Mourning Cloak Read online

  Ah, but he’d already given me that answer, slowly, patiently, as if explaining to a dim-witted child. It was not in Taurin’s will.

  An answer that answers not at all. I grind my teeth and think I feel grains of desert sand between then still. I wait for Toro’s pronouncement, his condemnation of Flutter, but he will not give me the satisfaction.

  Not quick to speak, that Toro, and not one to rush into judgment. I hate that about him, because when he is on an opposing side, it means he has thought things through, not reacted from emotion, but after examining his own prejudices.

  He denied Sera her last rites and he was right to do so—based on the precepts of Taurin’s faith.

  It doesn’t mean that I loathe him any less for it. No prayer flags for Sera, no incense, no finality.

  Sera had come to Highwind because of me. If not for the fact she entwined her life with mine, she could have been back in Jalinoor even now, dressed in the gold robes of office, pronouncing judgments from behind the ceremonial mask.

  Her lightning-bright mind, her quicksilver wit, her sun-bright heart—all had been lost because she chose to follow me into exile.

  Curse Taurin for the day Sera crossed paths with me. And curse Toro for the way he turned his back on her when she was only trying to scrape a life of meaning for herself here.

  Let him deal with the problem of a mourning cloak who claims to be eilendi. What theological knots he’ll be tangled into trying to explain that one.

  Toro bows his head, right hand splayed on Flutter’s chest, the index finger of his left hand against his lips and the palm facing to his right. He hums, softly, and the itauri take up the healing chant, without question, without complaint.

  They are good at following, the Taurin-worshippers.

  Who did you follow, Toro? Which eilendi turned you against us at the moment of our victory, so that you saw from your perch and did nothing? Did the Dark Masters reach out their long arms and blind your eyes as we laid siege to their city? My throat and tongue is thick with the words of the healing chant, words in an old, half-known language, words that I had learned at my mother’s knee. Curse them, but they are branded deep into my memory. But I cannot, will not, say them. They gather in my throat and crowd behind my lips, and for a while, I cannot say anything at all.

  Does the prayer magic work? It has always been uncertain, but Flutter sighs, moves. She no longer sprawls, but curls on her side, in a more natural position. The chant falters, grows ragged, as the itauri turn away and leave, one by one. Finally, only Toro is left, his humming threading the space between him and the cloak.

  And then he lifts his hand from Flutter’s chest, and looks up at me. His eyes are shadowed, weary.

  “She has been hurt much,” he says, quietly, “but life moves in her still.”

  “She says she’s one of you. An eilendi. What do you make of that?”

  The firelight catches in Toro’s eyes. He smiles, sadly. “I think she’s probably right.”

  I wake to the Five Lesser Rakayas, the prelude to the Dawn Prayers. I wake to tears on my cheeks and praises on my lips. I rise from my pallet and join the center circle of eilendi. It seems only right that I should.

  They don’t like it, these unknown eilendi—I see the astonishment and disapproval on their faces—but they shuffle aside, give me a place, and let me be.

  I ignore them. It doesn’t matter who they are or what they think. Together they—we—are the circle of worshippers. I lift up my arms and turn my face toward the ceiling, imagining the lightening dawn sky of the desert rather than the damp, drab stone above. My voice remembers the words, my body the dance. Never mind the unnatural fluidity of my limbs, or the drag on my shoulders and arms, the extra twirl of my movements. I am part of worship again, I am with my people, I am eilendi.

  I am me, if only for a little while.

  Those who changed me took my will, but not memory. The memory that lurks beneath conscious thought, drilled from years of chant and dance, memory that brings me back to myself. Amidst all the turmoil in my head, I occupy a small, clear space and breathe again.

  The darkness is not gone, though. It nibbles away at the edges of myself, but I focus on this moment, this prayer.

  Please, Taurin, just this one prayer.

  I chant and gesture and step, weaving prayers with my voice and my body, that highest magic of all. I strain to see a hint of gold lattice-work, a shimmer of silvery mist droplets, that evidence of Taurin’s gift, Taurin’s grace.

