5: The Holy Road Read online

  At last they stopped at a stand selling sweet honey cakes. John remembered the dull yellow tent and the women working beneath it from the previous year. The old women’s red widows’ veils looked dull russet in the sharp noon light. They sat, as they had the year before, singing with their daughter-in-law and pounding out the cakes.

  “Yellow honey cakes,” the vendor shouted over the rumble of the crowd. “Fresh and sweet! The best you’ll ever taste!”

  “He should have said eat,” Ravishan commented. “It rhymes.”

  “Clearly he’s not a poet.”

  “Clearly not. The cakes smell good though.”

  Instead of competing with the cries of the vendors and customers all around him, John simply held up four fingers. Seconds later John exchanged two prayer stones for four piping hot cakes wrapped in some large dried leaf. Reflexively, John tried to identify the leaf. It certainly hadn’t come from any of the native flora of the cold north. The big frond resembled a banana leaf.

  “Here,” John raised his voice so that Ravishan would hear him clearly, “these two are for you.”

  Ravishan’s hands bumped John’s as he took the cakes. His fingers felt hot. Both of them hung back, close to the stand while they ate. The flavor of the cakes reminded John of sweetened polenta. Beside him, Ravishan chewed carefully, obviously aware that he was still clumsy from the flower liqueur.

  All around them strangers bumped and jostled through the rows of tents, wagons, and stalls. The sweet smell of the honey cakes mingled with the odors of living breath and sweat. Everywhere John looked billowing bright tents and gaudily painted wagons hid the crumbling remnants of abandoned buildings and fissured city walls.

  Ravishan leaned closer to him. “Candle Alley isn’t far from here, you know,” Ravishan murmured into his ear.

  John studied the cracked wall, trying to place it in his mental map of the city. Ravishan was right. Candle Alley would only be a few blocks away on the other side of this wall. A normal man would have to walk all the way around to the nearest city gate to reach it, but Ravishan could simply step through to it. Walls were nearly meaningless to him.

  “No one would look for us there,” Ravishan whispered. His hand brushed against John’s hip and then quickly dropped away.

  “It’s broad daylight.” John could hardly believe what Ravishan seemed to be suggesting. Then again, he was young, drunk, and depressed. John supposed it shouldn’t have been all that surprising. And in all honesty John recognized that Ravishan’s suggestion disturbed him because of his own susceptibility. He had no doubt that the respite of even a few minutes of ecstasy appealed to him just as much as it did to Ravishan.

  He yearned for it so badly that he didn’t dare to think too long on the temptation. It could get them both killed.

  “It’s always dark in the alley,” Ravishan whispered. “No one ever looks at you.”

  “We should try the Quillers’ Row for that ink.”

  Ravishan gave him a hard, vexed glare. “Why don’t we go to Candle Alley?”

  “Because that would be incredibly stupid of us,” John responded as quietly as he could. “We have to be careful. You know that.”

  “I’m sick to death of being careful,” Ravishan snapped. “I’m tired of doing what’s right and wise. And living like this, I don’t feel anything.” He pulled back from John.

  “Ravishan.” John stepped after him, keeping his voice low and reasonable. “I know this is hard for you. What you have to do tonight—”

  “What I have to do tonight isn’t what I want to talk about,” Ravishan cut him off. “It doesn’t matter right now. Now, I want to have a good time. I want to be happy. And all you want is to drag me around this crowd of goats and peasants looking for ink for Ashan’ahma. I don’t care about Ashan’ahma! I don’t care about his damn ink!”

  People around them gawked, and then recognizing Ravishan’s ushiri coat, quickly looked away. Women and girls scuttled into tents or ducked behind wagons. Men turned away, feigning interest in anything but the scene Ravishan seemed intent on making.

  “This isn’t the place for this conversation,” John told him.

  Ravishan glared around him and then turned his attention back to John. He swayed on his feet, looking furious and frustrated.

  “Are you coming with me or not?” Ravishan demanded in a low whisper.

  “I don’t—” John began.

