Reave the Just and Other Tales (14 page)

Only memory would be of any use to him.

Instead of answering the young man, I faced Isla squarely.

“Stop me now,” I told her. I was certain that she could do so. “If you mean to abandon your life”—and your hate—“for the sake of guesses, do so now. Or stand aside, and let me do what I can.”

The young man appeared to think I meant to attack him. His stance shifted subtly, focusing his abused
qa
.

She glared at me from the depths of her begrimed face. The
mashu-te
placed great value on achieving their ends through sacrifice—in this case, obtaining Argoyne’s defeat at the cost of her life. But to sacrifice my life, and the young man’s, for the sake of her purpose troubled her. And if she played only a passive part in the Archemage’s death, her hate would not be appeased.

Deliberately she withdrew. From the distance of a few paces, she fixed a gaze hungry with anger on the
shin-te
.

In haste, I turned to the young man. I could not know when Argoyne’s crisis would overtake him.

Recognizing his apprehension, however, I paused to bow. I wished him to see that I meant no challenge—that I regarded him as a respected comrade, not as an opponent.

As he bowed in reply, he softened his stance somewhat. But he did not set aside his readiness.

“Young master,” I began, “you have been imprisoned by a mage. As have we. He has deprived you of your memory. For that reason, you cannot recollect your circumstances, or your name. You do not remember us. But we remember you. We are your allies.”

I could not imagine why he should believe me. In his place, I would not have done so. Certainly I had mistrusted Isla long enough—until death and isolation had forced me to set aside suspicion. Nevertheless I spoke with all the conviction I had learned from my plight.

“Our captor,” I continued, “is Argoyne the Black. The Dark Archemage. Somewhere beyond this place, the Mage War rages, and he intends you to play a part in it, if you are able.”

I studied the
shin-te
for a reaction, but he betrayed none. His expression revealed only courtesy and grief, nothing more. Lacking memory, he could attach no significance to Argoyne’s name. Doubtless the Mage War itself meant nothing to him.

Perhaps that simplified my task. I could not tell.

Stifling a sigh, I informed him, “The Archemage desires a champion. By some means which we do not understand and cannot fathom, this war has become a matter of single combat. Both Isla and I have been tested to serve as Argoyne’s champion, but we failed. You are all that remains of hope for the mage—and for us.

“
You
have not failed,” I insisted, fearing that Isla would contradict me, although she made no move to speak. “You have met certain setbacks.” This was difficult to explain. “They account for your weariness and confusion. The magery which restores you exacts a toll. But you have not failed. The
shin-te
teach that you must give ‘service to
qa
in all things,’ and you have done so.”

The young man received this assurance as he had all I said—sadly, without acknowledgment. Though he had no memory of the experience, he appeared to understand in his bones and sinews—in his
qa
—that he had indeed failed.

Breathing deeply to quell my alarm, I pursued my purpose. “However,” I announced, “you have not grasped the nature of the champion who opposes you. The champion you are asked to defeat. And your ignorance has caused your setbacks.”

At last I saw a hint of interest in the
shin-te
’s eyes. He found it easy to credit that he was ignorant—and that ignorance was fatal.

I summoned my
qa
. “The challenge before you is the true test,” I told him, “simple and pure. The
shin-te
believe that ‘there is no killing stroke.’ You will face a master of the
nerishi-qa
. The Art of the Killing Stroke.”

There I stopped. I saw in the sudden flaring of the young man’s eyes that he knew more of the
nerishi-qa
than I.

Isla could not silence her surprise. Advancing, she demanded, “
Nerishi-qa,
Asper? How do you know?” At once she added, “How long have you known? Why haven’t you said anything?”

“I do
not
know,” I replied without disguising my vexation. “I am making an assumption.” An exercise I did not enjoy. To the young man, I said, “We were permitted to watch the contest from which you have just returned. In it, you were slain. And restored by magery. At the cost of your memory. Your opponent fought in ways unfamiliar to me. I am
nahia
. Isla is
mashu-te
. I have seen the
ro-uke
. And you are
shin-te
. Your opponent’s skills belong to none of these. Therefore he is
nerishi-qa
.”

