4: Witches' Blood (14 page)

John reached out and gently turned Ravishan’s hand through the sweeping play of the elements.

“There,” John said. He drew his own hands back.

Ravishan snapped his fingers apart, cracking open a thin slice of the Gray Space. The hiss was hardly audible but John still felt the chill. Ravishan closed the space immediately. He dropped his hand back to the tabletop.

Only the faintest trace of the opening remained hanging in the air. It was almost invisible compared to the others John had seen. No one else seemed to notice it.

“It opened so smoothly,” Ravishan said. “I hardly felt any resistance.” He lifted his right hand again. “Show me again.”

“But—” John began.

“Not tonight, Ravishan,” Hann’yu said. “You’ve already exhausted yourself and Jahn should be allowed to relax on this one day.”

Ravishan gave Hann’yu a harsh frown that was distinctly reminiscent of one of Dayyid’s scowls. “This is important.”

“So is Jahn’s day of birth,” Hann’yu replied.

Ravishan glanced to John and then sighed. “All right. But you have to show me tomorrow.”

John just nodded his agreement. He would have shown Ravishan now, but he thought the others would have been bored. And Ravishan had to rest some time.

“You’re never going to be free of him now,” Ashan’ahma told John.

“But this is wonderful, isn’t it?” Samsango smiled. “What a perfect thing to discover. A great talent hidden in a lowly ushvun.”

Hann’yu smiled warmly at that and nodded. “I suppose it’s to be expected that Parfir’s gift to Jahn would be so much greater than all of our material offerings.” He poured himself another cup of daru’sira and filled Samsango’s cup as well, then glanced to John. “So how does it feel?”

“What?” John asked.

“To be twenty-five,” Hann’yu said. “It’s been so long I can hardly remember what it was like.”

John shrugged. The last birthday he had celebrated had been his twenty-second. It seemed as if it had been decades ago, ages ago. He couldn’t even remember what he had been given or done then.

“It feels older than I expected,” John said.

“Just wait for forty-six,” Hann’yu replied.

“Forty-six?” Samsango waved his hand as if brushing the comment aside. “You wait until you’ve turned sixty. Sixty. That’s nearly the ages of all four of you put together.”

Hann’yu smiled. Ashan’ahma was well into his thirties, John was twenty-five and Ravishan was twenty. Their four combined ages put them well over a hundred. But they all let Samsango’s bad math pass without comment.

“You’re older than the bell tower, aren’t you?” Ashan’ahma asked Samsango.

Samsango nodded. “I was here when they pulled the old one down. That’s when you know you’re old. When you’ve outlived the architecture.”

“So, you’d remember Gaunsho Par’taum?” Ashan’ahma asked.

“Of course.” Samsango smiled broadly at the mention of the man’s name. “He had such a voice! Women came from miles to hear him sing at the Harvest Fair. He was born the first son of the Du’yura Gaunsho, the heir to the entire family. But he must have felt a great calling because he disguised himself as a common pilgrim and came to the monastery. Of course they admitted him, but only as a lowly ushvun. He was the worst worker I had ever seen.” Samsango shook his head. “He didn’t know how to light a fire, couldn’t sew a stitch, and he was scared of the goats. He complained and wouldn’t eat the food. Ah, and he refused to clean out the privies. No matter what, he wouldn’t do it. But when you heard him in prayer...such a beautiful, sacred voice would rise out of him. It was as if warm sunshine filled the chamber. Eventually the ushman’im noticed and sent him to the Black Tower to sing for the Usho. Then, of course, his brothers recognized him and he was returned to the Du’yura family.”

“He was my grandfather,” Ashan’ahma said.

“Really?” Samsango looked Ashan’ahma up and down, searching for traces of the man he remembered. “How is your singing?”

“Not as good as his, I’m afraid. But not bad.”

“It’s quite good,” Ravishan said.

“It is,” Hann’yu agreed.

