31
MORE THAN A SWORD OF THE SUN

He lay in bed, tossing and turning, wondering what he should do. He wanted to tell Tasahre, somehow, without losing her trust, without her hating him, but what business was it of hers? Kuy selling Master Sy’s oldest friend to the Headsman? That was between Master Sy and Kuy. Maybe the thief-taker knew a way to kill a warlock.

No, he had to find Master Sy. He had to get to the Emperor’s Docks first and be waiting for him, to try and stop him, or else to help him. Try and stop the thief-taker from murdering Radek of Kalda, or else help his master kill the man who had destroyed his life. One or the other. And then tell his master how one man he called friend had helped to murder another.

The thought made him pause. What if someone came to Deephaven right now? What if they killed Justicar Kol and every thief-taker in the city and murdered Tasahre and the other monks? What if they burned his home and … no, not that, he wouldn’t care too much about Deephaven getting burned. But what about the rest? And then they hunted him down for years, trying to murder him? What would he do if he met that man again, ten years later?

Kill him. He didn’t need to think about that. That’s what he’d want to do.

Wanting didn’t make it right, though.

He crept out of bed for the second time. For once, as the sun came up, he was down in the practice yard, already sitting there in the dark as the sword-monks filed out for their sunrise vigil. He watched with them in silence as the pinks and purples in the sky over the River Gate grew brighter and blossomed into reds and oranges as the sun lit the horizon.

And when he did find Master Sy, what then? The thief-taker wouldn’t be staying in Deephaven, not with the justicar after him. He couldn’t. He’d have to leave and Berren would have to choose, either go with him or stay and let the thief-taker leave him behind.

He stared at Tasahre. She was sitting still, legs crossed, hands on her knees, watching the sun. His heart clenched. She wasn’t like the women up on Reeper Hill, all lips and smiles and curves and exotic scents. She was as different from them as it was possible to be, and he wanted to be with her more than he wanted all the rest of them put together; and now he was going to have to leave her.

She’d be going soon anyway, he reminded himself. Even if they didn’t send her away after what she’d done, it wouldn’t be long before she was gone. With the Harvest Tides with the rest of the monks. How long was that? Another month? Two? He didn’t know. He furrowed his brow to try and work it out, but every time he did, all he could think of was her.

The dawn vigil ended. One by one, the sword-monks rose and left, all except Tasahre who stayed exactly where she was.

‘It’s Abyss-Day, Berren,’ she said, without taking her eyes off the dawn. ‘You have no lessons today. You’re supposed to rest. If what I hear is true, you’re rarely seen much before the middle of the day.’

‘Couldn’t sleep.’

‘You’re troubled, then.’

Berren shivered. He nodded. ‘And you aren’t? After what happened yesterday?’

‘I am saddened, Berren. Saddened that one of my path has fallen in such a way. I pray to the sun for her, as I pray for everyone.’

He almost asked her right then to come to the Emperor’s Docks with him this evening. They could stop it, the two of them. Just the two of them. They could make Master Sy relent, make him see that killing a man wouldn’t change anything, make him let it go. With the Sunbright taken, the Headsman’s plot and Radek’s part in it, that would all come out, wouldn’t it? Maybe they could get Radek taken in by the city justicars for what he’d done? He understood it now. The papers Master Sy had taken from the Headsman’s strongbox, they showed it all. The mercenaries he’d hired, the black powder brought in secret to the city, the disposition of the Deephaven defences. The Headsman was dead, but Radek wasn’t. The city justicars would be all over him, and all over the Path of the Sun too, as soon as they were done with him. The Path who stood opposed to the Emperor.

The mines for the men he’s killed if the justicars catch him, a swift sword for what he knows if a dragon-monk reaches him first.

He looked at Tasahre and wanted to cry. She was so … so beautiful, in her own way. He couldn’t ask her to be a part of this. She’d never come with him alone. She’d do what she thought was right and she’d tell the other monks and the priests and …

No.

‘Are they going to send you away?’ he asked.

‘Yes. On the next ship to sail for Helhex. After the festival.’

‘I want to show you something,’ he said and got up. He blundered towards the Hall of Swords.

‘What is it?’ She was following him. The hall was filled with sealed pots and jars, with tiny glass bottles. There were sacks full of something that looked like manure but smelled a hundred times worse and crates of metal ingots that he couldn’t even lift; strange devices, glass flasks full of oil with lumps of greasy white stone inside them, other things he didn’t begin to understand. He stared at them all. The warlock’s artefacts from the House of Cats and Gulls. He had no idea why he’d come here.

‘Berren?’ Tasahre was in the doorway, framed by the light. ‘What is it? You are troubled.’

