Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01] - D'Shai Read online

  That was a bonus; it was not what Dun Lidjun was looking for in a warrior candidate. He was looking for something more fundamental: for the promise of kazuh, the base of kazuh.

  “Your name, boy?” he asked of the second of the four, a skinny dark-haired boy, peasant-bronzed by the sun beneath the band of paleness at the forehead.

  “I am called Loud Noise, Lord,” the boy said, formally.

  “Ah. Well, Evaki Belang, it seems you wish to be a warrior?”

  “Oh, yes, Lord.”

  “Very well. Simply, you have two ways to do so: either defeat me, or impress me,” Dun Lidjun said, exchanging his Eisenlith sword for one of the two wooden practice swords that Arefai carried.

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Take up the sword. Attack me. Now, boy.”

  All mattered, and nothing mattered, as the boy approached him, the sword held high over his head, intending to slash down at Dun Lidjun.

  A simple response was all it would take, really: a smacking parry as Evaki Belang staggered by, followed by a quick slap to the back, across the kidneys. A sword would cut, but the stick could kill.

  No. Dun Lidjun had not raised kazuh simply to slap the boy’s kidney out through his belly or to snap his spine.

  The purpose was to test, to see if he could get even a dim feeling of kazuh from the boy. Like resonates to like, and even the greater resonates to the lesser.

  Still, the smacking parry seemed reasonable; the wooden sword, guided by his floating thumb and forefinger, slapped the mirror-bright Sunder blade to one side as Dun Lidjun stepped easily to the other.

  The boy surprised him; he turned as he ran by, and tried to slash back at Dun Lidjun. But it didn’t matter; Dun Lidjun used a falling leaves cut, slashing down at the challenge sword and riding it down, like a golden autumn leaf descending to the ground on the back of a falling hand.

  The challenge sword fell to the grass, and Evaki Belang stumbled on the gravel.

  Dun Lidjun dropped kazuh.

  “No,” he said.

  With one word, with a wave of his hand, with no trace of regret or equivocation he dismissed Evaki Belang, sending the now stoop-shouldered boy back to his fields, to a life with his toes full of dung.

  A pleasant lad, yes, but not a warrior. Never to be a warrior.

  “Next,” Dun Lidjun said, gesturing to the third of the four boys.

  “I am Erife Ver Hosten, Lord Dun Lidjun.” He was a well-made, although gangling boy, moving with too much self-confidence by half as he took up the sword, then tossed his head to clear his too-long hair from his eyes.

  This one Dun Lidjun knew: he was the youngest son of a dauber, tired of spending days sweating over his black iron pots. The middle class had higher status than peasants, and often lived better, but sometimes all that meant was that they had more opportunities to be sneered at by both bourgeois and nobility, to be looked at as though no bath could ever remove their stink.

  Dun Lidjun remembered that feeling all too well, even after all these years.

  Erife Ver Hosten moved in smoothly, confidently—or at least with assumed confidence—the point of his sword rising high.

  Trying to take his measure, Dun Lidjun tentatively slashed out at him, and the boy cut down at Dun Lidjun’s wooden sword. The Sunder sword sliced neatly through the wood, taking with it more than half the length.

  Erife Ver Hosten tried to follow through, but Dun Lidjun raised kazuh and blurred into him, the remnant of his wooden sword catching the flat of the blade as Dun Lidjun came belly to belly with the boy.

  Erife Ver Hosten broke away, and tried to slash down, but Dun Lidjun closed, blocked up against the descending hands. The old warrior expanded his body and spirit and cut down, hard, against Erife Ver Hosten’s head. The wooden sword split to the hilt.

  For a moment, Dun Lidjun thought that his kazuh had deserted him, and in that moment, of course his kazuh did desert him; he staggered back, off balance.

  But then the boy’s eyes rolled up, and his knees buckled, and he fell, stunned as though poleaxed. He would have fallen across the challenge sword if the fourth boy hadn’t quickly moved in and snatched it up.

  The fourth boy turned toward Dun Lidjun, his head erect, his neck and body straight but not strained, his gaze perceptive.

  “And why do you not strike?” the old warrior asked.

