Nineteen

R A N G E R

 

“I saw the night speak to me, Neythan. I saw the stars draw near as doves. When the moon was black, with a ring of light around it. And that was when it fell, into the sea. The moon, I mean. I saw it, watched it sink to the very bottom like a rock. It was then the stars told me I must follow, I must go and retrieve this fallen dark moon. But when I looked down into the sea, in place of my reflection there was an animal, like a jaguar, only bigger. Its eyes were like suns, and its coat, so dark, as black as the night around us. It leapt out from the water to stand against me, to keep me from the dark moon beneath the sea… It was then, as I looked into the beast’s eyes, that I understood, Neythan. The jaguar was me, a shadow of me, and it was also the Brotherhood. It did not want me to do as I ought. They do not want me to discover the dark moon.”

 

Neythan awoke to the cloying heat of what felt like an oven and the sounds of children playing outside. His tongue felt chafed. His throat, clammy and dry, as though he’d swallowed a meal of feathers.

He’d dreamt of memories again. Memories he’d forgotten he had – this time of Uncle Sol, sitting with him back in Ilysia by the forest beneath the village as he shared one of his visions. Neythan couldn’t have been much older than seven at the time, fascinated by the vividness and detail of Sol’s words but unable to make sense of what they meant or why he shared them. Sol had always said he’d explain when Neythan was older, teach him the meanings. But he never did. Never could. Time ran out…

Neythan blinked and looked around. There was hushed amber light glowing from the low canvas walls surrounding him. A goatskin blanket lay draped across his body. Something similar lay on the ground beneath him. He was in a tent booth. He lifted his head to see what else there was and flinched at the stray slips of sunlight wickedly breaching the entrance by his feet.

“Gods have mercy…”

So this is what it felt like. Memories of a snoring Tutor Hamir lulled to sleep by too much of Yulaan’s summer brew came to mind. Neythan groaned and yanked away the goatskin blanket to find himself dressed in a wrinkled tunic that didn’t belong to him. He tried to remember the night before, where the tunic had come from, then gave up and tried to lever himself upright.

He could hear the sounds of ambling routine from outside – the proud clucks of a hen, the distant murmur of voices, the soft crunch of footsteps passing by, and riding over it all a deep aching throb at his temples and along the back of his scalp.

“Aha, alive to the world at last.”

Neythan grimaced and squinted, lifting an arm to shield his eyes from the light as Nouredín poked his head in.

“Ooh, sorry. Still delicate, are we?”

Neythan grunted grumpily.

“Well. I hope you’ll be better in an hour. You will need to be. Yevhen is to meet us in the market.”

“Who is Yevhen?” Neythan croaked.

Nouredín blinked. “My cousin… You met him last night.”

Neythan, slit-eyed, stared back blankly.

“The ranger?”

Neythan, still squinting, sighed sulkily and muttered.

Nouredín just chuckled, shaking his head, and then withdrew.

After nursing his headache for a while, Neythan manoeuvred himself onto his hands and knees and crawled gingerly toward the tent’s exit, taking a breath before pushing his head through to the outside. The sun whited his vision. He squeezed his eyes narrow, shading them with the flat of one hand as he came out and rose to his feet.

Sunny. A sea of tents stretched out in every direction, billowing gently in the weak breeze and backed by the familiar sprawl of piled up terraces behind them. Beyond the tents to the east the broad shore of the marketplace extended out in rows of low stone buildings and stalls.

“So, you finally decide to join the land of the living.”

Caleb was sitting on a stool nibbling a dish of nuts and berries next to the tent.

“How do you feel?”

“I’ve felt better.” Neythan picked up the vessel of water at Caleb’s feet and swigged heartily. He wiped his mouth and looked down again. The water was warm from the sun. “What hour is it?”

“Guess.”

“I’ve not the stomach for games, Caleb.”

Caleb looked at him as if to see if this was true, then shrugged and chewed on another berry. “Noon.”

Neythan rubbed his jaw.

“You are to meet Yevhen soon?”

Neythan glanced down at him. “You know of this Yevhen too?”

“Of course. It was you who introduced me to him… here, last night.”

Neythan stared.

“You don’t remember? You were very eager for us to meet. Woke me up even, which I wasn’t grateful for. You said you’d made an agreement with him of some kind, that he was willing to help us, and that you would meet today to discuss payment.”

“Payment? We gave the last of the silver to Nouredín.”

“Funny, that is exactly what I said to you last night.”

“And what did I say?”

“Not to worry. All was agreed. You were quite cheery about it all. I was looking forward to your waking up just so I could hear all about why.”

