibus Part 30

"The newer guards I can understand," I said slowly. "They don't know me well. And I think Fowler was on my side. But Levander a he and I were partners. And Payne and I were s...o...b..und together. How could they have ever thought I would help a breacher, except to save an Emorian's life?"

"You are of Koretian blood," Quentin said quietly. "It takes a long time for some men to forget that, as I found during my early years as a patrol guard."

I stared at Quentin's hands. His face's pallor from the wound made him look more northern than usual, but his hands were nearly as dark as the blanket they lay motionless upon. "Maybe," I said. "And maybe it will take me some time to forget this. I'm not sure I can ever forgive it."

After a while, I said, "Aren't you going to say anything more?"

"Urge you to forgive them? No. You voice a dilemma, and you spoke the answer to that dilemma a short while ago. Once you pair the answer to the question, I'm sure you'll see your way clear. In the meantime ... I can't regret entirely that this episode has happened."

I looked down at the cup in my hand. "Nor I, if you're referring to the wine. But I'm sorry that you were forced into the position of having to offer it."

His faint smile returned then. "Say rather that I was given the opportunity to do what I should have done long ago." He hesitated, then added, "When you grow up under the care of a man who alternates daily between telling you he loves you and giving you harsh beatings, it's difficult to extend trust to others. Carle understands that from his own experience, and can take that into account in dealing with me. But I wasn't sure whether you ..." His voice trailed off.

I gave him my own faint smile. "Have you forgotten what event caused me to leave Koretia?"

After a moment, he gave half a laugh. "Yes, I suppose I had. Well, then, it's right that the three of us should share the wine of friendship, since we share that experience. And as long as the chain remains unbroken-"

He stopped suddenly, choked by a fit of coughing. The blood came more heavily onto his handkerchief. Concerned, I set the cup aside. "Shall I fetch Sylva.n.u.s?" I asked.

He nodded, unable to respond otherwise, and I quickly rose to my feet.

The day patrol was still standing in a cl.u.s.ter, except for Fowler, who was rolling up his pallet to leave room for the night patrol's pallets. Once I had finished beckoning to Sylva.n.u.s, Fowler tossed me my thigh-pocket, with its dagger still sheathed within.

I waited until Sylva.n.u.s had hurried into the storeroom, and the coughing there had been replaced by the sound of Quentin's steady voice; then I gave Fowler a quiet word of thanks for the thigh-pocket and for his earlier intervention.

He shrugged; there was still no affection between us, but as he put it, "I know what you are capable of. Duelling your partner when he gets on your nerves, yes. Taking a blood vow of friendship with a breacher who has just attacked your former army official a never. Anyone who knows anything about blood lines of loyalty in Koretia could have figured that out."

He raised his voice as he spoke. I glanced over my shoulder at the cl.u.s.ter of remaining patrol guards. The two new guards were avoiding my eye. Levander was looking to Payne for guidance. Payne, when he saw me looking his way, came forward. He silently handed me my belt-dagger.

Gazing into his narrowed eyes, I knew that he would never beg my forgiveness. He had too much pride for that, and he had made too big a fool of himself. If I made clear that I considered him a fool, his anger at himself would transform into anger at me. And so it would build between us, this bitter enmity that had begun with a simple mistake.

I'm an Emorian. I heard again the words that I had spoken in the storeroom. Those were the words that Quentin believed offered me the answer to my dilemma, I realized. A Koretian would allow his resentment to build higher and higher until it could only be resolved by bloodshed. An Emorian, if he truly served the Chara, either placed charges against the man who had harmed him, or he set the matter aside.

"I'm overdue to return to Emor," I said to Payne, giving him something that approached a friendly smile, "but would you like to play a game of Law Links before I go?"

Surprise entered Payne's face, followed by relief, quickly hidden. "It is too close to my duty hours," he replied. "Perhaps next time."

