Wall of Shiuan

“If you are kinsman to me,” Vanye said, “free me from this place. Then I will believe your kinship.”

“Me? And care you nothing for that child that came with you?”

He looked back, stung, unable to argue. He affected a shrug. “Jhirun? Here is where she wanted to be, in Shiuan, in Ohtij-in. This is the land she wished for. What is she to me?”

“I had thought better of you,” Roh said after a moment “So, surely, had she.”

“I am ilin . Nothing else. There are human folk here, men, and so she can survive. They have.”

“There are men,” said Roh, and pointed at the squalid court, where beasts and men shared neighboring quarters. ‘That is the lot of men in Ohtij-in. That is their life, from birth to death. Men now. Tomorrow the rest that survives in this land will live in that poverty, and the qujal –lords know it. Of their charity, of their charity, Nhi Vanye, these lords have let men shelter within their walls; of their charity they have fed them and clothed them. They owed them nothing; but they have let them live within their gates. You—you are not so charitable—you would let them die, that girl and all the rest. That is what you would do to me. The sword’s edge is kinder, cousin, than what is waiting for all this land. Murder—is kinder.”

“I have nothing to do with what is happening to these people. I ca

“Can you not? The Wells are their hope, Vanye. For all that live and will live in this world, the Wells are all the hope there is. They had no skill to use them; but by them, these folk could live. I could do it. Morgaine surely could, but she will not, and you know that she will not. Vanye, if that ancient power were used as it once was used, their lot would be different. Look on this, look, and remember it, cousin.”

He looked, perforce. He did not wish to remember the sight, and the faces that had raged wildly beyond the guards’ pikes, the desperate hands that had reached through the grate. “All this is a lie,” he said. “As you are a lie.”

“The sword’s edge,” Roh invited him, “if you believe that beyond doubt.”

He lifted his face toward Roh, wishing to see truth, wishing something that he could hate, finding nothing to attack—only Roh, mirror-image of himself, more alike him than his own brothers.

“Send me from here,” he challenged him who wore the shape of Roh, “if you believe that you can convince me. At least you know that I keep my sworn word. If you have a message for Morgaine herself, then give it to me and I will deliver it faithfully—if I can find her, of which I have doubts.”

“I will not ask you where she is,” Roh said. “I know where she is going; and I know that you would not tell me more than that. But others might ask you. Others might ask you.”

Vanye shivered, remembering the gathering in the hall, the pale lords and ladies who owed nothing to humanity. A fall to the paving below was easier than that. He stepped forward to the very edge, inwardly trying whether he had the courage.

“Vanye,” Roh cried, compelling his attention. “Vanye, she will have little difficulty destroying these folk. They will see her, they will flock to her, trusting, because she is fair to see—and she will kill them. It has happened before. Do you think that there is compassion in her?”

“There has been,” he said, the words hanging half soundless in his throat.

“You know its limits,” said Roh. “You have seen that, too.”

Vanye cursed aloud, flung himself back from the battlements and sought the door, sought warmth, fought to open it against the force of the wind. He tore it open, and Roh held it, came in after him. The torches in the hall fluttered wildly until the door slammed, Roh dropped the latch. They remained on opposite sides of the little corridor, facing one another.

“Say to them that you could not persuade me,” Vanye said. “Perhaps your hosts will forgive you.”

“Listen to me,” said Roh.

Vanye unhooked the sheathed sword and cast it across the corridor; Roh caught it, mid-sheath, and looked at him in perplexity.

“God forgive me,” Vanye said.

“For not committing murder?” Roh said. “That is incongruous.”

He stared at Roh, then tore his eyes from him and began to walk rapidly down the corridor, descending the ramp. There were guards below. He stopped when their weapons levelled toward him.

Roh overtook him and set his hand on his arm. “Do not be rash. Listen to me, cousin. Messengers are going out, have already sped, despite the storm, bearing warnings of her throughout the whole countryside, to every hold and village. She will find no welcome among these folk.”

Vanye jerked free, but Roh caught his arm again. “No,” said Roh. The guards stood waiting, helmed, faceless, weapons ready. “Will you be handled like a peasant for the hanging?” Roh whispered in his ear, “or will you walk peaceably with me?”

Roh’s hand tightened, urged. Vanye suffered the grip upon his arm, and Roh led him through the midst of the guards, walked with him down the windings of the corridors; and they did not stop at the door of the room that confined Jhirun, but went farther, into a branching corridor, that seemed to lead back to the main tower. The guards walked at their backs, two bearing torches.

