Kylar hadn"t known Durzo Blint at all. And now the hero out of legends-dozens of legends-was dead. Dead at Kylar"s hands. Kylar had destroyed something without knowing its worth. He hadn"t known the man he"d called his master and now he never would. It felt like a hole in his stomach. He felt numb and distant and angry and near tears all at once. Durzo was dead, and Kylar missed him more than he could have imagined.
The beads of sweat were sticking out on Aristarchos"s face now. He had wadded the bed sheets in his fists. "If you have any questions you need to ask me about his incarnations or yours or anything at all, please ask quickly. I"m not... feeling well."
"Why do you keep saying incarnations like I"m some kind of G.o.d?" It wasn"t a great question, but the real questions were so big that Kylar didn"t even know how to ask them.
"You are worshipped in a few remote areas where your master wasn"t very careful about showing the full extent of his powers."
"What?!"
"The Society says incarnations because "lives" is too confusing, and we aren"t sure if you have as many lives as you want, or a finite number, or just one life that never ends. None of us have ever actually seen you die. "Incarnations" has its critics, too, but that"s mainly among the Modaini separatists who believe in reincarnation. Let me tell you, your existence really throws them for a theological loop." Aristarchos"s legs were twitching, almost convulsing. "I"m sorry," he said, "there"s so much I wish I could tell you. So much I wish I could ask."
Suddenly, among all the big questions about Durzo, about Kylar"s powers, about the G.o.dking and what he knew or thought he knew, Kylar just saw a man sweating on a bed, a man who"d lost his teeth and his good looks for Kylar, a man who"d been tortured and made an addict, who"d been compelled to try to kill Kylar and had fought against it with everything he had. He"d done all that for a man he didn"t even know.
So Kylar didn"t ask about the Society, or magic, or what Aristarchos could do for him. That could come later, if they both lived until later. "Aristarchos," he said, "what is a shalakroi?"
The man was taken off guard. "I-it"s a little below a Midcyri duke, but it"s not an inherited position. I scored better than ten thousand other students on the Civil Service examinations. Only a hundred scored higher in all Ladesh. I ruled an area roughly the size of Cenaria."
"The city?"
Aristarchos smiled through his sweat and clenched muscles. "The country."
"It"s an honor to meet you, Aristarchos ban Ebron, shalakroi of Benyurien."
"The honor is mine, Kylar ban Durzo. Please, will you kill me?"
Kylar turned his back on the man.
Pride and hope whooshed out of Aristarchos with his breath. He slumped in the bed, suddenly small. "This is no kindness, my lord." He convulsed again, and strained against the leather bonds. His veins bulged on his forehead and his emaciated arms. "Please!" he said as the convulsion pa.s.sed. "Please, if you won"t kill me, will you give me my box? Just one seed? Please?" convulsed again, and strained against the leather bonds. His veins bulged on his forehead and his emaciated arms. "Please!" he said as the convulsion pa.s.sed. "Please, if you won"t kill me, will you give me my box? Just one seed? Please?"
Kylar left. He took the box and burned it. Aside from a poisoned-needle trap, it was empty.
20
Your Holiness, our a.s.sa.s.sin is dead," Neph Dada said as he stepped onto the G.o.dking"s balcony. "I apologize to report this failure, though I do wish to point out that I recommended-"
"He didn"t fail," Garoth Ursuul said, not turning from his view of the city.
Neph opened his mouth, remembered to whom he was speaking, and closed it. He hunched a little lower.
"I gave him a task he could thwart so that he might accomplish the one I desired," the G.o.dking said. Still staring over the city, he ma.s.saged his temples. "He found Kylar Stern. Our ka"karifer is in Caernarvon."
He picked a note from his pocket. "Transmit this message to our agent there to give to Vi Sovari. She should be arriving any day."