  “I doubt that you could learn enough from me right now, Lord Dun Lidjun,” the last boy said. “Please take up another sword, so that the examination might continue.”

  He stood calmly, balanced, waiting.

  Dun Lidjun looked down at the broken hilt in his hands. “Don’t you think that you could kill an unarmed old man?”

  The boy stood, calmly waiting. “No, I don’t think I could hurt you, Lord Dun Lidjun. And no, Lord Dun Lidjun, I don’t think you are unarmed.”

  Dun Lidjun tossed the broken hilt away. “Set the challenge sword down, boy—what is your name?”

  “I’m called Twan Rebet, lord,” the boy said, not lowering the sword, still balanced easily on his feet. “I would like to be tested, if it please you.”

  “Ah. And if it doesn’t please me?”

  “Then I will still be tested, Lord Dun Lidjun,” He said it not as a challenge, but in a measured way, as though commenting that thunder was loud, iron cool, or salt salty.

  “As you will.” Dun Lidjun took up the other practice sword, and saluted Twan Rebet. “Lesson the second, boy: remember the first lesson.”

  “Eh?”

  Dun Lidjun raised kazuh, closed and disarmed the boy with one violent sweep, sending the challenge sword tumbling end-over-end into the air, leaving Twan Rebet empty-handed.

  Twan Rebet bowed deeply, his eyes on Dun Lidjun, his feet solid on the ground as though planted. “I thank you for your consideration, Lord Dun Lidjun,” he said, starting to turn away.

  “Stop,” Dun Lidjun snapped out.

  The boy halted in midturn, almost losing his balance. “Lord?”

  Dun Lidjun raised kazuh and kicked him in the buttocks, sending the boy sprawling forward. “Let that be the last time you do that, boy. Stop, stand, sprint, scurry, squat, sprawl, sit—but keep your balance, always.”

  Dun Lidjun looked around, but he already knew that there was no harm in speaking bluntly. Erife Ver Hosten was still unconscious, and the rest of those in the garden were warriors, and all knew the secret of the warrior kazuh. Except for Ben Der Donesey, and he would have to be not only told the secret, but taught it.

  “Now, up, up,” Dun Lidjun said, helping Twan Rebet to his feet.

  Lord Arefai unbuckled his own everyday sword, a fine Least Frosuffold, and belted it about the boy’s waist. “Use this sword well, and in Lord Toshtai’s service, Twan Rebet.”

  Ben Der Donesey’s brow seemed to have taken up a permanent wrinkle. A flicker of kazuh, that boy certainly had. But not understanding, the understanding that Arefai demonstrated as he stood next to Twan Rebet, beaming like a proud father.

  Dun Lidjun wasn’t surprised, although he was disappointed in himself.

  I grow old and foolish.

  “A good day, eh, Lord Dun Lidjun?” Lord Arefai asked, as they walked back up the twisting path toward the gleaming keep above. “Two in one day?”

  “That it is, Lord Arefai,” Dun Lidjun said, as though he had expected nothing more and nothing less. Which, in a sense, was true: he had expected that those who deserved to become warriors would, and those who did not so deserve would not.

  “Father will be pleased.”

  “As he should.” Dun Lidjun stopped. “Lord Arefai,” he said. “The next time, if you’re available, I would be pleased to assist you in the testing.”

  “Ah.” Arefai broke into a broad smile. “I am honored,” he said. He leaned close to Dun Lidjun. “I hope I’m as successful as you were, today.”

  “Fortunate, Lord Arefai.”

  “Well, that’s true. But still—two at one challenge? Marvelous, Lord Dun Lidju
n.”

  “That it is.”

  While Dun Lidjun’s kazuh wouldn’t desert him as long as life breathed motion into his tired bones, he decided that his judgment was starting to slip away. He should have given Arefai the chance to evaluate these candidates; of course Arefai would have seen how the boy balanced himself, and would have understood.

  Even an old fool like Dun Lidjun could see that. Any trained kazuh warrior could have seen it, simply by looking at the way the boy stood:

  Balanced.

