Blade Kin Read online

  She was growing old, and Mahkawn felt pain in his own bones, the ache of his own knotted muscles, and knew he was growing old, too. One did not quickly rise from slave, to arena fighter, to Omnipotent among the Blade Kin.

  One of Mahkawn’s old masters, a human general, had said it could not be done in a lifetime, certainly not by a Neanderthal. Mahkawn had thought it an odd statement, but now believed it true: Mahkawn felt as if he’d lived more than one lifetime, as if the fire that had driven him in his youth had somehow burned up many lifetimes in propelling him to these heights.

  Pirazha reached up and played with his hair, ran one finger down to the nub where his right ear had been before he cut it off and gave it to his first sergeant. She smiled. “Someday, when you are old and no longer Blade Kin, you will look at me like that, and maybe then you will tell me you love me.”

  Mahkawn narrowed his eyes in sudden disgust.

  He grabbed her throat and squeezed, pushing his thumb up under her esophagus so that she could not scream, and he hissed. “You fool! No matter how old I become, no matter how senile, I would never say that!” Her eyes were wide, frightened. “One cannot love without becoming ruled by love! And no matter what happens, I will never be ruled. I will not become a Thrall like you! I will not be chained to a wall. I will not be chained!”

  He held her throat, choking her. Pirazha tried to wriggle under his grasp, tried to shove him away with her left hand and slugged at him with her right. Her face began to purple, and Mahkawn held tight. I should kill her, strangle her now, he thought.

  Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, and he resisted the impulse to bend over, kiss those tears away. She was a Thrall, and though they shared Neanderthal ancestry, she was inferior, an animal, a creature that reveled in kwea and stupidly sought his love.

  Breeding with her was a shameful thing. I should have saved my seed for an equal, he thought. Not this beast. Captain Itena or one of the other warriors.

  “The body is a tool of the mind,” Mahkawn told her, “not something to be enjoyed as an end to itself!”

  Pirazha’s eyes began to roll back in her head, like the eyes of a dumb cow under the slaughterer’s knife. He saw her sense of betrayal, saw her stupidity, and realized that his concepts were above her. To teach her the mind and soul of the Blade Kin would be impossible.

  Mahkawn let her go.

  Pirazha gasped, her naked chest heaving, and tried to push him away, to roll over onto her stomach. He slapped her face.

  From the back bedroom, Mahkawn heard his sons rouse, come stumbling out of bed. Only one of the boys opened the leather flap to the doorway, Uffin, the eight-year-old. He stood, not fully awake, watching his father. A dire wolf pup followed behind the child, jumping on great clumsy feet. Pirazha told the boy, “Go away!”

  Mahkawn rolled off the bed, stood naked. “No, stay.”

  Uffin hesitated. “My mother told me to leave.”

  “You will obey me,” Mahkawn said softly in a tone that did not allow rebuttal. “You sleep with that wolf?”

  The boy nodded.

  “How long have you had it?”

  The boy shrugged. “A long time.”

  Mahkawn realized that the boy did not know how to count. Eight weeks. It had been eight weeks since Mahkawn sent the pup. For a moment Mahkawn sat thinking, wondering about the attraction of small predators. Why did humans and Pwi like them so? Dogs, cats—among the Slave Lords, small vicious dinosaurs were popular.

  Outside, someone banged Pirazha’s door, and the pup began barking. Mahkawn heard the distinct sound of a ring scratch the doorpost—a signal identifying the intruder as Blade Kin. “Open the door,” Mahkawn said, and the boy opened it as Mahkawn pulled on his black tunic.

  The bright yellow sunlight hurt his eye, and in the doorway stood a tall man, a narrow-faced human, gangling arms. He wore the black leather cuirass and black cape of all Mahkawn’s officers. “Jaffrey,” Mahkawn greeted.

  “Omnipotent, last night I received your summons for six o’clock this morning,” Jaffrey said. “Pardon me if I have disturbed you while you bred.”

  “That is quite all right. I was going to bring you here anyway. How did you know where to find me?” Mahkawn had not told anyone of his liaison with Pirazha, had in fact come to her on a whim, and he was sure no one had followed.

  “It is known that you frequent this place,” Jaffrey said. “You must take more care.”