Neph blinked convulsively. He"d thought he knew everything the G.o.dking was doing. He"d thought that his own mastery of the vir was within a hairsbreadth of the G.o.dking"s, and now, blithely, the man had given him this. It set Neph"s ambitions back months. Months! How he hated the man. Garoth could track exact locations magically? Neph had never heard of such a thing. What did it mean? Did Garoth know about the camp at Black Barrow? Neph"s meisters had been abducting villagers for his experiments, but it was so far away, Neph had been so careful. No, it couldn"t be that.
But the G.o.dking was giving him notice. He was telling Neph that he had his eye on him, that he had his eye on everything, that he would always know more than he told even Neph, that his powers would always be beyond what Neph expected. As the G.o.dking"s warnings went, it was gentle.
"Is there something else?" the G.o.dking asked.
"No, Your Holiness," Neph said. He managed to keep his voice perfectly calm.
"Then begone."
Despite all the reasons he had to be grumpy, when Elene was in a good mood, it was hard not to be happy. After a quick breakfast and a cup of ootai to stave off weariness, Kylar found himself wandering the streets with her, hand in hand. She was wearing a cream-colored dress with a brown taffeta bodice the color of her eyes. It looked fabulous in its simplicity. Of course, Kylar had never seen Elene wear anything that he thought looked less than great, but when she was happy she was twice as beautiful as usual.
"This is cute, isn"t it?" he asked, picking up a doll from a merchant"s table. Why was Elene happy? He couldn"t remember having done anything good.
Ever since he"d started going out at night, he"d expected to have The Talk. Instead, one night she"d grabbed his hand-he"d almost jumped out of his skin, so much for being the imperturbable wetboy-and she said, "Kylar, I love you, and I trust you."
She hadn"t said anything since then. He sure hadn"t. What was he supposed to say? "Um, actually, I have killed some people, but it was an accident every time, and they were all bad"?
"I don"t think we can really afford much," Elene said. "I just wanted to spend the day with you." She smiled. Maybe it was just a mood swing. Mood swings had to have an up side, right?
"Oh," he said. He only felt a little awkward holding hands with her. At first, he"d felt like everyone was staring at them. Now, though, he saw that only a few people looked at them twice, and of those, most seemed to be approving.
"Aha!" a round little man bellowed at them. "Perfect. Perfect. Absolutely lovely. Marvelous, you are. Yes, yes, come right in."
Kylar was so startled he barely stopped himself from a quickly rearranging the man"s face. Elene laughed and poked the tense muscles of Kylar"s arm. "Come on, brawny," she said. "This is shopping. It"s fun."
"Fun?" he asked as she pulled him into the little well-lit shop.
The fat little man quickly handed them off to a pretty girl of maybe seventeen who smiled brightly at them. She was pet.i.te, with a slender figure, dazzling blue eyes, and a large mouth that made her smile huge. It was Golden Hair. Kylar goggled as his daylight and shadow worlds crossed.
"h.e.l.lo," Golden Hair said. She glanced down at the wedding bands on their hands. "I"m Capricia. Have you ever been to a ringery before?"
After Kylar didn"t say anything for a long moment, Elene gently dug an elbow into his ribs. "No," she said.
Kylar blinked. Elene was shaking her head at him, obviously thinking he was ogling Capricia, but she didn"t look mad, just bemused. He shook his head, No, it"s not like that. No, it"s not like that.
She c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him. Right. Right.
"Well, let"s start at the beginning then," Capricia said, pulling out a wide drawer lined with black velvet and putting it on a counter. It was filled with tiny, paired rings of gold and silver and bronze, some decorated with rubies or garnets or amethyst or diamonds or opals, some plain, some textured. "You"ve seen people wearing these all over the city, right?"
Elene nodded. Kylar looked at her blankly. He looked at Capricia. She wasn"t wearing one, not that he could see. Were they toe-rings? He stood on his tiptoes to see over the counter to see Capricia"s feet.