I nodded. "I'll look forward to it." I waved my farewell to Levander and the others, gave the free-man's greeting to Sylva.n.u.s as he emerged from the storeroom, and left the patrol hut with a high heart, having taken yet another step further in my road to serving the Chara.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

The fifteenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

To Calder son of Victor: My love and greetings, blood brother. I know that you will be surprised to receive this letter, as I do not know where your work has taken you this month, and in fact it seems likely that you will not be able to read this until we meet again. I have heard exciting news, though, and I am eager to share it with you.

My work has kept me in the borderland for several months now, and I have been impatient to return home to see you and my other friends. Yesterday, therefore, I was quick to finish my business, which involved visiting the market square at Blackpa.s.s. As I was turning away from the market stall where I had been transacting business, I caught sight of someone looking my way. I only saw him for a brief moment, and then he turned his face away, but I felt sure that it was someone I knew.

This made me very uneasy. As you know, my father and I did not part on good terms when I left my family home, and though I know that my father would not visit Blackpa.s.s during the present feud, it's possible that one of the younger members of my family a for example my brother-in-marriage a would be daring enough to visit here, now that Blackwood has said that he will not allow blood vows of vengeance to be fulfilled on the streets of his town. I therefore decided that it would be best to ascertain who had caught sight of me.

The man was several spear-lengths away. I stayed far enough behind him that he would not be able to notice that I was following him a for I have not forgotten, Calder, the tricks you taught me during our many hours of playing Jackal and Prey. Frustratingly, though, the man's back remained toward me as he went from stall to stall, examining the wares of a potter, exchanging a joke with a fruit merchant, paying for a bag of blackroot nuts. Finally I decided that I would have to circle around to the front of him, and so I put forward speed to accomplish this.

I am sorry to report, blood brother, that I seem to have been a poor student of your lessons, for I had no sooner started to rush forward than I crashed into the fruit merchant, who had just emerged from his stall with a basket full of limes.

By the time I had picked myself up, the man I had been hunting was out of sight, so I took the time to apologize to the fruit merchant and to help him pick up the limes that had not been immediately trampled by pa.s.sersby.

Fortunately, he was a man of good humor and even refused to take money from me for his spoiled merchandise. As we hunted under people's sandals and boots for the scattered limes, I thought it best to fall into conversation with him a for as you know, Calder, I am very interested in learning what lesser free-men think about the present feud.

This seemed to be a day, though, when all my enterprises would be frustrated, for I discovered that the fruit merchant was far more interested in talking about his sister's young sons. By the time that the limes were salvaged, he had dragged me back to the stall to show me profiles that an Arpeshian artist had drawn of the boys. I learned far more than I ever wanted to about the daily lives of borderland boys.

My politeness, though, was rewarded when Morgan a for such was the fruit merchant's name a mentioned that his nephews were so mischievous that he had been forced to prevent them from spying upon the Jackal's thieves.

My hearing heightened then, for you know well, Calder, that I have long been interested in the G.o.d-man and in his activities in our land. Though the merchant seemed inclined at this point to turn the conversation toward the feeding habits of his youngest nephew, still a babe in arms, I managed to tear the story out from him.

It seems that the boys were wandering after dark during one recent evening a evidence, Morgan said, of how spirited the boys are a when they overheard a group of men talking in low voices in an alleyway. From the conversation that the boys heard, they became convinced that these men were none other than the famed Jackal's thieves, who have caused such trouble in recent months by committing thefts and pranks in the houses of the n.o.bility, especially the new n.o.bility. It appeared that this alleyway was a regular meeting point for the thieves. The boys later made plans to return to the alley, but fortunately Morgan learned of their plans and was able to dissuade them from their dangerous enterprise.

Once again, I was hard pressed to keep the conversation on its track a this time Morgan wanted to discuss the pranks that his nephews engage in a but I was able to elicit from him that he had not told anyone the boys' stories. No, not even his baron's soldiers a and here he raised his eyebrows, for I confess that I had momentarily forgotten how unlikely it was that he would do such a thing. After all, we Koretians are not like the Emorians, running off to soldiers for help every time a crime is committed.

