Wall of Shiuan

“I need a change of clothing,” he said to the servants; they flinched from him as if he had a devil, and made haste to put themselves in the shadow of the guards, beginning to withdraw.

“The firewood is almost gone,” he shouted at them, irrational panic taking him at the thought of dark and cold in the room thereafter. “It will not last the day.”

The servants fled; the guards withdrew, closing the door. The bolt went home.

He was trembling, raging at what he knew not: Roh, the lords of this place—at himself, who had walked willingly into it He stood now and stared at the door, knowing that no force would avail against it, and that no shouting would bring him freedom. He limped over to the table and sat down on the end of the bench, reckoning coldly, remembering every door, every turning, every detail of the hold inside and out. And somewhere within Ohtij-in—he tried to remember that room too—was Jhirun, whom he could not help.

He drank of what the servants had left—sparingly, reckoning that if his hosts were unwilling to give him firewood to keep him warm they would likely bring him nothing else for the day; he ate, likewise sparingly, and turned constantly in his mind the image he could shape of the hold, its corridors, its gates, the number of the men who guarded it, coming again and again to the same conclusion: that he could not pass so many barriers and remain a fugitive across a land that he did not know, afoot, knowing no landmark but the road—on which his enemies could swiftly find him.

Only Roh came and went where he would.

Roh might set him upon that road. There would be a cost for that freedom. The food went tasteless in his mouth the while he considered what it might cost him, to be set at Abarais, to obtain Roh’s trust.

To destroy Roh: this was the thing she had set him last to do, a matter as simple as his given word, from which there was no release and no appeal, be it an act honorable or dishonorable: honor was not in question between ilin and liyo.

It was not necessary to wonder what would befall him thereafter; it did not matter thereafter to what he had sworn—it was a weight no longer on his conscience, a last discharge of obligations.

He became strangely comfortable then, knowing the limits of his existence, knowing that it was not necessary any longer to struggle against Roh’s reasoning. He had, for the first time in his life, accounted for all possibilities and understood all that was necessary to understand.

None came near the room. The long day passed. Vanye went earliest to the window, that he thought a mercy of his jailers, narrow though it was, a kindness to allow him access to the sky—until he eased back the wooden slat that covered it. There was nothing beyond but a stone wall that he could almost touch with outstretched arm; and when he leaned against the sill and tried to see downward, there was a ledge below. On the left was a buttress of the tower, that cut off his view; on the right was another wall, likewise near enough to touch.

He left the window unshuttered, despite the blindness of it and despite the occasional chill draft. So long accustomed to the sky above him, he found the closeness of walls unbearable. He watched the daylight grow until the sun shone straight down the shaft, and watched it fade into shadow again as the sun declined in the sky. He listened to the wailing of children, the sounds of livestock, the squealing of wheels, as if the gates of Ohtij-in were open and some manner of normal traffic had begun. Men shouted, accented words that he did not recognize, but he was glad to hear the voices, which seemed coarsely ordinary and human.

A shadow began to fall, more swiftly than the decline of the day; thunder rumbled. Drops of rain spattered the tiny area of ledge visible beneath the window—drops that ceased, began again, pattering with increasing force as the sprinkling became a shower.

And the last of the wood burned out, despite his careful hoarding of the last small logs and pieces. The room chilled. Outside, the rain whispered steadily down the shaft.

Metal clattered up the hall, the sound of armed men. It was not the first time in the day: occasionally there had come sounds from within the tower, distant and meaning nothing. Vanye only stirred when he realized they were growing nearer—rose to his feet in the almost-darkness, hoping for such petty and precious things as firewood and food and drink, and fearing that their business might be something else.

Let it be Roh, be thought, trembling with anxiety, the anticipation of all things at an end, only so the chance presented itself.

The bolt went back. He blinked in the flare of torches that filled the opening door, that made shadows of the guards and the men until they were within the room: light glittered on brocade, gleamed on bronze helms and on pale hair.