  “Yes or no?”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Fine.” Ravishan cut him off again. “I’ll have a good time without you. I can do that, you know. I hope Ashan’ahma really enjoys his ink.”

  “Ravishan…” John didn’t bother going on. Ravishan was already gone. The chill of the torn Gray Space hung in his wake.

  John sighed. “You idiot.”

  It would serve Ravishan right if he did just go off and find gifts for Hann’yu, Samsango, and Ashan’ahma. Ravishan could stagger around half-drunk, complaining to the women in Candle Alley, and then he’d see just how sorry they felt for him.

  John glowered at the wall that separated him from Candle Alley as if the sheer force of his annoyance could knock it down. Unwillingly, he wondered how well Ravishan could navigate the Gray Space at his current level of inebriation. It was a short distance and Ravishan had been moving through the Gray Space all of his life. He could probably cross through this wall in his sleep. And he would have a great time without John when he got there.

  The thought of the companionship Ravishan might find nagged at John more than he wanted to admit. And despite himself he couldn’t help but fear that something might have gone wrong during Ravishan’s passage through the Gray Space.

  For a moment, he resented Ravishan for not having the consideration to realize how all these thoughts would disturb him. But there was no point. It wasn’t as if Ravishan had cunningly manipulated him. Ravishan was just angry and frustrated. He had good reason to be. But things would only get worse if John didn’t go find him and escort him back to the innocuous surroundings of the fair.

  Doubtless Dayyid was already searching for Ravishan, and if he didn’t find him soon, he’d have every ushvun, ushiri and ushman at the Harvest Fair hunting. If Ravishan were to be discovered staggering drunk in a gallery of whores, Dayyid wouldn’t just be furious, he’d be murderous.

  John strode through the rows of bread sellers and meat roasters, following the curve of the city wall. People stepped aside when they saw him coming. Vendors went quiet as he passed them. He supposed he looked menacing, bearing down through the narrow rows in his gray coat and long priest’s braid. When he reached the gate, the city guards let him pass without comment.

  One breath told him instantly that he had reached the blood market. This early in the day little of the livestock had gone to slaughter. Instead the powerful odors of living animals, droppings and urine saturated the air. Goats bleated from their pens. Dogs barked and growled. The shrieks of birds and the weird chirps of weasels drifted out of cages hanging from the supports of the herders’ stalls.

  Clouds of brown flies swarmed and swept from one animal pen to another. Herders and butchers swatted at them to little effect.

  The last time he had been here it had been dark. He had only caught glimpses of its magnitude. The rows of tents and pens stretched all along the outer wall of Amura’taye. There had to be hundreds of closely-packed animal pens. Men and women bundled in leather and fleece coats glanced up at him as he walked past but took no further note when he displayed no interest in making a purchase.

  He hardly took in the families of butchers and herders as he passed their tents. Whiffs of their cooking fires drifted through the wall of animal odors. John swatted a fly away from his face, but beyond that, his concentration was not on his surroundings. His thoughts centered upon Ravishan. What would he say to him? How would he keep him from slipping away into the Gray Space?

  And yet, something in the back of his mind made him glance to his left, to a small pen besid
e a heavily patched tent. There was nothing remarkable about it. He almost turned away. Then he saw the animal resting there. Her thick golden coat shone in the afternoon light. Her yellow eyes were half lidded, her expression thoughtful. She could have passed for any one of the hundreds of dogs in the blood market. But John knew her. Every detail of her had burned into his mind that night when she had stood in front of him, nearly black from spilled blood, barring her white teeth.

  A shudder a dread snaked down John’s spine as he realized that he stood gaping at the demoness, Ji Shir’korud.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The sharp light of the sun seemed suddenly intense. John could feel sweat beginning to rise across his skin.

  He had managed to avoid reminders of that first night he had been brought to Amura’taye. He had tried very hard not to think of the fallen men, the shrieking animals, the blood, and his own responsibility. He had pushed all those memories back so far that he had thought they were truly forgotten.