Neythan’s headache was worsening. He rubbed his neck.

“You remember nothing?”

Neythan shook his head.

Caleb kept looking.

“You find this funny,” Neythan said.

“A little… the way you were last night. It was… well… unexpected.”

“Glad you found it entertaining.”

“You should eat.”

“I don’t think so.”

Caleb smiled. “Ah, that’s right, perhaps not the stomach for food yet either. No need to look so dark though. I’m sure you’ll remember what you must soon enough. Let’s hope it’s in the next hour though, Nouredín says he is to take you to Yevhen then.”

 

Nouredín was true to his word. He arrived just as Neythan was finally managing to make himself eat, tentatively scooping shallow spoonfuls of lukewarm porridge from the pot Caleb had made that morning. His headache had dampened down to a dull simmering pressure behind his eyes. He badly needed to go back to sleep. Nouredín duly led him into the marketplace.

The stalls were huddled together in tight rows. People moved hurriedly in the narrow gaps between. A small copper-skinned boy walked on ahead of them in the crowd, bare-chested and barefooted, leading a young goat by a rope and every so often nabbing items from the stalls – small trinkets mostly, and at one point what looked to be an expensive ornament of ivory – and slipping them into the goat’s mouth. Neythan watched, waiting for the goat to gag or choke. It didn’t. Well practiced, apparently.

His gaze drifted to a troop of women wandering through the narrow aisles between the stalls in pale-coloured shawls like Filani had worn, hiding from the sun. Two turbaned marketers were arguing with one another from behind opposing counters, their heads leaning over and around the passing crowd to continue the dispute. Neythan found himself ducking as he passed between them.

They continued on through the stalls for around a quarter of an hour, shoving and shouldering through the glut of shouting men and women like tadpoles against the tide.

They eventually found Yevhen in a clearing at the heart of the market. He stood with his back to them observing the Stone of Arvan: a broad column of carved slatestone marked by the Sovereignty’s First Laws on every side and crowned by the tall blade of a sundial. He was wearing a white sleeveless coat of linen that hung to his ankles and a pale vesture beneath, revealing muscled forearms. His conspicuously long golden hair was tucked beneath a turban, pulled fast around his head and tied into a ball against the back of his skull.

“King Karel the Young, son of Yusan of Hagmeni, Lord of Sumeria, first sharíf and father of the Sovereignty, author of peace, prosperity and hope…” Yevhen glanced over his shoulder as Neythan and Nouredín approached. “What do you think? Are we feeling especially prosperous or hopeful today?” He turned fully, saw the weary ill look on Neythan’s face and smiled. “Perhaps not so much.”

“Good day to you, cousin,” Nouredín said. “How are you?”

Yevhen nodded at Neythan, still smiling. “I think the question is how our new business partner here is. Let us hope you carry your blade better than you do your drink.”

Neythan looked away to the market and sighed impatiently.

Nouredín took the hint. “Speaking of business…”

“Yes, of course,” Yevhen said. “Let’s walk this way.”

From the clearing the market split into quarters along four main roads extending away from the column. Yevhen led them along the easterly street into the quadrant of the market furthest from the square of traders’ booths they’d come from. Neythan watched him walk. Something in the way his hips moved, the balance of his weight, the stillness in his shoulders. The gait of a combatant. Neythan had suspected as much the previous night as they sat together, though only vaguely through the fog of the wine.

“I feel you are a man acquainted with conflict,” Yevhen said softly, echoing Neythan’s thoughts. “I felt it so when we met last night. It was because of this I agreed to help you.”

Neythan, walking at his shoulder, just looked at the taller man. Yevhen turned to Nouredín. “Cousin, how about you let Neythan and I get acquainted properly? Now, in the light of day.”

Nouredín hesitated, cleared his throat, and then peeled away, wandering reluctantly into the crowd. Yevhen glanced at Neythan over his shoulder and smiled.

“I understand your reticence. He is a good man truly, but his ears at times, well… they can be as keen as his lips are loose.”

“Is he really your cousin?” Neythan said.

“Ah, well, that depends. Most say kin is chosen by blood, some say by other means. I am one who believes the latter. As do you.”

“Do I?”

“Of course. All your kind does.”

“My kind.”

“Yes, those of the Brotherhood. The Shedaím.”

Neythan stood still.

Yevhen had walked on a few paces before realizing Neythan had stopped. He turned, looked at him standing there, and then walked back to him.

“The lapdog knows the voice of his master, Neythan. Rangers, some of us, the most skilled of us, have worked so often for your kind – ferrying word, spying decrees – we cannot help but grow familiar with your ways. I am a watchful kind, I suspected you might be one of them the longer I sat with you. Though I could not be certain, until now.”