John hadn’t noticed it, but then he was rarely among the ushiri’im when they sang their prayers. More often he was working with his fellow ushvun’im or running errands for Hann’yu.

“You must let me hear you,” Samsango said.

“You’ll be disappointed,” Ashan’ahma warned.

“I know that I won’t,” Samsango replied. “You must sing something.”

“Come on,” Hann’yu said. “You always want to sing.”

Ashan’ahma relented easily. His voice was deep and rich. John leaned onto his elbows and simply listened. Ravishan leaned beside him, half-asleep but smiling. Both Hann’yu and Samsango seemed lost in remembrances. Doubtless Hann’yu’s recollections were of the operas of Nurjima, the costumes, lights, and late night conversations. Samsango seemed to simply be recalling his youth and the sacred voice he had known.

John closed his eyes and let his own thoughts wander with the song. Despite the cold and his aching muscles, the night seemed perfect.

Ravishan woke John before daybreak, demanding instruction. He bounded up the stairs to the infirmary and John followed in a groggy daze. They worked together while the sun slowly crept up over the mountain peaks.

 
Outside the infirmary window, the sky was a pale white expanse. The rising sun only burned a faint white circle through the walls of falling snow. John yawned and frowned at the smell of ozone and smoke that hung in the air. He turned back to Ravishan. He had expected that Ravishan would want to train with him. But he hadn’t thought that Ravishan would wake him up before the break of day for it.

“Show me again.” Ravishan stood, tensed as though he were preparing for an attack. His right hand was slightly extended, his left drawn back, closer to his chest. A fine sheen of sweat already covered his bare chest and arms. Wisps of his shaggy black hair hung around his face.

 
“Try to feel it for yourself,” John said.

Ravishan closed his eyes and frowned intently. He shifted his hand slightly, but then scowled. “I can’t...I thought I did, but it was just the wind.”

“The wind is part of it,” John assured him. The living current, as Ravishan called it, suffused the wind and rolled with it.

“Here?” Ravishan moved just a little more.

“Close,” John said. “You’re really close.”

Ravishan shifted the angle of his right arm, turning it by slow degrees. John felt him move into and then out of the delicate current that surrounded them. Ravishan suddenly punched his hand forward, rending the Gray Space open. Flames arced through the air. The sound of tearing metal cut through the morning silence.

“Damn it!” Ravishan jerked his arm back to his chest. The Gray Space snapped closed. Ravishan squeezed his left hand over the bleeding cut in his right forearm.

“How can I be getting worse the more I practice?” Ravishan glared at his arm.

“You’re trying too hard,” John said. “I don’t think it’s something you can force. More finesse, less force. Less Dayyid, more Hann’yu.”

“So I should be drunk?” Ravishan asked with a smile.

“Maybe not that much like Hann’yu.” John went to the drawers and dug out a roll of bandage. “Let me see your arm.”

Ravishan held it out. The cut was deep and narrow. John bandaged it. Not for the first time, he wished that he possessed a little of Hann’yu’s skill at healing. He tied Ravishan’s bandage. There were other, much smaller scratches across Ravishan’s arm and even one thin red welt across his cheek.

“Maybe you should try this with something that’s easier to feel,” John said.

“What do you mean?” Ravishan asked. He was still scowling at his arm as if it had betrayed him.

“It’s hard to feel the atmosphere. It’s too prevalent and we’re too accustomed to it. But maybe something else. Maybe water.”

“You want me to go swimming in the dead of winter?”

“No, just…” John looked around the room and at last caught sight of one of Hann’yu’s porcelain bowls. “Here, let’s try it with this.” John got up and filled the bowl with clean water.

“If you put your hand in, you can feel the pressure of the water.” John slipped his own hand into the bowl. The water was icy. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the texture of the water surrounding his fingers. A moment later he felt Ravishan’s hand slide into the water next to his own.

“What do you feel?” John asked.

“Wet,” Ravishan replied.

“Other than that.”

“I don’t know.”