  Mahkawn found it difficult to tell if humans were lying, so he studied the young soldier. The news did not bode well, for if some rival suspected that Pirazha was Mahkawn’s favorite, she’d be murdered.

  It was a game among the Blade Kin. If a Neanderthal took a lover, rivals within his ranks, perhaps a junior officer like Jaffrey, would slit the lover’s throat to see how their senior officer react. Even among the Blade Kin, Neanderthals sometimes starved themselves with grief when a lover died, like common Thralls, leaving an open position for some more heartless junior officer to fill.

  “The sex has been quite good with this one in the past,” Mahkawn said, pulling the cover from Pirazha, exposing her body, the flaccid breasts, the wide hips. “You really should try her.”

  “I do not doubt it,” Jaffrey said, reaching down to stroke her face, “but I like them younger.” His tone was that of a man who was declining some small pastry at a banquet. He was a man without great ambition. Mahkawn did not think Jaffrey would kill Pirazha himself, but Jaffrey might sell her name to another.

  “How may I serve you?” Jaffrey asked General Mahkawn.

  Mahkawn pulled on his sword belt and pistol, put his cape over all. He ordered Pirazha to comb and plait his hair, then sat pensively. “The boy here, Uffin,” he nodded toward Uffin, who still stood gaping, “has a pet wolf cub, and he is eight years old today. He sleeps with the pup.”

  Jaffrey looked at the child knowingly. “A wolf pup?” he said, then walked over before the boy. He reached down, patted the pup. “Tell me, does it have a name?”

  Uffin nodded.

  “Good dog,” Jaffrey said, patting it on the head. The dark-gray wolf licked his hand. “Do you love your pup?”

  “Ayaah.”

  Mahkawn pulled his knife from its sheath, tossed it toward the floor. It spun lazily as it fell, glinting in the early morning light, and landed shaft-first into the wood. “Then kill it.”

  The boy stood momentarily, watching the knife. Mahkawn pulled on his boots, put on his belt.

  Into the belt, he tucked a golden scourge, a solid gold bar with eight golden chains, and upon each chain was a tiny ball with a hook. He displayed it proudly, for it marked him as Favored Omnipotent and possible replacement to Lord Tantos, Minister of Retribution.

  No other Neanderthal had ever earned the right of succession to a human Slave Lord.

  The boy was frightened, hurt, confused. He needed to learn to become tough, if he were to become Blade Kin.

  “I am Mahkawn, Omnipotent among the Brotherhood of the Black Cyclops,” Mahkawn told his son. “You will do as I tell you.”

  “No, don’t ask him to do that!” Pirazha whispered at Mahkawn’s back, and she grasped his cape, supplicating.

  Mahkawn pushed her hand away.

  Uffin looked up, licked his lips. He shivered and tried to look away. He knelt down on the floor and buried his head in the dog’s gray fur.

  Mahkawn watched. It was a ritual as old as the Blade Kin, and by law Mahkawn could say nothing more.

  Uffin was mature enough to understand. He could be a Thrall, remain a slave for life, or he could free himself now by killing the thing he loved.

  If I have bred true … Mahkawn thought, and he watched the boy’s hand, willing him to take the knife. A dog is nothing. You are worth more than a dog. We ask so little of you. Come now, better that I ask the life of a dog rather than the life of a friend.

  Mahkawn glared at his son, stood with his back straight, muscles rigid. Under that glare, the boy inched across the floor
to the knife.

  He picked it up, hefted its weight. His hands were shaking and his lower lip trembled. He looked up at Mahkawn, and his eyes were full of tears. The tears did not matter—he could cry, he could curse, he could run away afterward. It only mattered that he do the deed, that he subjugate his animal feelings and show that he could harden himself, become a Blade Kin.

  The boy set the knife on the floor, shoved it toward Mahkawn’s foot. “My pup didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “It is not a punishment,” Mahkawn explained. “I know it has been a good pup. Just kill it.” By convention, even these few words were too much. Yet he could not give up on the boy so easily.

  “No,” Uffin said, and then he sobbed and picked up the wolf pup. “When the Okansharai comes, he will kill you!” Uffin shouted, and he ran into the back room.

  Mahkawn hissed through his teeth to show his displeasure, and stormed out the door, into the bright red sunrise. The freezing rain had quit falling, and the red sun shone on the frozen road, making it gleam like a river of blood.

