piece of story
Kill her? Against all he stood for. He reached to choke her and she struck him under the ribs with her fist. He gasped for air and she reached for a walking-stick, or something, and swiped at him, screaming. His arm came up in a block-THWACK!
He’d bruise there, and painfully, but he-
Agitation in the darkened house, male voices. He decided, leapt to the top of a low earthen wall between the two houses’ back gardens, hid in the deep shade of an awning.
Conversation in Fayesh, too colloquial and too fast for him to follow. Dhai-dammit, why couldn’t everyone speak the same language?
No doubt she was hustled indoors and armed men, armed somehow, anyway, were looking for him, and he smiled.
Distraction. Just what he needed.
He heard noises from the house next door, saw a shutter open, below him, suggestion of a face looking out. He pried a fragment of stucco from the wall, tossed it into the overgrown back garden of the house where he thought that...something was going on.
A man’s shape, the walk hinting at armor, dim in the glow of the Hundred Stars and low Kinney, a small disc in this house’s slot of sky. Charthat dropped quiet as he could into the little garden, the noise of his sword masked in the bustle of men next door seeking him, one trying, by the sounds he made, to climb the wall. He crept up behind the man, drew a knife, and asked pardon of the Dhai, then cut the man’s throat. Gurgled scream from the man, since Charthat was no assassin, and didn’t know how to murder quietly. (On the practice field at Vokherkhe, it took a long time to train novices not to scream when they struck; some of them seemed to think that their goal was to scare the foe to death.)
Two more ran out, and came at him in the dark with swords. He dropped the knife, drew his own sword, and parried one cut, dodged the other and thrust at one man’s face. The fellow knocked the blade aside with the vambrace on his arm, but then Charthat feinted, snapped the blade back, and tried a disarm. The other swordsman cut at him, half-blindly, and called in Fayesh that there were men out there attacking them.
I am an army?, thought Charthat, and was amused. He kicked at one man’s kneecap and connected solidly, the man going down, swinging at him, cutting into his thick coat, scraping his skin beneath. The other fellow jabbed at him wildly, panicked, and he countered, then chopped at the man’s neck. Blood fountained and sprayed him and both of the warriors. The man fell dead.
The man who’d been kneecapped stabbed into Charthat’s thigh with a knife. Charthat gasped at the pain, then contained it with the monastic disciplines, and cut at the knife hand. He managed to pin the man down, asked him in crude Fayesh, “You soldiers, you take holy man, Areikhong Weltha’s son? You take?”
“You don’t know what we take, for you will die, replied the man, wrestled his arm free and sliced at Charthat’s face, missing as they twisted and bucked on the dirty slates of the yard. “We will kill you,” he said.
“No,” said Charthat, and smacked the man’s head, hard, on the stones. The fellow went limp. Now Charthat, pallid-faced, dropped his breeches and bandaged his thigh, the cut bleeding heavily.
They found him there, armed men with crossbows and spears, and urged him to pull his pants up and come with them. There was little choice but to comply.
He found himself wondering why he wasn’t killed on the spot. Later he reasoned that they had been told of a mob attacking him, and wanted a hostage or at least information on who was going to attack.
Holding him, two men brought him into a room lit by candles and oil-lamps in glass chimneys. The ceiling was blackened by the smoky lamps. Round the room were low tables and backrests, a sort of bench running round the wall.
A great majolica vase on a tiled floor.
A group of men, armed, huddled there, and in their midst was Master Areikhong We’altha.
“So,” said one who seemed to be the obvious leader. “You come here with your armed goons, to attack us, when what you oppose is accomplished. How many of you lie dead outside? You have lost, fool. The Holy Cause is won.”
What Holy Cause?, he didn’t ask.
“The Holy Cause doesn’t seem too holy-“ Charthat was punched by his captors- “when it relies on kidnaping the man of the Lady God-“ They hit him again, in the face, this time. It hurt, but he was used to being punched, on the drillfield or off. “You are dead men, you know. Even if Inanigani justice-“
They hit him some more. He could do little to dodge or avoid the blows, and he’d leave this place in bad shape, even if, curled on the floor, as he was, he didn’t reopen the wound on his thigh.
A soldier came and told the leader that there were no more
He tried to pull himself into the meditative space that withstood pain, and was understandably distracted. Ugh. He heard the voice of Master Areikhong speaking, softly, in a Fayesh so laced with the sing-song of the Charen that it was gibberish to him, the others speaking, the beating stopped.
“Now,” the leader said as Charthat gasped. “You are some fool of a warrior who came here, seeking a name in the hero-tales, someone who thinks himself a Champion, maybe. Ere you die, you will know yourself lost, a failure.”