Desiccated dead rats. He remembered those. He and Tasahre had found them, laid out in a sinuous pattern, weaving in and out among circles of ash and sand, of salt and charcoal. A glint of silver caught his eye from an open knapsack.

‘Berren! What are you doing?’ She came in towards him. ‘You shouldn’t touch such things!’

Memories of what he’d seen swirling around the warlock’s head filled him. He pushed them away. He went to the bag and reached inside. There was a purse filled with strange silver coins that he didn’t recognise.

‘Berren!’

Underneath the purse were three small vials, carefully packed in a wooden box lined with straw. One by one, he pulled them out and peered at the tiny words, carefully etched into the glass. Poison, said the first. Blood of the Funeral Tree. Enough to kill six men. Secrete in food or drink.

Berren almost dropped it.

Let them drink this and fall asleep. Whisper a name three times in their ear, that that name may become the object of their obsessions and desires.

A love potion? He almost burst out laughing. He looked at the last one.

Three times this will stay the hand of fate when otherwise your life would end.

A potion to cheat love. A potion to cheat death. And poison, a potion to cheat life. Underneath the potions were more notes, scrags of vellum, some rolled up, some crumpled into balls, all covered in the warlock’s spidery hand.

‘Berren! Stop!’ Tasahre was next to him. She laid a hand on his, gentle but firm. ‘Stop,’ she said again. ‘You shouldn’t be in here.’

Carefully, Berren put the warlock’s potions back as he’d found them. He put the purse back too.

She had her hand on his, pulling him, still gentle. ‘Come away.’

‘I wanted to show you something,’ he said again.

‘Then please do so and let us be gone.’

‘As you wish.’ He reached out his other hand and cupped her face. ‘I know our paths were never meant to join, and it makes me want to raise my fists against the gods, but I won’t do that, because I know it would make you sad.’ They weren’t even his words. Just something Velgian had recited one evening while Master Sy and Kol and the other thief-takers had jeered at him. ‘You are the best thing in my life. I wish …’ The lump in his throat wouldn’t let him say any more.

Tasahre didn’t move. Her hand stayed on his. She didn’t push him away. He leaned forward and kissed her, softly on the lips, as the ladies from Reeper Hill would do. He kissed her lips and he kissed the corners of her mouth. His hand on her cheek slipped slowly to her neck.

‘Stop!’ She pushed him away, took a step back and shivered. The expression on her face was a strange one, full of confusion. He’d never seen her anything but certain. Angry, before she’d confronted the Sunbright, and sad afterwards. Scared as they’d fled from the warlock. But unsure? Never.

She sniffed hard and half-smiled. ‘Is that what you wanted to show me?’ There were tears in her eyes.

‘I wanted you to know,’ he said, with a quiver in his voice. ‘Just in case …’

There. He couldn’t finish that sentence or he’d be crying like a little boy.

‘In case …?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have.’

‘No.’ Now there was a tear on her cheek. ‘No, you shouldn’t.’

He’d ruined everything. He turned away.

‘Berren?’

‘Tasahre?’

She was standing there, arms limp at her sides, eyes glistening, half smiling, half full of sorrow.

‘I …’ She shook her head. ‘You are so …’ She looked down at her feet, then looked up again. ‘It is Abyss-Day, is it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘And tomorrow begins the Festival of Flames.’

‘Yes.’

‘And so tonight you will go to the Emperor’s Docks to look for your master, because you know that he knows that his enemy will be there, and you hope to find him. If you do, will you stop him?’

She knew? But of course, because he’d told her everything the Headsman had said after they’d fled from Kuy. She hadn’t forgotten, then. He swallowed hard. ‘I will try.’ So she knew he wasn’t coming back then. She’d see that, surely.

‘Then I hope I will not see you again.’ She took a deep breath.

‘What?’

‘Give me your hand.’

He held out his hand and she took it and pressed it against her cheek, just as he had done, and sighed and closed her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It means I hope you will succeed. I hope you will sway him and be away, both of you. It means I hope you will be safe. You know this cannot be.’

He nodded.

She lifted his hand gently away and kissed it. ‘But thank you for giving me this moment. Thank you for showing me that there is more to this monk than what you saw of me yesterday, that I am more than a sword of the sun.’ She laughed, shaking her head, and there were tears running down her face. ‘And now I will go, before one of us does something even more foolish. And you should go too. I would ask you to stay in the temple tonight, of all nights, but I know you won’t unless I tie you down, and I will not do that. Please, be safe Berren.’

With that, she turned and almost ran out of the door.

Yes, he thought. I will. But I’m coming back. I promise. I will find a way.