  Prayer magic, they call it, but it is only Taurin lifting away the veil that blinds us all and shows us the world at its deepest level, stripped naked. And with the seeing comes the ability to—if we dare—reach out and pluck the very strings thus laid bare. To change the world.

  Lalita vey lalita vey lalita vey

  It does not come. I have lost the sight.

  Last refrain, last spin—nonononokeepgoing!—last stretch up to great outspread skies not seen in this mountain-pierced land.

  All things come to an end. As the circle disperses, I hold out my hand—don’t look at the nails the length the paleness of it—beseechingly toward the Prayer Leader. He gives me a hard, glinting glance, then deposits a rosary into it.

  I retreat to the pallet—no matter how grudgingly given or how exposed to the stares of the itauri—and bend over the beads. I mumble the Invocations in time to the click of the beads, but the mist is back.

  It tugs my mind, pulls me off balance, darkens my world.

  That is the way of this land. The sun may burn away the fog, but then night descends and the mists rise again from the chilly mountain lakes.

  Voices echo as if in a tunnel. The two men, the Chosen and the eilendi, talking.

  The Chosen. Kato Vorsok. I know this one as more than just a name, but when I probe my hidden knowledge, there is pain there, as if I picked at a half-healed wound. I turn back to my chants, but I cannot block out their words.

  “…you’re not surprised…”

  “…heard reports of our people being taken, from the south…”

  Tauria dey baradari tauria dey baradari tauria dey baradari

  “…so she is…?”

  “One of ours? Can’t say.”

  Tauria dey… tauria dey… tauria… tauria… Can’t hold on, mind and memory turn to vapor. Shadows creep into their place, shadows with their own demands and compulsions. Cold commands replace the faltering prayers, pounding the inside of my head in relentless, unchanging litany. Return to origin. Return to origin. I see the world in crystalline facets, smoky grays and dark browns, made up of flickers of movement.

  The men talk, words almost lost in the boom of their voices.

  “…names?”

  “None.”

  Senses spin out from self, unraveling being like threads from cloth.

  “So, it’s Flutter for now, then.”

  Stench of metal and ozone and alcohol and wrongness. Movement, sharp-edged, jagged. Fast. Very fast.

  Head jerks up.

  “Fl-?”

  Rise in one fluid motion. Voice is buzzed, thin. “They’re coming.”

  Flutter’s warning gives me just enough time to whip out my sword. Cobble crunchers squirm in through cracks in the walls, swarm through gaps around the door. Toro slants a sharp, sideways glance at me, most of the itauri gasp out of sheer reflex—not at the crunchers, but at the sword. I bite back the words, “Yes, that’s the sword. Now stop gaping and take charge of your own destiny” as the itauri begin their foot-stomping dance of cobble cruncher extermination.

  One of the crunchers, a cross between a rodent and a wizened six-inch-high man, tries to climb my leg. I poke him off with my sword and face the door. Waiting for the next wave.

  Metal sizzles, wood splinters, and the door gives way with a crash. Three eerie men bound in. Their blue hair is raised in spikes all over their heads, their compact bodies are hunched and heavily-muscled. Ear-piercings and sharpened teeth gleam as they catch the light.r />
  The first meets my blade with a casual swipe of his claw-tipped hand and loses it. Blue blood spurts from the stump. He howls, the piercing tones making everyone wince. The other two join in his cacophony; it reverberates in my bones, shoots up my nerves, and plugs straight into my brain, the part that screams fear and panic and flight.

  Spiders, sluggish from the aborted transformation, stir. No. Not that. Two transformations in so short a time, after so many years? That would kill me. My muscles are still clenched from earlier.

  I grit my teeth, ignore the knot in my belly, the ache in my thighs and arms, the tension of veins and nerves. Some of the itauri break ranks and flee to back exits unknown, others cower against the walls. Toro marshals his novices, starts the Invocations going, summoning his unreliable prayer magic—if Taurin happens to be in the mood to grant wishes—but I can’t pay attention to that right now.

  The eerie men uncoil the whips at their belts.