  It was the secret of the warrior, it was the basic truth of the warrior:

  Balance—not the earnestness of an Evaki Belang or the cleverness of an Erife Ver Hosten, not even the fluke kazuh of a Ben Der Donesey—not speed nor power nor strength, but balance—is the Way of the Warrior.

  * * *

  6

  Descent

  I WASN’T USED to being a substitute Eresthai, and it didn’t sit well with me, not even in practice.

  I busied myself in the small room on the third floor of the donjon, the one we were using as an entrance and exit for the highwire act, checking the gear inside, and perhaps making an occasional mild comment about how I wasn’t completely happy with the situation.

  Father, on the other hand, was supervising, and being every bit as flexible as usual.

  “—you will be of help, and since you can not go on, you will be of help setting up, and work backstage along with the Eresthais. We will not announce that you are not playing tonight; we shall treat it as though that were part of the act.”

  It’s shameful not to pull your own cart, and I was having none of it.

  “I can go on,” I said, giving another tightening twist to the turnbuckle that kept the highwire straight, then rapped on it with the rubber hammer. “I can play.”

  Not enough treble. You can keep them singing-taut at all times, but it’s a bad idea; the song tires the cable strands.

  It’s not a good idea to loosen them all the way, either, not between shows—that wears out the joints. The best way to preserve the life of the equipment is to treat it gently, tentatively: keep it reasonably taut after you set it up, tune it up for practice, then back down after, and then tighten it back up before the performance.

  It’s a compromise, and compromise is closely related to balance.

  “No, you can’t, for two reasons. For one, you are badly bruised—”

  “Not that badly.”

  “—and for another, you cannot go on because I say you cannot go on.”

  I was hurting, but I could perform. He was having none of it, though, and that was that.

  “Gray Khuzud?” Fhilt was outside; he had been going over the trap rigging. “I don’t like this hawser—I think we’d best replace it.”

  “I’ll be along in a moment,” Gray Khuzud called out. “There is no need for discussion,” he said to me, already heading for the door. “I will see you at showtime. Finish here.”

  I did.

  The room was cooling as the evening came on; I walked over to the trunk and pulled back the straps so I could open it and get at an overshirt.

  I looked down at my chest, wishing for once that it had a mat of hair covering its blank slickness—purple isn’t my color.

  But the bones weren’t broken, not anymore. I ached, but I could function.

  Across the quadrangle, just barely within the walls of the inner bailey, the old donjon stood in the dusk, its walls a weakening gold in the fading light.

  Long ago, it had been the main building, perhaps the only building within the walls, possibly built under the direction of Oroshtai himself when he originally founded the town as his winter retreat from his duties to the Scion.

  But some time after the fall of the Oroshtai Tenancy, or perhaps during the fall of the Tenancy, Den Oroshtai had become the lord’s seat, and the old donjon had become too cramped for his full array of staff. These days, it was the residence of retainers—everyone who Lord Toshtai didn’t particularly want near him—and had a third-floor guesting residence for visiting nobility.

  Narantir had the basement all to himself. Nobody likes to bother a wizard while he’s at work, and few like to be near one when he’s at play. In the big cities—Patrice, Der Field, Thurrock—it’s different: the wizards’ schools can’t be solo affairs, for obvious reasons.

  The second floor held both the secondary barracks and the main armory of Den Oroshtai—including Refle’s workshop. It was easy to tell where the forge was; anybody could have seen where the ashpile stood against the wall below, beneath what had once been a garderobe. The armorer’s forge was clearly a later addition: its chimney, built against the outside of the wall, was of a lighter stone than the rest of the old donjon.

  And if that hadn’t been enough of a clue, I could see the top of a rack of swords through a partly open window.

  It would be difficult to get in, but not impossible. Anybody who could get to the third floor or the roof could tie a rope and climb, letting themselves in through the window.

  If they could get past the guards and to the roof, which they couldn’t.

  An old oak tree stood near the building, and a long branch reached out toward it, missing by a man-length. It wouldn’t have been allowed to stand there, not in the old days—it wouldn’t have made a good road for an assassin, but it might have made a credible one, back before the kazuh of assassins was declared profane and anathema, and extinguished.