Neythan didn’t speak.

Yevhen, again, gave that thin and easy smile. “It is perhaps the Shedaím’s only flaw; that they entrust some of their work to youths. Like you. It betrays you. You have the bearing and manner of a man twice your age, yet the face of a boy. And your eyes, Neythan, even when taken with the wine, are always so watchful. Full of mistrust. It’s an uncommon habit. To the man who is looking, these things can be noticed.”

“What do you want?”

“Not to anger you, or any others. As I’ve said, I know your kind, your works as well as your ways. I seek no quarrel.” Yevhen glanced at the crowds passing either side. “But please, let us walk.”

They resumed.

“And what of Nouredín, your loose-lipped cousin?”

“He knows I am a ranger, yes. But he knows little of my business beyond that – nothing of the Brotherhood. Your kind are no more to him than a child’s tale to be grown out of.”

They turned off the road into an alley of stalls. The canopies of the tables were nearly touching each other. Yevhen leaned in close, closer even than Nouredín would have, and spoke into Neythan’s ear as they went.

“I know of the one you seek,” he said. “Your ‘sister.’”

They turned to pass by a table of hens. Their clawed feet were tethered to a nearby beam supporting the high roof sheltering the stalls beneath. They were clucking and shrieking and flapping their wings. Blood and dismembered chickenfeet and scattered feathers lay on the table by them, and the vendor, a foot away, worked with a cleaver.

“I hear rumours of her.”

Neythan looked at him. “What kind of rumours?”

“Rumours of how she turns on her own kind.”

Neythan placed a hand on the other man’s forearm as they rounded another stall. “That is strange talk for a ranger to hear.”

Yevhen looked down at Neythan’s hand, then to Neythan. “Nevertheless, from time to time such things are heard.”

“From whom?”

“You needn’t concern yourself with that.” He slowly eased his arm from Neythan’s grasp. “Those who speak of such things are few – lapdogs, like me, who from time to time hear the talk of their masters above the table. Such whispers, for us, are of little worth. After all, who would we tell? The Brotherhood itself knows that we whisper, and that we dare not go beyond that. We’re as fond of breathing as we are the silver you pay us… but then I happen upon you, one in pursuit of her. And, as in all my dealings with your kind, I seek for my services to be had, to deal my secrets. Yet you have no silver, no gold. And so how, as is custom, are you to pay?”

“I have the feeling you are about to tell me.”

“What better price is there than your skill?”

Neythan smiled wryly. “You want a favour.”

“A favour, yes. The perfect way to put it.”

“And in return?”

“In return… I will tell you where she is.”

Neythan stopped.

Yevhen, again, waited for him.

Neythan glanced at the passing crowds and then stepped toward the ranger. He spoke quietly. “Say that again.”

“I will tell you where she–”

“You know where she is?”

“Yes.”

“The Brotherhood seeks this girl and is yet to find her, and you… How could you possibly know where she is?”

“I am a ranger, Neythan. My business is to know and find, just as yours is to seek and kill. It has always been this way. In truth, it’s strange the Brotherhood hasn’t already come to me. Ashamed perhaps, because she is one of their own. But this failure is to our gain, should we make this bargain.”

Neythan just stood looking at him.

“I suppose your doubt is understandable,” Yevhen said.

“How did you learn her whereabouts?”

“That will be part of the bargain, Neythan. I cannot–”

“If you want me to trust your claim then you will tell me how it is you’re able to make it.”

For a moment, they just stood there with people moving either side of them. The ranger eyed Neythan for a while. And then, abruptly, smiled gently. “Very well.”

“Very well, what?”

“The answer is simple – a tailor. One with whom your ‘sister’ has visited. One who has helped her, and who knows of where she has been and where she will be, who may even know something of her plans.”

“And who is this tailor?”

“He is one of your Brotherhood’s tailors, just as I am one of its rangers. Just as there are those who are its innkeepers, smiths, and who knows what else. Your kind, you have people in every city. Some, I have learned of; many I have not and never will. But this man, he is one of them, and she visited with him for two nights and two days.”

“You are certain.”

“I saw them myself. Sat with them. Ate with them.”

“Ate? When? Where?”

“They are good questions, Neythan, truly. But their answers have a price.”

Neythan’s gaze had fixed to the man now. There was no more market, no more people or headache, just this man who claimed to know the whereabouts of the person Neythan had been seeking since that night at Godswell. He spoke slowly. “Be careful, Ranger. You should be sure of what you say. It would be unwise to trick me. I am just a youth, as you say. We are not given to temperance when slighted.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He turned to resume the walk. “But come. We must yet walk.”