From the first, the
shin-te
had met death with sorrow, remembering nothing except his loss. Now, however, there was another light in his gaze. Strictures shaped the corners of his eyes, the lines of his mouth. A sensation of anger emanated from him.

“The
nerishi-qa,
” he pronounced softly, “teach a false Art.”

Isla rounded on him. “How so?”

“Legend teaches,” I put in, “that
nerishi-qa
is the first and most potent of the Fatal Arts. All others derive from it.”

The young man shook his head. There was no doubt in him. “It is false.

“You have called it ‘the Art of the Killing Stroke,’ yet there is no killing stroke.” The strength of his conviction shone from him. “The
nerishi-qa
claim for themselves the power and the right to determine death. But he who determines death also determines life, and that they cannot do. Life belongs to the one who holds it. It cannot be taken away. Therefore no killing stroke exists. There is only choice.”

In my urgency, I had no patience for such mystical vapor. And Isla felt as I did, apparently. Nearly together, we objected, “We saw you die.”

Direct as a fist, she added, “That champion nailed you to the floor with a spear.”

“Did you choose
that
?” I demanded.

Uncomfortably, he answered, “I do not remember.”

A moment later, however, he shouldered the burden of his beliefs. “Yes. I did.”

Then his earlier sorrow returned to his gaze—a bereavement shaded by shame. “You say that I was ignorant. I did not know him for
nerishi-qa
.”

I accepted his assumption. I feared to weaken him with doubt. But Isla did not.

“Or you knew,” she countered, “and that’s why you chose to die. You knew you couldn’t defeat him.”
Mashu-te
to the core, she accepted the risk of what was in her heart. “You surrendered to despair.”

Anxiously I watched the young man for his response.

“I do not remember,” he repeated. “Perhaps I did.” The flinch had returned to his eyes, although he did not look away. “If so, I do not deserve to be named among the
shin-te
.”

Seeking to help him if I could, I asked, “Are you acquainted with the
nerishi-qa
? Would you recognize that Art?”

He considered for a moment, then shook his head. “There are scholars among the
shin-te,
preserving our knowledge of all the Arts. I have studied the texts. But they are old. And what is written conceals as well as reveals what it describes. I have never seen the
nerishi-qa
.”

I sighed privately, keeping my relief to myself.

Isla was plainer. “Then perhaps,” she said, “we can still hope.”

“I do not know,” he said as if admitting the true source of his sorrow. “Every year, my masters send one of us to carry a challenge to the
nerishi-qa,
so that we may test our skills—and our beliefs. But the messengers are always spurned. The
nerishi-qa
disdain to measure themselves against us.”

I was sure that Isla retained her wish for Argoyne’s destruction. For the present, however, she had apparently accepted that life was better than death. There may have been a hint of the
nahia
in her nature. Rather than merely assuming that the Black Archemage would be ruined by the young man’s defeat, she hoped to witness that ruin herself—and to participate in it if she could. And for that purpose sacrifice would not serve.

_______

As on previous occasions, the young
shin-te
needed rest. Both death and restoration had been arduous for him, as I remembered well. Despite my eagerness to know what he had read in the texts of his scholars—and my belief that Argoyne’s crisis was near—I urged him to his pallet.

He acquiesced readily enough. But he was not granted an opportunity for sleep. As he uncoiled his fatigue upon the pallet, a tremor shook the cell. In the distance, we heard a mutter of stone, as though the crags of Scarmin ground their teeth.

“Earthquake,” Isla suggested when the tremor had passed.

“Do you believe that?” I asked sourly. I did not.

A second tremor followed the first, stronger and more prolonged. In its aftermath, dust sifted from the ceiling, filling the constant light with hints of peril. Again we heard from afar the rumor of crushed rock.

We were on our feet, the three of us, instinctively keeping our distance from the walls—and watching the timbers above us, in case they should start to crack.

For the second time, a voice spoke in the air. “Now,” the mage said harshly. “It must be now.”

Then the young man was gone. Neither Isla nor I saw his departure.