  I whelped a Thrall! He’s a Thrall, just like his mother! Mahkawn dared not speak the thought, for it was bitter. Jaffrey hurried after him.

  “Omnipotent! Omnipotent!” Jaffrey called. Mahkawn stood with his back to the human. “I am sorry the boy did not pass the test.”

  “No matter,” Mahkawn answered. “He has a strong back. He will make a good slave.”

  “I know we leave for the Rough soon,” Jaffrey continued. “I would like permission to go to Mole Hill for two days.”

  Mahkawn considered. Their mission in the Rough was to last for twelve weeks, and he estimated that it would take at least that long to sweep through the wilderness, capture what was left of the wild Pwi. If his army met any organized resistance, it could take much longer twelve weeks. “All right,” Mahkawn said, “you have two days.”

  ***

  Chapter 8: Wake to Sleeping

  All day, Tull felt the urge to move, to walk. The young men of the village got together in the afternoon, and Chaa taught them how to use swords, to prepare earnestly for war.

  Tull and Fava attended the practice, and Tull spoke with Chaa briefly, made an appointment to see him that night. Tull did not tell Fava of his plans.

  That night while Fava slept with little Wayan, Tull slipped out into the cool night air, listened to the sigh of breakers pounding the rocks, the howls of a cat in heat. He walked down the path to Chaa’s cabin, called softly at the door, “I am here,” in the manner of the Pwi. Chaa opened the door. Tull could smell curry and beer on his breath.

  “I’m ready,” Tull answered.

  “Then come with me.” Chaa escorted him through the front door, holding Tull’s elbow, guiding him down the corridors in the darkness to his Spirit Room, a circular chamber with a dome-shaped, mud wattle roof.

  A circle of stones at the center of the room was used as a fireplace, and a large water jug sat by the ashes of a fire. The fire had burned out hours ago, and the only light to enter the room shone from a smoke hole in the dome, a small hole that let in moonlight. The room smelled thickly of smoke. A mat of woven reeds lay on the floor next to the fire.

  Around the room, the walls were decorated with hunting trophies—the serrated teeth of a tyrannosaurus gleamed whitely even in the muted light. The shadowed shape of a bear hide hung on the wall. Tull could not see much beyond that.

  “Would you like me to light a candle?” Tull asked, but Chaa shook his head.

  “We have more than enough light to see by,” Chaa said, and he motioned for Tull to sit on the mat. The thin moonlight coming in from the smoke hole illuminated Chaa’s features, his wispy hair and prominent nose and brows. He spoke softly, “Before you were born, your spirit danced in the Land of Shapes, and your spirit did not comprehend some of the things you understand now—lust, greed, fear. But it understood something. Mostly, it understood intense curiosity. So your spirit entered your body in order to sate its appetite for curiosity—to learn to see with physical eyes, to move and taste joy. The Land of Shapes is behind you, and it is ahead of you.

  “For now, your life is like a bridge, a narrow trail connecting two vast worlds. But the new sensations that you feel, they overwhelm you, so that you have been blinded to your previous life in the Land of Shapes. Your physical eyes cannot see it. Your tongue cannot taste it. In a sense, you have fallen asleep, but your heart knows the terrain, the geography of the Land of Shapes.”

  “You mean I am asleep now?”

  “Yes, a fitful sleep. You are asleep to your own beauty, your own potential, like all the other people in the world. Most of them can never be wakened. Their spirit eyes are firmly closed,” Chaa said, and he paused.

  “But I have seen that you are different. You seek places of power for your spirit. You can feel your enemies even in the dark or behind stone walls. It is only because your sleep is uneasy that I can wake you.”

  Chaa motioned to the water jug, “Tonight I will begin to teach you to see in the Land of Shapes. It will be a great task for you just to open your spirit eyes, and that alone may take many weeks. Do not worry if it seems difficult at first.” He picked up the water jug. “I have made seer’s tea. It has mushrooms to open the eyes, roots to open the ears, seeds to open the mind.”

  “Like the drugs the Okanjara take?” Tull asked. The wild Neanderthals of the plains took many drugs, often to excess, and Tull did not want to be like them.

  “Yes,” Chaa said.

