I required no more evidence. I knew the Emperor's fears had been realized, and I, I had not been there to prevent it as He had planned. And now there was nothing between the sole priest of Shame in all Kherishdar and his destruction, but a single, middle-aged and untrustworthy osulkedi...
...and a Guardian transcendent, who raced past me madcap on the back of his beast, tail streaming like a pennon. And oh, ancestors! Ajan! Like something sprung from the pages of a wisdom tale! Dedication personified, the unsheathed blade of the hierarchy! Breathless, I urged my mount after his, trusting his younger eyes and better training, and maybe I wept for the glory of his passage, and the enormity of our errand.
At the pace Ajan set we were soon quit of the Gate-complex and into the plains surrounding it. I remember very little of our passage: the reins cutting into my wet palms as I struggled to steer my powerful mount; the sight of Ajan's tail and his mount's intermingling, bright strands and black, stringy with rain, elongated by the wind; my heart's palpitations, so hard my chest shook; the seemingly endless monotony of hill after hill, without knowing where we went or how Ajan read the signs to lead us there.
But then there was a steed, and Shame upon it, a silhouette streaking through the empurpled dark. Gods, the man was mad! To run his mount at this pace in the dark, in the rain, to risk a fall... and yet I was doing the same in his pursuit! But surely now he would see us and cease this useless attempt at escape... would see that civilization had come to succor him in his time of trial and gladly accept its aid. I saw him glance back and spot us, and exhaled. At last, we would put paid to this insanity—
—and then he spurred his beast on.
I gasped. How could he... why... how were we to catch him, if he did not want to be caught! I envisioned the three of us riding across an unending plain straight into the pages of a legend, the pages turning beneath our hooves until we faded at last into the hushed cadence of a historian's voice telling tales to children, of how there is no abstention from civilization, and how flight is futile. I started to shake... or thought I did, for my body had grown numb from the rain and wind.
And then Ajan shouted something to me through the wind. I wasn't even sure I'd heard him correctly: 'Go left?' But before I could ask, he reined in and kicked my mount in the side, sending it off on a diagonal... and out of the way.
I have lived a long time, aunera; for an Ai-Naidari, a very respectable time. But I had never seen, nor ever saw again, a feat of riding prowess like the one I witnessed Ajan Nai'Shuvulnin-penokedi perform in the rain, in the wilderness, unseen by any other save those to whom it mattered so painfully dear. For as I watched, he brought his beast—foaming at the mouth and sweating, its legs churning violently—up to the flank of Shame's, gathered his feet up under him, and whistled his mount to swerve away. As it did, he leapt, bowled Shame out of the saddle and tumbled with his master, curled around him to protect him from what would otherwise have been a killing fall.
Aunera, we are fragile. I say this again: they should have died. What magic they teach in the school of Guardians to permit neither of them to be slain on impact, I don't know. But they rolled a long way through the mud as their beasts left them behind.
Mine did also. I wrestled it to a stop, but by that time I was quite some distance from them both. I fell out of the saddle rather than dismounted, crawled until I gained my feet with my soaked robes fouling my legs, and ran back in their direction, where the two of them...
The two of them were fighting. Terrible blows pummeled on their twined bodies, both writhing in the mud, the constant shift of their straining muscles illumined by the dim light off their wet fur... I had never seen such frenzy. It seemed incredible that neither of them had killed the other. Surely such a contest could not go on!
Later, both Kor and Ajan told me that what I did next saved someone's life (though they playfully disagree as to whose). At the time, it seemed like the most foolhardy notion I'd ever had, and yet I found myself doing it anyway: yes, I tried to separate two young Guardian-trained males in the middle of a fight. "KOR! KOR, ENOUGH!"
I had barely put my hands on his shoulders when he twisted in my arms, snake-swift, and I found myself flat on my back in the mud. And ancestors, but I saw my life and death in those eyes, for Shame did not see me: he saw an obstacle to be purged. His coronal eyes were terrifying in a night-rain palette: all swollen pupils and black rims and no color in between. I dug my shoulder-blades into the earth in an attempt to shrink away from him, and it was that act that saved me... for it marked me as a victim, untrained in the ways of violence and thus no fit target for them. I saw the madness drain from his face and the shock and concern fly over his features...
