Wall of Shiuan

Liell, sardonic master of Leth, whose mocking humor and soft lies he well knew: he watched sharply for that, waited for the arrogant and incalculably ancient self to look out at him through Roh’s human eyes—for that familiar and grandiose movement of the hands, some gesture that would betray the alien resident within his cousin’s body.

There was nothing of the like. Roh sat still, watching him, his quick eyes following each move: afraid, that was evident. Reckless: that was like Roh, utterly.

He drew the sword entirely. Now, he thought. Now, if ever—before conscience, before pity. His arm tensed. But Roh simply stared at him, a little flinching when he moved.

“No!” Jhirun cried from across the room. It came near loosing his arm before he had consciously willed it; he stayed the blow—jolted to remember a courtyard in Morija, and blood, and sickness that knotted in him, robbing him suddenly of strength.

With a curse he rammed the sword into sheath, knowing himself, as Roh had known him.

Coward, his shorn hair marked him. He saw the narrow satisfaction in Roh’s eyes.

“It is good to see you,” Roh said in a hollow, careful voice. “Nhi Vanye, it is good to see any kindred soul in this forsaken land. But I am sorry for your sake. I had thought that you would have used good sense and ridden home. I never thought that you would have come with her, even if she ordered it. Nhi honor: it is a compulsion. I am sorry for it. But the sight of you is very welcome.”

“Liar,” Vanye said between his teeth; but the words, like a Chya shaft, flew accurately to the mark. He felt the wound, the desperation of exile, in which Roh—anyone who could prove that the things he remembered had ever existed—was a presence infinitely precious. The accents of home even on an enemy’s lips were beautiful.

“There is no point in quarreling before witnesses,” said Roh.

“There is no point in talking to you.”

“Nhi Vanye,” said Roh softly, “come with me. Outside. I have sent the guards elsewhere. Come.” He rose from the chair, moved carefully to the door, looking back at him. “Alone.”

Vanye hesitated. That door was what he most earnestly desired, but he knew no reason that Roh should wish him well. He tried to think what entrapment Roh needed use, and that was none at all.

“Come,” Roh urged him.

Vanye shrugged, went to the fireside, where his armor lay discarded—slung his swordbelt over his shoulder and hung the sword from it, ready to his hand: thus he challenged Roh.

“As you will,” Roh said. “But it is mine; and I will ask it back eventually.”

Jhirun came to the fireside, her eyes frightened, looking from one to the other of them: many, many things she had not said; Vanye felt the reminder in her glance.

“I would not leave her alone,” he said to Roh.

“She is safe,” Roh said. He looked directly at Jhirun, took her unresisting hand, and gone in him was every guardedness and ungentle tone. “Do not fear anything in Ohtij-in. I remember a kindness and return it doubled if I can, as I return other things. No harm will come to you. None.”

She stayed still, seeming to trust nothing. Vanye delayed, fearing to leave her, fearing that might be Roh’s purpose: to separate them; and in another mind, fearing what evil he might do her by holding to her, linking her with him, when he had only enemies in Ohtij-in.

“I do not think I have a choice,” he said to her, and did not know whether she understood. He turned his back on her, feeling her stare as he walked to the door. Roh opened it, brought him out into the dim corridor, where a cold wind hit his light clothing and set him shivering.

There were no guards in sight, not a stir anywhere in the corridor.

Roh closed the door and dropped the bar. “Come,” he said then, motioned to the left, toward the ascent of the spiral ramp.

Turn after turn they climbed, Roh slightly in the lead; and Vanye found his exhaustion such that he must put a hand on the core wall to steady his step. Roh climbed, limping only slightly, and Vanye glared at his back, his hand on the sword, waiting for Roh to show sensible fear of him and glance back only once; but Roh did not. Arrogant, Vanye thought, raging in his heart; but it was very like Roh.

At last they arrived at a level floor, and a doorway, up low steps. Roh opened that door, admitting a gust of wind that skirled violently into the tower, chilling the very bones. Outside was night, and the scent of recent rain.

He followed Roh outside, atop the very crest of the outermost tower of Ohtij-in, where the moons’ wan light streamed through the ragged clouds: Anli and Sith were overhead, and hard behind them hurtled the fragments of the Broken Moon, while on the horizon was the vast white face of Li, pocked and scarred. The wind swept freely across the open space. Vanye hung back, in the shelter of the tower core, but Roh walked to the edge, his cloak held closely about him in the blast of the wind.