Capricia caught him looking and laughed. She had the kind of laugh that made you want to join in, even when she was laughing at you. "No, no," she said. "I don"t wear one! I"m not married. Why are you looking at my feet?"
Elene slapped her forehead. "Men!"
"Oh," Kylar said. "They"re earrings!"
Capricia laughed again.
"What?" he asked. "Women wear matching earrings where we come from. These are all different sizes."
The girls laughed louder and it dawned on him. The earrings weren"t for women; they were for couples. One for the man; one for the woman. "Oh," he said.
That would explain all the men he"d seen wearing earrings. He scowled. He could have said which men were concealing weapons in their clothing and known their likely degrees of proficiency with them; what did he care about what they wore in their ears?
"Wow. Look at those," Elene said, pointing a pair of silvery-gold sparkling rings that looked suspiciously expensive. "Aren"t they beautiful?" She turned to Capricia. "Will you tell us all about the rings? We"re, ahem, a little unfamiliar with the tradition." Conspicuously, they didn"t look at Kylar.
"Here in Waeddryn, when a man wishes to marry a woman, he buys a set of rings and gives them to her. Of course, there is a public ceremony, but the wedding itself is performed in private. You two are married already, right?"
"Right," Kylar said. "We"re just new to the city."
"Well, if you"re looking to get married in the Waeddryner way, but maybe don"t have the money or the inclination for a big ceremony, it"s very simple. You don"t have to worry about the ceremony at all. The marriage is recognized as long as you"ve been nailed."
"Nailed?" Kylar asked, his eyes widening.
Capricia flushed. "I mean, as long as you"ve affixed the seal of your love, or been ringed. But, well, most people just call it getting nailed."
"I"m guessing that"s not part of the usual pitch," Kylar said.
"Kylar," Elene said, elbowing him as Capricia flushed again. "Can we see the wedding knives?" she asked sweetly.
Capricia pulled out another drawer lined with black velvet. It was full of ornate daggers with tiny tips.
Kylar recoiled.
Capricia and Elene giggled. "It gets scarier," Capricia said. She smiled her huge smile. "Generally right before... ah, right before the marriage is consummated," she was trying to sound professional, but her ears were bright pink. "Sorry, I"ve never actually had to explain this. I-Master Bourary usually-never mind. When a man and woman marry, the woman has to give up a lot of her freedom."
"The woman does?" Kylar asked. The look Elene gave him this time was less amused. He swallowed his laughter.
"So the nailing-the ringing or affixing of the seal-"
"Just call it nailing," Kylar said.
"I slipped up, I"m really supposed to call it-" she saw the look on Kylar"s face "-right. When the bride and groom retire to their bedchamber, the man gives the rings and the wedding knife to the bride. The man must submit to her. Often, she will..." Capricia blinked and her ears went pink again. She cleared her throat. "Often, she will entice the groom for some time. Then she pierces her own left ear wherever she desires and places her ring there. Then she sits astride her husband on the marriage bed and pierces his left ear."
Kylar"s mouth dropped open.
"It"s not that bad. It just depends on where your wife decides to-" Capricia looked up as Master Bourary walked into the shop, "affix the seal. Through the ear lobe isn"t that bad, but some women will pierce, well, like Master Bourary"s wife."
Kylar looked at the round, grinning little man. He wore a glittering gold earring sparkling with rubies. It was through the top of his ear. "Hurt like h.e.l.l," Master Bourary said. "They call it breaking the maidenhead."
A little moue of pain escaped Kylar"s lips. "What?"
Elene was blushing, but her eyes were dancing. For a second he could swear that she was imagining nailing him.
"Well, it"s only fair, isn"t it?" Master Bourary said. "If a woman has to deal with pain and blood on her wedding night, why shouldn"t a man? I tell you what, it makes you gentler. Especially if she twists your ear to remind you!" He guffawed. "That"s what you get after twenty generations of queens." He laughed ruefully, but he didn"t seem displeased by it.