  I duck the first lash, jump the second. The third catches me in the stomach, with a jolt and a buzz. I double over. A thousand needles prick all the way up my spine and barbed darts twist in my gut. The next lash falls on my shoulders, then on my hand. It spasms and I nearly drop the sword.

  The whip comes at me again. I can’t escape it in time.

  And then Flutter is there, one delicate forelimb upraised, almost in benediction. The whip cracks against her wrist, then wraps around it, squeezes. Flutter shimmers, moves through the whip, down its length, till she reaches the eerie man holding it. She reaches out with sorrowful grace and shuts his eyes. He falls to the floor.

  The other two eerie men growl in their throats, and thumb the spikes at their belts. Electricity crackles in the air. I gasp out, “Watch out for—”

  She flows around the lash, dances between the two whips tangling for a piece of her. The tip of one flicks her cheek, and she winces, cries out.

  And dissolves.

  Falls into smoke and disappears into the floor.

  No!

  I utter a cry, all anger and frustration. I swing the sword, go for limbs and torsos and heads. Soon, the eerie men are covered in a dozen cuts, oozing their bluish blood. There are tiny stinging burns on my face and arms from their whips.

  If you have taken my one chance of finding Sera from me…

  My muscles jump and twitch from the electric shocks jolting through me. My spiders are there, channeling the energy as fast as they can, but every swing is slower and wilder. I’m losing control, losing the fight.

  Eilendi chant swells in the room. Toro is at my shoulder, a little behind me, a disconcertingly familiar presence. The scent of green things in the rain comes to my nose. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his hands move, fingers weaving the air.

  Taurin has listened. Toro sees.

  Not for me, though. Taurin’s through with me. This is for the itauri.

  I squint but I can’t see the magic at work. I see its effects, though, as the eerie men, in mid-attack, slow and stumble. Their whips dangle from their hands, fall limp to the floor.

  I attack. A stab through the handless one’s stomach, pull back while he falls, then dispatch the other eerie man. My sword sings its approval, my blood hums in response.

  As the last eerie man hits the floor, Toro says, “Perhaps it would’ve been better to have left one alive for questioning.” He understates, as usual.

  I don’t care right now. I squat at the place where Flutter had been, looking for—what? A scrap of her cloak? A sticky stain of her thin blood? “Where’d she go? What happened?” Even the greater energy of the swift strike hadn’t affected her as that one touch from the eerie man’s whip.

  “They came to destroy her,” says Toro, leaning over me. “They made sure they brought the right weapons.”

  I glance sharply at him. “Do you know who they are?”

  Toro doesn’t answer. He moves over to the first eerie man, the one that Flutter touched. He lies still and waxen-looking on the floor. Toro checks him and announces, “He’s still alive. Barely.”

  They. Flutter has powerful enemies. They tried to kill her outside my alley, then sent a cloak after her, and then the eerie men.

  The cloak had attacked me, though.

  They want me dead, too. Who have I offended in Highwind?

  Toro’s hands hover over the eerie man’s chest. “Come quickly, Kato. He won’t last long.”

  I bend over the eerie man as his eyes open. A panicked wildness twists within them, so different from the lunatic glee they had previously displayed. He thrashes his head from side to side, his muscles ripple and bunch.

  “Who sent you?” I ask. “Why did you come to this place?”

  The eerie man growls. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s speaking, his words almost incomprehensible in a mouth crowded with overlarge teeth.

  “…don’t know why…why I do…just do…all I came for…help from…they in their white coats!” The eerie man’s voice rises to a shrill pitch, and I flinch, clapping my hands to my ears. Toro doesn’t, but his hands are trembling and a fine film of sweat has broken out on his forehead.

  I don’t need Toro to tell me what’s going on. We’re losing the eerie man and I need to be quick.

  “White coats, you said. Do you mean the hospital?”

  The eerie man makes a strangled sound and shrinks away from me. His pulse beats in his neck, his veins stand out. I push harder. “Did they do this to you at the hospital? Are you saying that eerie men and cloaks are made there?” Disbelief colors my voice. The creatures of the night have haunted Highwind for centuries. The hospital was built a few decades ago.

  His breath seizes up, his eyes roll back in his head. He’s beyond answering now, and I shake my head at Toro, telling him to let go.