Naturally, I asked Morgan where the alleyway was located. Until now, Morgan had told his story with a smile; he seems to be a naturally affable man, as is shown by the incident with the limes. But when he guessed that I wished to visit the alley myself, he grew greatly alarmed. "I know about you young men," Morgan said. (He is of about age thirty.) "You always seek excitement and danger. Believe me, the Jackal's thieves are not the type of men you want to be clashing your blades against a nasty lawbreakers that they are."

In the end, though, I was able to persuade the reluctant fruit merchant to give me the location of the alley, as well as the information that the previous meeting had taken place two hours before midnight.

So now at last there is a good chance that I will be able to learn more about the Jackal's thieves and perhaps something about the man claiming to be a G.o.d. I am zealous about tonight's hunting and look forward to telling you more in my next letter to you.

Please give my love to all of your family, and especially to your eldest brother, Quentin.

Adrian *

The sixteenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

For reasons I will eventually make clear, there is no longer any reason for me to maintain the fiction of the above letter, so I will tell in a straightforward manner what happened when I went to the alley last night.

Two men arrived there; I could catch no more than an impression of their faces in the darkness, but I thought I would be able to recognize them again if ever I met them in daylight. I pressed myself back into the shadows, unwilling to come too close, so I couldn't hear clearly what they were saying, but I caught the words "Jackal" and "thieves." Then one of them said, in a voice just loud enough to reach me, "Come, if we bring the Jackal our report now, he'll be able to tell us what to do next." The other man nodded and murmured something; then the two men left the alley.

They were easier to track than I had thought they would be; it appeared that the Jackal's thieves received no better training in slipping through dark streets than the Chara's spies. The moon was below the horizon, so I followed them from sound, in the same way that I used to hunt breachers on moonless nights. Once I thought I had lost them; then I heard them again, just reaching the end of a black alley. Quickly I stepped into the alley behind them.

It was the sound of a breath that alerted me to what was about to happen, and my hand sped toward my dagger, but it was too late. In the next moment I found myself thrust front-forward against the alley wall, with my empty dagger hand pinned painfully against the small of my back.

My dagger slid out of its sheath; then I felt my back-sling taken from where I had draped it, on my left shoulder. This was not being done by my captor, but by a second man, who then felt my boots for weapons before reaching under my tunic to unlace my thigh-pocket. I was motionless and silent through all this; I could feel the edge of a blade biting against the back of my neck.

"Take him inside," the second man said. His voice was low, but memory began groggily stirring within me. My thoughts were cut short by a light blinding my eyes: it came from the house whose wall I was trapped against, for the second man had pulled open a door in the alley. I felt myself jerked back from the wall, then propelled through the door. As the door closed behind me, I was released, and I stood still for a moment, blinking in the bright torchlight as I took in my surroundings.

I was in a storehouse of some sort; I could see bags of grain around me and small doors leading into further rooms. Surrounding me were half a dozen armed men, four of whom I recognized. Just coming through one of the small doors were the two men I had been following; they must have arrived by way of another outer door. A third man was standing so close to me that I knew he must have been my captor: this was Morgan the fruit merchant, his smile just as broad as before. Holding my belongings was a fourth man, the one whose face I half-recognized yesterday. He turned without a word and handed the dagger and back-sling and thigh-pocket to Morgan, who took them so compliantly that I knew that this last man must be the leader of the group.

I felt my throat close in and my heart pound, but I found the strength to say, "You have no right to take me, Griffith. I let your brother live; I am no longer part of the feud."

The baron of Cold Run looked upon me with cool and steady eyes. Since I had last seen him, he had acquired a deep gash along his right arm, and I wondered whether one of my kin had attempted to make him a victim. He was dressed in a dark tunic that gave no indication of his rank, but though he appeared to be the youngest man there, everyone else was watching him expectantly.

He said, "That is why you are the prey: because you are no longer part of the feud. We have captured you upon the instructions of the one to whom you broke your blood vow."