...just as Ajan's elbow connected with the back of his skull.
Shame's body fell heavily on me. It was not a light body, even in dry clothes. Wet and in sopping, muddy robes it was suffocating. But never in my life was I happier to have my breathing impaired.
"Osulkedi!" Ajan exclaimed, pulling his master off my body. "By Saresh, you could have gotten yourself killed!"
I sat up, arms shaking. "I couldn't watch and not help." I looked at Shame. "Is he...?"
"He'll be fine," Ajan said. "I know how to judge a blow, and you gave me plenty of time to land it." Though his master's body was heavier than his, he hauled it up over his shoulders as if he was accustomed to such loads... and perhaps he was. "Come, osulkedi. Let us bring him home."
"And us as well," I said. "In one piece."
"And us as well," he said. "In one piece. Thank all the gods."
It was a subdued procession that made its way back toward the Gate-complex, then. Ajan rode in the lead, holding Shame's body in front of him with an arm around his master's waist and his free hand on the reins. Shame's steed was lunged to his saddle, and I trailed behind them both. It was many hours yet until dawn, and the rain had grown more intense. I could not speak to Ajan's state, but for my part, the physical misery was so overwhelming it eclipsed the emotional. Ai-Naidari fur is short, but it still holds water better than skin, and we commonly wear a great deal of clothes, none of them waterproof. The weight on my shoulders alone made me feel sealed to my steed, as if I was in the process of becoming a statue memorializing my own failure.
We had rescued Kor... but we still had no answers. Why had he fled? What had the lord told him?
What new trap awaited us at the House of Flowers?
A small note is pinned here, that reads:
The word vashkavr belongs to the set of gevresha, or profanities known by all Ai-Naidar. Gevresha are by their nature far more harsh than their twins, the shuvrenen, or caste profanities, which are particular to those who share a caste. One curses amongst one's peers in a way understood only by them, as a matter of small import but shared context. To curse in a more broadly-understood fashion is to admit to extremis far in excess of social courtesies.
It was a dreary group that gathered later around a table to discuss the crisis, for crisis it had become, well and truly, with the lord and his chief observer both fallen to the sickness and now one of the two osulked sent to solve the problem unconscious in a bed with his Guardian hovering. I occupied one chair, now in dry clothing but still chilled; Seraeda was in another, with a wrap tight around her robes; and the exhausted physician was in the third. He had watched Seraeda pour the tea blearily and then after a rather long pause brought out a flask and tipped it into each of our cups.
"I am not certain I need my head muddled," I said, though even to my ears my protest sounded half-hearted.
"You most certainly do," the physician said. "This is medicine, not indulgence. Drink."
I sighed and took a very long sip.
"So now what?" Seraeda asked, toying with the handle of her cup. "The lord is unconscious, and cannot tell us what ailed him. Observer Baran is also unconscious, and cannot tell us what ailed him. And now Shame is unconscious, and can't tell us what in all the worlds is going on."
"Shame won't be unconscious long," I said. "He'll come out of it, and then we'll know."
"But in the mean, the House is without a lord," the physician said. "It can't be left thus."
"We will have to send for someone," I said, and asked Seraeda, "Who?"
She frowned a little, ears flipping back. "His sister. She has her own concerns to manage, of course, but it is for her to put the house in order until the lord regains his senses."
"You sound as if you have misgivings," I said.
"The lord is better suited to running this part of the enterprise," Seraeda said. "But there is nothing to be done about that. I am more concerned about what the news of tonight's disaster will do to the staff. And I absolutely cannot have the lord's sister arrive to find us in disarray. Her esar is more tuned to matters of accounting and resource management... not so much people and risk-taking, like her brother. She will not be disposed to understand the nuance of our situation, and its effect on our morale."
This news could only be handled with another very long sip from my cup. When I put it down, Seraeda refilled it with tea and the physician added another dollop from his flask. I felt very taken care of. I also had to admit the spirits were quite warming.