  The branch ran along the morningwise wall of the old donjon, the wall facing the curtain wall of the inner bailey—not quite concealed, but not out in the open. Only an assassin could have kept his balance as he ran along the branch, building up enough speed to make the leap to the windowsill, catching himself carefully with toes and fingers, then releasing the hooks and swinging the windows open.

  Only an assassin, or an acrobat. And a good acrobat, at that. There would be no way to practice it. I would have to be a good acrobat.

  I’ve been a good one, for a few moments, now and then.

  “I doubt he has stored it in there,” Enki Duzun said, touching me on the elbow. I hadn’t heard her walk up. Not listening to what was going on was getting to be a habit with me, and not a good one.

  “So do I, but do you have any better ideas?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Give up the girl; forget about the beating. On with the show, and then when the show is finished here, onwards to Minnae, where there’s another girl, and then on to Bergeenen, Wei, and Patrice. Before you know it we’ll be high in Helgramyth, headed for Otland, and I know how you like Helish and Ots.”

  I didn’t answer.

  Enki Duzun sighed. She knew what my silence meant.

  Fhilt leaned in through the window; I’d forgotten he was just outside, on the platform.

  “You’re being more stupid than Large Egda, you know.” He raised a hand. “Not that I’ve always thought that possible, mind, but it’s clear that it is. Egda wouldn’t be able to come up with a reason for doing anything this dim.”

  I glared at him. “You leave Large Egda alone. You’re always picking on him.”

  “Hey, hey,” Fhilt said. “That’s all in fun. He knows that, and you ought to.”

  “You’re trying to change the subject,” I said. “And—”

  “And not doing a very good job,” Enki Duzun muttered.

  “—and I won’t have it.” I tried to explain. “I can’t help it—I’ve always been stubborn.” It’s how I’ve mastered, or at least learned, what skills I have learned: it’s always been sheer, pure, unadulterated stubbornness.

  “There is that.” Enki Duzun frowned, as though she didn’t like the taste of her words.

  “There is also growing out of it,” Fhilt said.

  Enki Duzun was silent for a long moment. “It isn’t impossible,” she went on. “You’ll be exposed as you go in.”

  “Not terribly exposed,” I said. “If I were to be challenged, I’m merely working on a new entrance for the act tonight.” />
  Fhilt nodded judiciously. “Once you get in, then you should be safe. As safe as you could be, in the armory. Which is not very, Kami Khuzud.”

  “We have the run of the castle, save—”

  “Save where guards or locks block our way,” Enki Duzun said. “Technically, you couldn’t be faulted for going in that way. But, technically, brother mine, Lord Toshtai can take your head for any reason, or no reason at all, even if you do find what you’re looking for.”

  Fhilt stepped in through the window. “This is a silly idea. Haven’t you ever heard the old saying, ‘Don’t carry your footprints with you’? Leave it all be, Kami Khuzud.”

  “He won’t be expecting it.” Refle was an arrogant man; he might not even have gotten rid of the cloak and gloves, and perhaps kept the truncheon. Armorers, like the warriors they are in legal theory if not in frequent fact, have a reverence for the tools that they create.

  It was worth a try.

  “I should ask if she’s worth it, but it doesn’t matter at this point, does it?” Enki Duzun asked.

  “Eh?”

  “Even if NaRee were to dust you off now, you’d still want to expose Refle, for beating you. I know you, Kami Khuzud; you’ve never learned to leave your footprints behind you.” She sighed.

  Fhilt stripped off his jerkin and worked his shoulders. “Very well, then. I’ll do it.” His mouth tightened, making him look vaguely toadfaced.

  “Eh?”

  “This is not a job for clumsy Kami Khuzud.” Fhilt spread his hands. “It’s going to take a better acrobat than you are to get in through the window. I’m a better acrobat than you are. So I do it.”

  Sometimes, I just don’t understand Fhilt. When I’d been hurt he was more concerned about his loss of sleep than my broken bones and spilled blood, and here he was offering to risk his life on the small chance that he could find some evidence against Refle.

  I was about to agree, when he looked over across the courtyard. “Now, which room do you think is the armory?”