To my knowledge, no man there was my kin by birth, yet standing in the bright light, I felt myself bound once more by the dark terror that has followed me since I left Mountside. Griffith stood waiting, his hand hanging beside the free-man's blade at his belt. With a dry mouth, I said, "My father?"

"No," said Griffith. "The Jackal."

The seventeenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

I am being held in the storehouse where I was captured, in a room empty but for a pallet and basins, and with only narrow slits near the ceiling for windows. These let in enough light for me to see by, as well as the smells and sounds of the outside world. I hear people pa.s.sing by periodically and could shout for help, but what would be the use? The Jackal's thieves would merely tell the Koretians that I am a spy, and I would be handed over to Blackwood's soldiers, to meet a fate as terrible as the one I am now facing.

I have been left unbound, and food and drink is brought to me regularly. My back-sling, after being examined, was returned to me. Gone was the blade I'd hidden in the back-sling's secret pocket, but my letter and blank paper and writing materials were still there. That is why I am able to write these entries. I know, of course, that what I write will be read by the thieves, but as long as I do not write anything that would betray Emor, it doesn't matter what I say here. The thieves already know most of my story anyway.

They know that I am a spy and that I was in the border mountain patrol before that; I suppose that one of the Koretians we sent back to this land spread word that a Koretian-born soldier of my name was in the patrol. They also know about Mountside's blood feud and my broken vow; Griffith would have told them that. But they also know of things no one else knows, secrets I only told Fenton. These, they cheerfully inform me, they learned from the Jackal.

I suppose they tell me this in order to frighten me. They needn't have bothered; I am scared enough as it is. I have known, of course, that I would one day face the Jackal and be forced to pay the penalty for breaking my vow. I have even rehea.r.s.ed in my mind on several occasions the speech of defense I would give; I patterned it after the law defenses Carle taught me. But I thought that I would be giving this speech when I reached the Land Beyond. Now I will have to give it in just a short time.

In the meantime, I am being treated well. Every few hours, a thief visits my cell a to keep me from getting bored, each of them says, though I suppose the real reason is to try to trap me into revealing something about my work. So far they have asked me no direct questions about my life in Emor. Instead, they have questioned me about the people I knew in Mountside and Cold Run: Fenton and Hamar and Emlyn and Griffith and Siward and my father and many others. I have answered all their questions; I am not sure what they would do to me if I remained silent, and I would prefer to save my defiance for the issues that really matter.

They have also talked freely about themselves a not about their work for the Jackal, naturally, but about their ordinary jobs that they use to disguise their thieves' work. Since they seem willing to answer any questions I ask, I have been trying to discern some pattern to what sort of men the Jackal recruits. Not that I will be able to take this information back to Emor, but I would like to satisfy my own curiosity.

I've had no luck in discovering such a pattern. The Jackal's thieves come from all the ranks except, of course, that of the slaves a they say that they have been trying to find recruits among the Reborn, but those men, above all others, are unwilling to become involved in unlawful activities and risk being punished. The thieves come from the borderland and from central and southern Koretia, and they hold the usual mixture of trades and professions. The only feature they hold in common, if their words are to be believed, is that they all hate the civil war and the blood feud that started it. In fact, they have gone to great lengths to tell me how much they hate blood feuds, as well as demon-stonings and Living Deaths and all the other religious atrocities of this land.

I suppose they are trying to lure me into showing how great my hatred is of the G.o.ds. I have not lied to them here either; speaking of this to them saves me the trouble of saying these words to the Jackal. Now that I am forced to meet with the G.o.d, I am eager to tell him how much I despise the horrors that he and the other G.o.ds have inst.i.tuted in this land.

The eighteenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

When Morgan delivered my food this evening, I finally had the opportunity to ask him a question that has been bothering me. He laughed at length before saying, "Knox? May the G.o.ds bless his spirit a why would he tell us where to find you? Not that he had a chance to do any talking, once you'd delivered him back to the King's men." He raised his eyebrows, and I felt myself flush. Morgan took pity on me then, saying, "No, it wasn't Knox or any other breacher who told us where to find you. It was Piers."