_______

She reacted while I stood motionless in consternation. In the wake of Argoyne’s bodiless utterance, she protested, “He’s exhausted! He hasn’t rested!” Furiously, she cried, “By the White Lords, do you
want
him to fail?”

There was no answer. Instead a third tremor jolted us. It struck the cell harder than the first two combined, endured longer. I staggered, despite my training, and Isla fought for balance. Above us, timbers shrieked against each other. A disturbing unsteadiness afflicted the lamps.

Argoyne’s peril was more desperate than I had imagined. He had expended too much of his power testing us—and lost too much time.

When the convulsion eased, I saw that its force had stricken a crack up one wall from floor to ceiling beside the door.

The door—

Isla did not see it. The straining timbers consumed her attention. “Asper!” she shouted. “The keep is falling! We’ll be crushed!”

The door. At last. Argoyne’s magery had failed him. Or he no longer needed it. Or our imprisonment served no further purpose in his designs.

“I think not.” Between one heartbeat and the next, my dismay vanished. Some sleight of circumstance transferred it to her, and I was freed. “These quakes will cease as soon as Argoyne announces his champion.”

I had already turned my fang to the challenge of the door.

Now she noticed it. “Asper—” she gasped. “What’s happening? How did this—?”

“Compose yourself,” I snapped, “and let me work.” Her questions, and my own, would answer themselves soon enough.

I was
nahia,
a master of Circumvention. No mere door could hold me if I bent my will to escape. But could I bypass this obstacle quickly? That was another matter altogether. The more strictly the door had been secured, the more time and skill would be needed to open it.

I did not care why Black Argoyne’s concealment of the door had failed. Rather, I wished to know how much trust he had placed in that concealment.

“This changes everything, Asper,” Isla insisted at my back. “The White Lords must have beaten him. He can’t protect his keep. Why don’t they press their advantage? Why risk this war on a champion when they can tear his power stone from stone?”

“Am I a mage?” I snarled without interrupting my efforts. I had no patience for her. “Do I understand these things?”

I understood bolts and locks, staples and bindings. Estimating the actions of mages required too many assumptions. Words were also a form of circumvention, however, and they could cut as well as any blade.

“Perhaps,” I continued while I tested the door, “the effect of their attacks is hidden from the White Lords. Or perhaps the Archemage has other uses for his power. The truth—”

Abruptly I sighed. It appeared that Argoyne relied more upon magery than upon physical restriction. My fang found the doorbolt and turned it so that its hasp left the staple. Carefully I began to slip the bolt aside.

“The truth,” I repeated as I pulled the door open, “will be revealed when we find him.”

Between her teeth, Isla remarked, “Asper, you amaze me.” But she did not pause to admire my handiwork. “Come on,” she commanded at once. Ahead of me, she hastened from the cell. “I have a debt to repay.”

I followed without hesitation. I, too, had a debt to repay—although it did not much resemble hers.

For the first time in uncounted days, we were free of imprisonment. Therefore we were also free of Argoyne’s purposes, and could now choose our own way—or so she apparently believed.

I did not make that assumption.

_______

We found him with relative ease. The corridors and chambers within the keep were simply arranged, one level above the next. On each, a large hall filled the center of the structure, surrounded by a wide passageway. Smaller rooms were arrayed between the corridor and the keep’s walls. A broad stair climbed from floor to floor. We might have spent days at it if we had attempted to search the outer chambers, but by tacit agreement we concentrated on the central halls. I was content to believe that the Archemage would need space around him in order to wield his power. On each level, we opened massive doors to look inward, discovered nothing, and proceeded to the next stair.

None of the passages we traveled resembled the one in which we had been tested.

At another time, I would have been fascinated by the apparent absence of any servants, retainers, companions, or defenders. Argoyne the Black, it seemed, desired no human service—or had been abandoned by it. In addition, I would have been intensely interested in the possessions with which the outer rooms were filled, as well as in the uses to which the inner halls were put. Much of what I saw served no purpose I could recognize. Now, however, I was in too much haste for curiosity. Refusing investigation, I kept pace with Isla.