“Jhirun,” Vanye reminded Roh, as they entered that other corridor.

“I thought that was a matter of no concern to you.”

“She is a chance meeting,” he said. “And no more than that. She set out looking for you, hoping better from you than she had where she was: the measure of that, you may know better than I. You were kind to her, she said.”

“She will be safe,” said Roh. “I also keep my word.”

Vanye frowned, glanced away. Roh said nothing further. They entered a third corridor, that came to an end in a blind wall; and in a narrow place on the right was a deeply recessed doorway. Shadows ran the walls as the guards overtook them, while Roh opened the door.

It was a plain room, with a fire blaring in the hearth, a wooden bench by the fire, table, chairs. And Hetharu waited there, Bydarra’s dark-eyed son, seated, with a handful of others likewise seated about him—pale-haired men, although only Hetharu seemed so by nature, his long locks white and silken about his shoulders. He leaned elbows upon his knees, wa

Vanye stopped in the doorway, confused by the situation of things, so important a man, so strangely assorted the company. Roh set his hand on his shoulder and urged him gently forward. The guards took up stations inside and out as the doors were closed and the gathering became a private one. Helms were removed, revealing faces thin and pale as those of the higher lords, eyes as dark as Hetharu’s: young men, all that were gathered here, save the priest, furtive in their quiet. There was the brocaded finery of the lords, the martial plate-and-scale of the men-at-arms, the plai

And he was seized into the midst of it.

“You won nothing of him?” Hetharu asked of Roh. Roh left Vanye’s side and took the vacant bench beside the fire, one booted foot tucked up, disposing himself comfortably and at his ease, leaving Vanye as if he were harmless.

In peevish insolence Vanye shifted his weight suddenly, and hands reached for daggers and swords all about the room; he tautened his lips, a smile that rage made slight and mocking, and slowly, amid their indecision, moved to take his place beside Roh on the bench, near the fire’s warmth. Roh straightened slightly, both feet on the floor; and the look in Hetharu’s eyes was angry. Vanye met that stare with a stubborn frown, though within, he felt less than easy: here was, he thought, a man who would gladly resort to force, who would enjoy it.

“My cousin,” said Roh, “is a man of his word, and reckons that word otherwise bestowed... although this may change. As matters stand now, he does not recognize reason, only the orders of his liege: that is the kind of man he is.”

“A dangerous man,” said Hetharu, and his dark, startling eyes rested full on Vanye’s. “Are you dangerous, Man?”

“I thought,” said Vanye slowly, with deliberation, “that Bydarra was lord in Ohtij-in. What is this?”

“You see how he is,” said Roh. And on faces round about there was consternation: guilt, fear. Hetharu glowered. Vanye read the tale writ therein and liked it less and less.

“And his liege?” asked Hetharu. “What has he to say of her?”

“Nothing,” said Roh. And in their long silence, Vanye’s heart beat rapidly. “It is of little profit,” said Roh, “to question him on that account. I will not have him harmed, my lord.”

Vanye heard, not understanding, not believing Roh’s defense of him; but he saw in that moment that a hint of caution appeared in Hetharu’s ma

“You,” said Hetharu suddenly, looking at Vanye, “do you claim to have come by the Wells?”

“Yes,” Vanye answered, for he knew that there was no denying it.

“And can you manage them?” the priest asked, a husky, quiet voice. Vanye looked up into the priest’s face, reading desire there, not knowing how to deal with the desires that gathered thickly in this room, centered upon him and upon Roh. He did not want to die; abundantly, he did not want to die, butchered by qujal , for causes he did not understand, that had nothing to do with him.

He did not answer.

“You are a Man,” said the priest.

“Yes,” he said, and noticed that the priest carried a knife at his belt, curious accoutrement for a priest; and that all the others were armed. The priest wore a chain of objects about his neck, stone and shell and bone—familiar—Vanye realized all at once where he had seen such, daily, along with a small stone cross, profaned by nearness to such things. He stared at the priest, the rage that he could maintain against armed threat ebbing coldly in the consideration of devils, and those that served them—and the state of his soul, who served Morgaine, and who companied with a human girl who wore such objects about her neck.

Only let them keep the priest from him. He tore his gaze away from that one, lest the fear show, lest he give them a weapon.