“There are strong and weak forces,” John said. “Elements like oxygen and hydrogen bond together firmly. They’re the hard grain of the water. The force pulling clusters of molecules together is different...Can you feel it?” John asked.

“I don’t know what you mean by oxygen,” Ravishan said.

“It’s a molecule. Something that you’ll feel in both the air and the water.”

“I don’t—”

“It doesn’t matter,” John assured him. “It’s just a name. What’s important is to feel the difference between the strong and the weak forces. You want to open the Gray Space by cutting through the weak forces, not the strong ones.”

John knew that what he was describing was not the whole experience of the currents he felt. But he had no words to describe the living force that seemed to saturate not just the chill water but the bowl containing it. The air, the stones, everything around them overflowed with that deep energy. When he concentrated on it, John felt as if it was surging up to meet him, churning and pressing against his skin. He could feel it twisting on the cold drafts that slipped through the window. He imagined that he could turn it through his hands or snap it apart. It was a strange sensation.

Ravishan’s eyes were pressed closed in concentration. His dark brows compressed, nearly forming a single line. Ravishan turned his hand through the water, slowly. Then suddenly he stopped. His fingers straightened.

John quickly withdrew his own hand from the water. He didn’t want to get hit by the Gray Space that Ravishan would open.

Ravishan flicked his fingers apart. A burst of water splashed out of the thin air a foot behind John. Ravishan looked up and grinned. “I think I got it that time.”

John nodded. He’d hardly felt the chill of the space opening.

“There’s a texture,” Ravishan said. “A grain. Like you said, it’s weak in one direction, strong in another.” He stared at John for several moments. “How did you know?”

“That’s just how it felt to me,” John said. Hann’yu wasn’t going to be pleased about the spill of water. John glanced to the shelf to see if there were any towels.

“John,” Ravishan said his Nayeshi name in a low whisper, “you would tell me if you were...if there was something more, wouldn’t you?”

John focused on the towels. There was so much he didn’t say. He didn’t even know why, exactly, except that he knew their lives here were fragile. He didn’t want to discover something that would change the way they were, right now, together.

 
“I would. I—” John started to turn back towards Ravishan but something caught his attention—a distortion in the air. A faint blur hovered just a foot from him. Someone was in the room with them, spying from the Gray Space.

A shot of anger rushed through John. Without thinking, he bolted forward and grabbed the scrawny ushiri by the arm. A wave of nausea rolled through him as his hands drove into the Gray Space. John jerked the ushiri out as if he were hauling a fish out of the water. The air screamed and a frigid blast whipped across John’s face. Fikiri howled in shock as John hurled him onto one of the infirmary beds.

“What do you think you’re doing?” John demanded.

Fikiri scrambled upright. His face and arms were crisscrossed with scratches. His lips looked blue.

“I didn’t do anything,” Fikiri said quickly.

“You were spying on us?” Ravishan stepped forward.

“It was Dayyid’s order,” Fikiri snapped. He glared at Ravishan. “He doesn’t trust you.”

“He didn’t trust you either. Now I can see why he’s changed his mind. You’ve turned yourself into his little boot-licker. You’re pathetic,” Ravishan replied.

“And you’re a pervert—” Fikiri hardly got the last word out. Ravishan lunged onto him, gripping his throat.

“I’ll kill you in the Gray Space and no one will ever find your body. Not Dayyid. Not even your precious mommy,” Ravishan hissed.

“Ravishan.” John pulled him back from Fikiri. “No one is going to kill anyone. Just calm down.”

 
“He—” Ravishan just clenched his mouth shut and looked away from Fikiri. “Fine. Let him go crying back to Dayyid.”

John addressed Fikiri, “How long has Dayyid had you watching Ravishan?”

“Long enough,” Fikiri responded.

John took one step closer. “How long?”

“Since that night he disappeared.” Fikiri narrowed his eyes at John. “There are things I could tell him that I haven’t...not yet.”

“Such as?” John asked. A cold revulsion that had nothing to do with the Gray Space churned through John’s stomach.