"Piers?" I said slowly. "He's one of you?"

"He wasn't at the time you met him. You remember him, then?" Morgan placed his leg on the bench I was sitting on and slung his arm over his knee. He was taking care, I noticed, to stay out of arm's reach of me, but I was not such a fool as to think that I could fight my way past both him and the thieves in the room outside.

I nodded slowly. "He gave me directions to the underground market here. And he talked about how he enjoyed playing pranks when he was young... ." My voice faded away.

Morgan nodded. "When Griffith recruited him to our cause not long afterwards a they're distant kin to each other a he told us that, ever since that conversation, he had been thinking about how much more exciting his life was when he was young, and how he wished he could be as afire with ideals as he had been before the duties of manhood weighed him down. Well, Piers has the right blend of fire and restraint we look for in thieves. And he did us a favor by telling us about his conversation with you."

"I didn't give him my lineage, though," I protested.

"You hinted you were kin to the old n.o.bility; he mentioned that to Griffith. And when Griffith asked for your description, your appearance matched. Piers told us you'd been with another man a *with skin so white you'd think he was Emorian,' was the way he put it. So Griffith checked with our border guards- Oh, yes, we have men there too," he said, seeing my expression change. "This was only a fortnight after you had spoken with Piers, and the guards still remembered a certain dark-skinned mountain patrol guard who had breached the border as a prank with a light-skinned mountain patrol guard... ." Morgan's smile broadened. "The rest was easy. Or at least, it was easy for the Jackal, once he had the clue he needed as to where you had gone after you fled from Cold Run. Ever since he learned that you became a spy after you were released from the patrol, he has been waiting for you to return. He thought you would be back, in the end. He's very patient in such matters." He glanced down at my untouched plate. "Aren't you going to eat that?"

I shook my head, and with a shrug he removed the plate. I sat for a long while, cold with sickness, thinking of the Jackal patiently waiting for his prey to return, so that he could pounce on me... .

I don't feel I can write any more tonight.

The nineteenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

Morgan came by again this morning and read what I had written so far in this portion of my journal. Keeping up the pretense that I am an honored guest rather than a prisoner, he asked my permission first. He laughed as he was reading but would not say why. I am trying not to be too bitter about this. I can remember many times when I and the other patrol guards laughed and joked while bringing a prisoner to the hut. I suppose that, in every blade-wielding profession, one becomes callous to other people's misfortunes.

I haven't seen Griffith again since my capture. When I asked about this, Morgan told me that he had gone to fetch the Jackal from one of the villages. This implies that the Jackal's powers are limited, as I and another Emorian I know had guessed; otherwise, the Jackal would have known about my capture without being told.

Since I have little else to do between the thieves' visits, I have found myself wondering what the Jackal is like in his human form. What is it like to live as a G.o.d-man, having the power to destroy or preserve all men around you? I cannot imagine that the G.o.d-man has any more understanding of human suffering than the G.o.d did before he came to the Land of the Living, since he himself can't have undergone any suffering. Perhaps he doesn't even fully understand that he puts his people through agonies when he demands their blood sacrifice a but there my sympathy extends too far, for he is a G.o.d, all-knowing, though not all-compa.s.sionate.

All this has led me to wonder why the Jackal bothered to take on a human body. Why live among men when he himself cannot truly be a man? Is it his way of pretending that he is one of us? If so, he is like a king who puts on the clothes of a slave and parades through the city, then returns at day's end to his fine sheets and velvet cushions.

So curious have I become about this question that I couldn't even wait for the Jackal's arrival, but instead asked Morgan. He said that I would understand when I met the Jackal a that some things cannot be explained but only experienced. This is the first thing any of the thieves have told me that I am sure is true. I can only hope that my curiosity will overcome my fear when the moment comes. I do not want to meet my death in a manner that would be shameful for one of the Chara's soldiers.

The twentieth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

He arrived this morning. He is not what I expected.