These people, Kylar realized, were totally mad.
"But that"s not the magical part," Capricia said, realizing Kylar was fast losing interest. "When the wife places the ring on her husband"s ear, she has to focus all of her love and devotion and desire to be married on the ring, and only then will it seal. If the woman doesn"t truly want to be married, it won"t even seal."
"But once sealed," Master Bourary said, "neither heaven nor h.e.l.l can open the ring again. Look," he said. He reached over and slipped the wedding ring off of Kylar"s left hand. "Barely a difference in the tan under your ring, huh? Haven"t been hitched long?"
"You could make some good ring mail with that trick," Kylar said, trying to circ.u.mvent the pitch.
"Oh, honey, stop it, I"m swooning," Elene said, tugging at the bodice of her dress as if she were getting overheated. "You"re so romantic."
"Well, actually," Master Bourary said, "the first pract.i.tioners of our art were armorers. But look," he said, turning his attention to Elene, obviously seeing her as a more friendly target for his pitch. "With this ring, he can slip it off, it could fall off by itself, who knows? He goes to a tavern and b.u.mps into some tart, and how"s she to know that she"s poaching on another woman"s land? Not that you would ever do that, of course, sir. But with our rings, a married man is always known to be married. Really it"s a protection even for women who would flirt with a man without realizing he was married.
"And... if a man or woman wants a divorce-well, you"ve got to rip that d.a.m.n ring right out of your ear. Cuts down on divorces, I promise you. But affixing the seal isn"t done out of fear, to keep a man or a woman from cuckolding their spouse. It"s deeper than that. When a man and woman are sealed, they activate an ancient magic in these rings, a magic that grows as their love grows. It"s a magic that helps you feel what your spouse is feeling, a magic that deepens your love and understanding for each other, that helps you communicate more clearly, that-"
"And let me guess," Kylar said. "The more expensive rings have more magic."
Elene"s elbow was anything but gentle this time. "Kylar," she said through her teeth.
Master Bourary blinked. "Let me a.s.sure you, young master, every ring I make is imbued with magic, even the simplest and cheapest copper band of mine won"t break. But yes, I absolutely do spend more time and energy on the gold and mistarille rings. Not only because the people who buy those rings pay more, but also because those materials hold a spell far better than copper or bronze or silver ever could."
"Right," Kylar said. "Well, thanks for your time." He pulled Elene out of the store.
She was not pleased. She stopped in the street. "Kylar, you are a complete a.s.s."
"Honey, didn"t you hear what he just said? Some armorer a long time ago had a Talent that would seal metal rings together. Good talent for an armorer, he can bang out ring mail in days rather than months. Then he gets smart and figures that he can make a lot more money by selling each ring for hundreds of gold than for selling a full set of ring mail for maybe fifty. And lo and behold, an industry"s born. It"s all horses.h.i.t. All that "growing to understand each other better" stuff? That"s what happens to everyone who gets married. And oh, the gold ones have more magic... how obvious is that? Did you see how many of their rings were gold? They probably get nine tenths of the poor idiots in this city to save up for a gold ring they can"t afford because what woman is going to be happy if she gets a copper ring that "barely holds the spell"?"
"I would," she said quietly.
It took the wind out of him.
She covered her face. "I thought if you ever wanted to get married for real, that, you know. It would be a way we could make it official. If we ever wanted to. I mean, I know we"re not ready for that. I"m not suggesting that we do that right away or anything."
Why am I always the a.s.shole?
Because she"s too good for you.
"So you knew what that place was?" he asked, more gently, although he was still p.i.s.sed off, though he couldn"t have said whether it was at her or at himself.
"Aunt Mea told me about it."
"Is that why you"ve been nibbling on my ears at night?"
"Kylar!" she said.
"Is it?"
"Aunt Mea said it works wonders." Elene couldn"t meet his gaze; she was totally mortified.
"Well maybe for these twists!"