“Huh?” Kill me already and spare me the speech, he did not say. He lay curled on the floor hoping that his wound was not bleeding any more than it had to. It could be his death, he knew, his passage to the next life, but he had a few things left in this life, he hoped.
“Tell him, you of the Prophet’s blood.” Charthat slid around into a kneeling position, his weight compressing the bandage onto his thigh, stopping the wound. He hoped.
This really hurt.
Master Areikhong We’altha spoke.
“I am the descendent of the Prophet and the recipient of the Blessing of God Herself.” He looked at nothing, as far as Charthat could tell. “I have asked for God to speak to me and She has answered. Her words were these. The Concordat is a lie of the Dark. This is a holy war. Leave none of the idolators alive; leave no stone on another.”
Charthat was baffled and terrified. Terrified, because holy war backed by the family of the Prophet would mean enormous casualties and the ruin of Vokherkhe, his home. Baffled, because he didn’t know what was making the man say this. No one threatened him overtly. Weapons were pointed at Charthat, not the holy man.
He knew one thing for sure.
The man was lying. Not lying in the the sense that there wasn’t a god, or that God hadn’t spoken to him. That sort of lie, a priest couldn’t detect; no one gave off the signs of lying when they believed themselves to be telling the truth. But in training to take confessions, he had been taught the most common signs of lying, and he was sometimes wrong. Not often.
Master Areikhong We’altha believed in God, and in the revelation to the Prophet, but he didn’t believe what he was telling Charthat. And he was on the way to tell...
A council of priests. This was disaster in the making, apocalypse. Who were these men? And what did they think that they were doing?
Religious fanatics, he thought. Lunatics would-be holy warriors. Would they march to the Nurro themselves, looting and burning, or would they slay any faTheyists here? Or would they stay home, encouraging others and taking no part themselves?
He didn’t know. He was being stared at, expected to speak.
“Yes, uh. Yes, Master Areikhong,” he said in Farash, and saw the tailor’s eyes widen slightly. He made sure to speak slowly. “When we last spoke, you and I, you told me, sir, that our friend Beonat, Gap’s son, had asked you to pray to God Herself for a revelation.” There was no such person, but beongap in Farash means lies told by men.
He saw recognition on Areikhong’s face. The leader of the goons said, “What does he say? Ignorant fool, talk like a normal person!”
“My son,” Master Areikhong said, “he is a foreigner, and, injured as he is, forgets to speak our language, which he knows little of in any case.” His tone was soft, his expression mild.
“Some Darked fool he is, to think he can come in-“
“Master,”Charthat broke in. “Whom have you told of your great revelation?”
“It was made clear to me,” he said with a sidelong glance at the leader of the armed men, “that I was to inscribe it as soon as possible, and to put the Blessing on it, that it might be announced to the Faithful all throughout the world.”
“Master, have you indeed inscribed it?”
“My son,” the tailor said, “in truth, I have. And a Runner has departed this place with-“ The men looked at the tailor. Charthat realized that he, himself, was unbound, save that arms pointed at him.
He kicked with his unwounded leg, and the brass vase came crashing down on the tiles with a terrific BONG. One man swore.
Another grabbed for the huge vase, slipped on tiles covered by Charthat’s oozing blood, and flopped down onto the vase, sending it BONG, BONG, BONG across the floor.
Two other men hit Charthat, causing him to black out for a moment. His consciousness wavered, came to; he was pinned between two men with knives, and he hurt, a lot. Someone was hitting him: BAM! BAM! It didn’t hurt.
Huh?
He hurt no more than....if someone had been hitting the door.
The front door.
Of this house.
He saw armed men, his vision greying and his mind worrying, somewhat, about bleeding, because that was bad, wasn’t it?
It was bad.
There was wet heat on his leg and he sat in it. Blood.
His blood, he thought, as he heard a Fayesh voice shouting for “Sejak! Sejak!” They called for a doctor, he thought.
***
He woke, not in a comfortable bed, but on a couch, a blur above him resolving into a ceiling. He was bandaged, and it took some effort not to move.
He dozed.
He woke, and Hilojat was there. “Charthat, will you stop doing this?”
“Huh?”
“Almost getting killed. It troubles me. Eventually you won’t wake.”
Charthat replied, “It wasn’t deliberate. I was afraid for him.”
“Who?”
“Master Areikhong. He’s a nice guy.”
Hilojat laughed. “He is the descendent of the Prophet.”
“He is also a nice guy. Who could’ve been a real apefuck to us, and instead made time to listen to us, and even tried to help us.”
“He did. How much did you know?”, asked Hilojat.
“Huh?”
“How much of what happened did you know? And how much did you figure out?”
“Oh.” Charthat tried to think. “I knew he was gone. Not at the shop, not loitering in some teahouse. He was missing. I knew he was.
--the man’s son is the spy. He dies.