The sound of Griffith's voice was what first alerted me to his coming. I pressed my ear against the door and did my best to make good use of my patrol-guard training. I could hear a tumble of voices and much laughter; from the s.n.a.t.c.hes of phrases I could identify, it appeared that the thieves were giving their reports on what I had said during my imprisonment. Then the voices died down, and I could hear someone new speaking. He had a light, lilting voice, not what I would have imagined in a G.o.d, but whatever he said kept his thieves quiet. There was no more laughter, and from this I concluded that he must be telling them what he planned to do with me, and that the thieves were not as callous as I'd thought. Or perhaps the fate he planned for me was so dreadful that even they could not laugh.

I have tried hard while writing these entries to avoid recording my various fears about what form my death would take, for I knew that the thieves would read this journal, and I didn't want to give the Jackal any ideas. But those fears were very much in my mind as I heard the voice stop and footsteps come toward my door.

At moments like this, when waiting for a door to open and dark doom to enter, I found that one becomes occupied with trivialities. In this case, I could not figure out what to do with my hands and arms. Should I fold my arms over my chest as a sign of defiance? Should I place my hands behind my back, as though I were a prisoner brought before his judge? Should I lean casually against the wall, as though I was fearless?

I was still worrying about all this when the door opened and the Jackal entered.

His eyes were gold. That was the first thing I noticed. His eyes were bright gold and slanted; his whiskers were thin and sleek; his teeth were razor-sharp and curled into a grin. All this was just a mask, of course; I had known that it would be. But it is surprising how effective a painted G.o.d-mask can be when it is worn. I felt as though I were truly looking at the G.o.d's face.

Something more entered the room with him, and this I cannot describe. I suppose that all this time, the skeptical, Emorian side of me was waiting to disprove that the man called the Jackal was a G.o.d. It was my only way to escape, after all; I could not escape death, but I would escape judgment if this was only an imposter. But what I felt when the man entered the room was what I had felt on the day of my coming of age. That could not be counterfeited; I had known the presence of the G.o.d's power then, and I knew it now.

This alone kept me speechless to await the G.o.d's words. When they came, they matched the smile on his mask. "Well, Adrian," he said, "how do you like being the prey once more?"

This mockery stung me. I heard myself reply, "I would rather be the Jackal."

"Oh, I doubt that," he said. He was standing with his body swayed to one side, like a wild dog relaxed in its posture after a hard day's hunting. "You wouldn't want to be the Jackal all of the time. Even as a patrol guard, you have not had to take on the duty of sitting in judgment over men."

I swallowed, then launched into the first stage of my defense. "You have no right to judge me. I'm an Emorian now."

"Then you ought to have stayed in Emor. I could have reached you in Emor, but I left you alone as long as you stayed there. Now you are in my land; now you are under my care once more. And so you must answer for the promise you made to me."

The slanted eyes on his mask were punctured by eye-holes, but oddly enough, the human eyes behind the G.o.d's eyes appeared gold as well. I stared at them, trying to grasp at some thought that would not come. Then I realized that the Jackal was still waiting for my reply, so I said, "I made my vow to you when I thought that you and the other G.o.ds were good and just, but you're not a you're evil, and you have brought evil to this land. You command men to kill each other, just to satisfy your own blood-thirst, and when one man refuses to murder, you, the G.o.d of Mercy, condemn him for it. You said a moment ago that I am under your care; why should I believe that you care about me or any other human?"

There was a pause, and then there was a soft, rippling sound, like that of a wind stroking the leaves of a tree. The G.o.d was laughing.

Feeling my face grow warm, I shouted, "Stop that! It's not funny!"

"Only because you do not see the joke," the Jackal replied. "When the G.o.ds look down upon human suffering and laugh, it is not because they are heartless to what men feel, but because they see widely enough to know the irony of all that happens. Laughter is only the other side of crying; I have done enough of both to know this."

I willed away my own impulse to tears and countered, "I don't believe you. I don't believe that you've ever cried."

"What were Fenton's first words to you when he returned from the priests' house?" the Jackal asked softly.