  Toro’s long fingers roll, as if he winds invisible yarn into a ball. “Take this, friend,” he says to the eerie man, who, with bared teeth and agonized expression, looks less human than ever. “Take the memories that the white coats buried deep and hid from you.” Toro makes a gesture as if casting a net on the eerie man’s face.

  The eerie man blinks once, twice, rapidly. Something dawns—joy, recognition, I can’t tell. He cries out, “Danae!” and then he is still.

  He is gone and whatever of himself he recovered in those last moments is gone with him.

  Toro brushes the eerie man’s eyes shut. “May Taurin guide your soul to him, ishtaur.” Darkchild. I suppose I am one, too, now. Out of Taurin’s light, far from his grace.

  Mercy given, prayer said, Toro rocks on his heels. “So. The hospital.” He is weary, but unsurprised.

  I narrow my eyes. “You knew.”

  “I have suspected.”

  “Is that why you denied Sera her last rites? Because she worked there?” I clench my fists. The eerie man was wrong. Had to be wrong. “Where she healed people?”

  “She cut people. You know that is forbidden.” Toro’s voice is flat, oddly gentle. This is an old argument, but I cannot keep from poking at it, picking at the scab, making the wound bleed all over again.

  “She helped people. She saved lives. She did more than you ever did in all the years you spent with my army. More than Taurin did.”

  He winces, at my blasphemy or my indictment, I don’t know. Don’t care. “No, not because of that. But because…she changed.”

  “You think they changed her? Changed Sera?” Anger blooms through my disbelief. I’ll kill them. I’ll kill all those smirking, soft-voiced, pale-skinned directors if they betrayed her. Sera had been so damned proud when they’d promoted her. “Like they did this unfortunate creature—and her.”

  We look at the place Flutter had melted into. Flutter, more mist than human. Is Sera a cloak too? Is that why Flutter came—to tell me? Is that why they—whoever they were—had sent the eerie men, the cloak, whatever had attacked Flutter?

  I rise, ignoring the groan of my aching knees. “I have to find her.”

  She’s dripped straight through the f
loor and foundation and into the abandoned mine tunnels below. It takes me most of a day and three hundred and seventy eight repetitions of the Great Invocation to find her, a bundle of mist amidst the darkness. When I reach out to her, my hand passes through her knee—and then her talons are at my throat, very much sharp, very much present.

  “Lalita vey,” I whisper, knowing that only Taurin’s prayers stand between me and the cloak’s reflexes. My mouth is as dry as the desert sand, and the words have to be dredged up from my memory. They ooze up like a little water from the bottom of a dry well. “Lalita vey. Eilendi.” Please, I think, but dare not say anything other than ritual words.

  Flutter blinks, comes to herself, drops her hand. She looks at it as if it belongs to someone else, as though she cannot quite fathom how it has gotten attached to her wrist. Then she hides it in the folds of her frayed cloak-wings.

  “What happened?” I ask, soft as breath.

  “Dissolution.” Her voice is distant, her gaze shifts to a point above my head. “They hit me, and I—became nothing. Just atoms in space.”

  “You found yourself back again, though.”

  “The words,” she whispers. “The Invocation. Reminding even the atoms who made them and what they were made for. Reminding me of my purpose.”

  Purpose. Once I’d had a purpose. I’d thought that Taurin had chosen me for great deeds, to save my people from the Dark Masters ensconced in Tau Marai, to defeat the golems they sent out to ravage our land. Showed how much I knew. I’d been deluded, as had the hundreds who’d followed me. I’d failed them at the gates, proved to everyone how Taurin, after all, had not been with me.

  He never had.

  The eilendi had been right to doubt me. Toro had been wrong to champion me.

  No, that is all behind me, a shattered past whose pieces I’d buried deep. The only thing that matters from that life is Sera.

  “Why did you come for me? What purpose do the eilendi have for Kato Hope-Crusher?” That is one of the kinder epithets I am remembered by.

  She tilts her head, studies me. “I don’t know,” she answers. “Just…I had to find you. That you were the only one who could help me.”