  Seeing Alidas always brought him a tiny shiver of memory, but he could easily suppress that beneath the natural flow of conversation and a few jokes. Gazing at Ji Shir’korud, the Fai’daum demoness, felt entirely different. Her presence rocked through him as if that night were about to begin all over again.

  John turned away quickly as Ji looked up. He didn’t know if she would remember him. He didn’t want to find out what would happen if she did. He strode quickly past the row of animal pens and butchers’ tents.

  Ji Shir’korud was a leader in the Fai’daum. She wouldn’t be here alone. And she certainly wouldn’t have come here just to take in the fair. It couldn’t be a coincidence that this year, when a Fai’daum member was slated for execution, Ji Shir’korud hunched only a few hundred yards from the shrine where the execution would take place.

  All around John the men and women standing close and talking quietly among themselves took on a sinister air. It was impossible to know which of them were Fai’daum. Their lowered voices seemed conspiratorial. Their quick glances to him and then away now took on a furtive malevolence. The meat hooks, knives, chains, and axes hanging in racks and laid out on tables alarmed him with their potential for human butchery.

  He had to find Ravishan and get out of here. John quickened his pace, barely holding himself back from a run. His thoughts raced and his pulse hammered through his body. He didn’t want a battle. It would be too easy for the city guards and rashan’im to mistake common folk for Fai’daum. It would be too easy for the Fai’daum to pick out the ushiri’im, ushman’im, and ushvun’im in the crowds. There would be a slaughter on both sides. Somehow, he would have to stop the ceremony and execution.

  But first he needed to find Candle Alley. He caught himself as he nearly rushed past his turn. A row of weasel vendors filled the area that he remembered as a desolate plaza. He could see the tall, cracked, city wall rising behind the painted tents and stalls. A few old women stood around the stalls, haggling with the vendors over the prices of pickled eggs and reed cages of live weasels.

  Despite their bowed heads, John caught the reproachful expressions on the old women’s faces as he rushed past. Briefly he wondered if they could all be Fai’daum. He couldn’t imagine so many small, bent women being recruited to swarm the young men of the city guard. Then he realized that he was presenting them with the spectacle of a young priest blatantly racing for Candle Alley. Of course they looked condemning.

  John ducked between low-hung weasel cages, working his way through to the dark, narrow entry. A wave of musky scent washed over him. It was not too different from the animal smells of the blood market, just more condensed. The odors of sex and sweat, urine and blood, seemed to emanate from the very stones of the walls and the packed dirt beneath John’s feet. It hung in the shadows, as if taking shelter within the narrow alley.

  John had imagined that at this time of day the alley would be deserted. He was surprised to see women already waiting in the alcoves and men wandering between them. He lowered his head. The last time he had been here it had been night and the darkness had offered him ignorance.

  He didn’t want to look at the women, to see if they were pretty or ugly, sick or healthy. He certainly didn’t want to recognize any of the men who patronized them. He just needed to find Ravishan and get out of this place. But he couldn’t search without seeing.

  He walked fast, glancing into the alcoves and at the passing men before looking away. The bright afternoon light made it too easy to see too much. Bruises mottled one girl’s throat and thighs. She pressed her eyes shut as if she were attempting to close out the entire world around her. A young man pushed past John into the alcove. John couldn’t help but catch the strange mix of lust and disgust on the man’s face as he descended upon the girl.

  John moved on quickly.

  He strode past alcoves, barely lifting his eyes to take in the forms within their shadows. Expanses of pale bare bodies flicked in and out of his sight as he searched. He had almost reached the massive remains of the wall where he and Ravishan had first kissed. He peered up to the saplings growing there, hoping to see Ravishan. He spied only fallen red fruit amid a litter of golden leaves. He glanced into the alcove to his right and stopped in his tracks. His body froze in place, answering an instinct of shock and pain.

  Inside the alcove, Ravishan leaned against a wall. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted just a little to the right. The young man with him was slim and dark haired. He seemed to be a few years younger than Ravishan, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. He wore rough goat hide trousers and not much else. His hands looked stained and filthy against the skin of Ravishan’s bare chest.