They passed a stall kept by an old woman with no teeth and a black shawl wrapped tight to her head like a widow. Two monkeys sat in wooden cages on the counter, each clothed in small vestures like little men, one clapping a pair of tiny cymbals, the other playing a drum.

“I will tell you all you desire,” Yevhen said. “Even take you to the tailor should you so choose. All I ask is a favour.”

They passed through a screen of beaded strings, into a small sheltered square of fruit stalls walled off by leaning planks of wood and tattered drapes. Yevhen stopped at one of the stalls and nodded at the man behind the table, taking a couple of pears. The man huffed and nodded back grumpily. Yevhen smiled and turned to face Neythan, a pear in each palm.

“So… will you hear my request?” he said.

Neythan thought about striking Yevhen in the throat with the blade of his palm, thought about wrestling him to the ground there and then and pressing his thumbs against his eyes until Yevhen let go every last secret detail Neythan desired – where she was, how he knew, why they’d eaten together. He glanced about at the crowd and understood now why Yevhen had insisted they meet here, in the marketplace. He looked again to the taller man and his glassy pale blue eyes.

The waiting ranger cocked a thin eyebrow. “Will you?”

Neythan exhaled long and quiet through his nostrils, and nodded.

Yevhen smiled. “Good.” He handed Neythan a pear.

He wandered away from the stalls and stood in a less busy corner, leaning against another support beam. Neythan followed, stopping close by, watching the people come and go around him as he bit unhappily into his pear.

“I seek a jewel,” Yevhen said.

Neythan smiled humourlessly. “I should have guessed.”

“A very particular jewel. Very precious.”

“You want to steal it.”

“Retrieve it, yes.”

“And so would have me play the thief.”

“In a way.”

Neythan bit again into the pear, which seemed to be turning sourer with each mouthful. “You seem an able enough man. Why should you need me?”

“The jewel is kept in a certain place, a chamber in the palace.”

Neythan stopped chewing. “You mean the sharíf’s palace.”

“Yes.”

“You’re saying you want me to steal from the sharíf?”

“The jewel is not his. In truth he barely knows of it.”

“Yet it is in his possession.”

Yevhen nudged himself forward from the support beam where he was leaning and stood in front of Neythan. “You asked of my kin,” he said. “Earlier – ‘is he really your cousin?’ you said.”

“Yes. So?”

“No doubt you wonder about my origins,” he gestured lazily. “My hair, my eyes, my skin.”

Neythan waited.

“You’ll have guessed my blood is not of the Five Lands… I am a Kivite, Neythan. From beyond the Reach, north of the twin seas.”

“A barbarian.”

Yevhen parted his lips to answer but then thought better of it. He gave a wan smile. “This jewel was stolen from my people in the time of Sharíf Theron. I simply wish to return it.”

“And you tell me? A servant of the Sovereignty?”

“The Sovereignty you serve has more pressing matters than a stone it took two centuries ago. Matters that you, by an agreement with me, can easily remedy.”

“You’ve waited a long time to rob a trinket. A hunter in Calapaar, a ranger for how many years, yet only now you seek to take this jewel.”

“It’s taken many years to even learn its whereabouts. I discovered it just days ago. It’s why I came to the city, only to find, thanks to the efforts of your ‘sister’, that the sharíf has elected to keep two Shedaím by him in the palace at all times.”

“Two Brothers? Here in the city?”

“Two that I know of, yes. You can imagine my surprise to have found you, a third, and one who may yet strengthen my hand.”

“I have agreed to nothing.”

“You have agreed to listen. You know as well as I it is the reasonable thing. A trinket – as you call it – in a crypt, a forgotten one at that, is of no worth to the throne compared to a betrayer, a Brother turned against her own, killing one after another. You know what you must do.”

Neythan took another bite of the pear, chewed slowly. Killing one after another – so there had been further deaths. He wondered how many. Three? Four?

“It is a royal tomb,” Yevhen continued. “Its contents are rich. I want only the stone, a black pearl, fixed in a pendant; whatsoever else you come upon you will be free to add to your bounty.”

“I am no thief, Yevhen. We are not alike.”

Yevhen considered him. “No… we are not… ill of me to say so.” He took another bite of his pear and chewed, looking out again to the gathering customers opposite them beneath the shade. “Nonetheless things are as they are. I have something you want, you have of me the same. So. What is your answer?”

Neythan looked at him and then back to the crowd. He took a final bite of his pear and tossed the bitter seeded core to the ground. “Let’s go back,” he said. “I must speak with Caleb.”