  “But won’t such tea make me crazy?”

  “With the Okanjara, fear makes them crazy. They gaze into the Land of Shapes but do not comprehend what they see, and so it frightens them. With the tea you will see a land where time can stop, or exist all at once. You can see the holiness of stones and men. Once you drink the tea, I will speak with you, guide your journey. You will not become lost.”

  Chaa opened the small clay jar. It was rounded on the bottom like a gourd, with a long neck, and it had been painted with dancing birds in bright whites and yellows, yet when Chaa handed the jar to Tull, he was surprised to find it nearly empty.

  Tull swirled the jug, drank a sip. The water felt greasy in his mouth, gritty with seeds and bitter roots. Chaa took the jug, poured it all down Tull’s throat.

  “Here, lie upon my pallet,” Chaa said, and Tull lay on the mattress of woven reeds. He suddenly felt dizzy and wanted to vomit, but realized he was dizzy with fear and that he wanted to vomit only because his stomach was knotting.

  “This will not take as long as you think,” Chaa said, and he waited, holding Tull’s hand. After only a minutes, he said, “In our world, we imagine that everything is separate, that I am separate from you, and you are separate from your friends, but in the Land of Shapes, there are fewer boundaries.

  “When I play a song on my pipe, and you sing, and another taps his foot, and another man dances, we all see ourselves as separate entities. But in the Land of Shapes, we see that the music and the dancer, the singer and the drum, all are one thing connected, blurring into each other. The music is shared, and we all become part of it.

  “In the same way, you are not a single person, but part of your mother and father, all blurred into one, and they are each parts of other mothers and fathers, all blurred outward over time, so that all people are really just different manifestations of a single person, manifestations that expand outward with time.

  “But in the Land of Shapes, there is no time, and all the connections are more easily found. Once you learn to see and maneuver in the Land of Shapes, you can touch another person on the far side of the world, or share the life of someone long dead, or glimpse the future of people who may yet live. You will learn to see the beauty in every man, and understand that your enemies are no less glorious than the sunrise. Doors will open to you. Yet it will not all come tonight. It will not happen in a moment.

  “Tell me, how do you feel?”

  Tull considered. He felt … dazed, but not frightened. The
colors in the room had shifted. There was a green mist in the air, almost a haze.

  Chaa’s voice was loud, yet Tull suddenly realized that Chaa had been whispering, and that Tull’s hearing seemed keener somehow. He listened: below the floor, Tull could hear the crunching of termites’ teeth, the soggy noise of earthworms gushing through their holes. He had not been aware of the change coming over him. He’d felt only a peculiar lightness, as if he were floating.

  “I don’t know. I feel strange. Everything is so loud.”

  “But it is not an unpleasant loudness, is it?” Chaa asked. “I have felt it many times. It’s almost as if you have new ears, better ears—the ears of a fox.”

  Tull considered. He could hear Chaa’s intestines squeaking and rumbling as they digested. “No, it is … pleasing.”

  “You are just more open to sound,” Chaa said. “Tell me if I speak too loudly. Now, I want you to relax. Stare at the hole in the ceiling,” Chaa said, nodding at the hole where moonlight streamed in. “It is like the hole above your navel, which we Spirit Walkers call ‘the hollow of your soul,’ where your dark desires and fears are kept, only there is no light streaming from the hollow of your soul. Darkness streams from it sometimes, when it can. That is the nature of souls.”

  Tull tried to relax and watched the hole. He was very aware of the stars shining through the hole in the ceiling, so distant, so distant, yet he could almost make out the planets that circled them, he thought, if only he could lean a little closer.

  Tull realized that Chaa was touching him above the navel, but below the sternum, stroking him gently in an arc only two inches wide. He found the sensation very soothing, the way a cat must feel lulled when you rub between its ears, and Tull closed his eyes, relished the sensation of touch.

  “I will tell you a story,” Chaa said, stroking Tull above the stomach, “about a man who lived long ago, and even though you close your eyes, I want you to watch the ceiling, the hole in the ceiling, where only darkness streams through.”

  Chaa’s voice seemed to have become muted, as if he were in a forest. Tull’s tongue was thick in his mouth, and he idly wished that he could pull it out, lay it beside him in the dirt until they were done, and then put it back.