  Furious hatred shot through John as he watched the young man lean forward to kiss Ravishan’s mouth. For an instant, he wanted to kill the young man. His hand dropped to his knife belt. His fingers curled around the hilt of his curse blade.

  Immediately, John caught himself. He wasn’t going to stab some goat herder in an alley. He felt enraged—his hands shook with the intensity of his anger—but he wasn’t going to let that make him into a murderer. He stepped back and tried to clear his mind.

  What had he expected to find? What had he thought Ravishan would do when he reached Candle Alley? In his own life, John had been young, drunk, and desperate to escape his obligations. He understood the solace that meaningless, anonymous sex offered. He wasn’t proud of it, but he understood.

  In the alcove, Ravishan broke from the younger man’s kiss. John recognized the troubled way Ravishan’s eyes flicked from the other man’s face. He looked like he was on the verge of some guilty confession.

  Then John felt a frigid hiss. A rending screech tore the air and flames arced up. Instantly, Ravishan and the young man leaped apart. The young man stumbled back and then bolted from of the alcove as Dayyid stepped out of the Gray Space.

  “I should have killed you with your father.” Dayyid’s words came out low and distorted. His mouth was drawn back in an animal snarl. John didn’t think he had ever seen another human being so utterly transformed by rage.

  Ravishan gazed at Dayyid, almost defiantly. He made no motion towards his discarded shirt or cassock. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak.

  “You are an abomination!” Dayyid grabbed a fistful of Ravishan’s hair and jerked him closer. Ravishan stumbled forward, his arms hanging slack at his sides as if they were broken. Dayyid pulled his black curse blade free of its sheath and yanked Ravishan’s head back, exposing his throat. To John’s horror, Ravishan didn’t fight. He only stared at Dayyid, his expression cold and dead.

  He wouldn’t defend himself, John realized. He wouldn’t escape into the Gray Space.

  Dayyid’s knife slid down over Ravishan’s face and John charged into the alcove. He caught Dayyid’s arm, jerking him back. As Ravishan fell from Dayyid’s grip and hit the ground, John saw blood pouring from the corners of his mouth.

  Dayyid spun on John, his furious expression turning to repulsed disdain.

 
“And here’s the dog waiting to lick up what this whore’s spilled in the dirt,” Dayyid spat at him. “I’ll see you both burn—”

  All of the rage John had suppressed for the past years welled up in him. He realized that his hand already gripped his curse blade. Dayyid moved to knock him aside. John blocked the blow, and with a fast thrust, he drove his curse blade into Dayyid’s throat.

  Dayyid jerked slightly. A wet, choking gasp escaped him. Then his legs buckled and he slid off John’s curse blade. A hot stream of blood sprayed up over the knife and John’s hand. Dayyid crumpled to the ground. Blood continued to pour from the wide gash in his throat. It pooled around Dayyid’s still head and turned the dusty ground black.

  Dayyid’s mouth hung slack. His eyes were wide, gazing at nothing. John stared at Dayyid as the reality of what he had just done spread through him. He’d just killed Dayyid. Murdered him. It had been so fast, so easy. Dayyid had been dead before John could even consider the consequences.

  Behind him, John could hear Ravishan regaining his feet.

  “Is he—” Ravishan began and then went silent.

  John turned back. Ravishan stood staring at Dayyid’s body. Two thin rivulets of blood poured from the corners of his mouth where Dayyid had cut him.

  “You should get dressed.” John’s voice came out hard and cold despite the panicked pounding through his chest.

  Ravishan swayed slightly, looking drunk and sick. He was hardly in the best state for any of this. John feared that he would collapse, but then Ravishan drew in a deep breath and tore his gaze from Dayyid’s bleeding body. He snatched up his shirt and cassock and pulled them on.

  “When did you get here?” Ravishan asked the question quietly, as if he were hoping John wouldn’t hear him or answer.