Page 43 of Court of Shadows
“We are not so different,” Khent replied. As we left the market square, flanked on all sides by tall, shining white buildings, the crowd thinned but the smell of cooking food intensified. My stomach roared, soured from too much dried fish and hard bread on the boat. “Mother and Father command trees and creatures,wondrous beings who spring from water and air. But they command the boar, too, which sometimes kills the hunter, and the oleander that poisons the hound. It is said the Dark One’s servants only come for the most nefarious among us, but his servants are new to this world, and I do not trust it will remain so forever.”
“Evil hunting evil,” I murmured, thoughtful. “That is not so bad.”
Khent laughed. He had an infectious laugh, a giddy sound that was completely unique to him. It sometimes reminded me of hyenas giggling to one another on the plains. “Are we not performing evil in their eyes right now? We are servants to other masters, more powerful masters, and if Roeh and the Dark One want to see them destroyed, then I would hesitate to call either of them ‘friend.’ Ah! Here.”
He stopped us outside a small inn. The sign had been defaced, but I did not read enough of the language to know what it said. It was loud inside, filled with early drunks, the perfect place for two quiet young travelers to disappear. Nobody would hear us above the din of the men, mostly sailors, who boasted and played dice and exchanged insults, keen for a brawl.
We found the innkeep slumbering in the corner while his wife and daughter hurried to refill cups and deliver steaming bowls of fish stew, olives, and bread to the sailors.
Khent half shouted, banging his fist in front of the innkeep’s face, and I assumed he had asked for a room. The man jumpedawake, sallow-faced and saggy, with thin black hair and a patchy beard.
They haggled briefly, the innkeep glancing between us suspiciously, then he handed over a key and snatched the coin out of Khent’s fingers before we could change our minds.
“Charming fellow,” Khent sneered, dragging me away from the back of the inn and toward a table at the hearth. “Keep your voice down; we don’t know what prejudices lurk among these people.”
“I am too weary to speak much anyway,” I said, joining him at the small table and falling onto the bench like a sack of bricks. The strap of the satchel had carved a deep runnel in my shoulder, a purple-and-black bruise that only grew worse with each passing day. Sometimes Khent offered to carry the bag, but I had been tasked with delivering the book, and so I never allowed him to keep it for long.
“No, I suppose you will just take out that little journal of yours and scribble away,” he teased. He signaled to the innkeep’s daughter, who blew a strand of sweaty hair out of her face and wandered over. Khent spoke to her gently, politely, and at once I saw the change in her—she was obviously grateful to have two quieter, calmer customers. He gave her a coin at the outset, and that pleased her, too.
“Whydoyou write in that thing so much? One book not enough for you to carry?”
“I don’t know,” I said, gazing into the fire. “I just want toremember that I did any of this, that I... that I mattered. At first it was just a daily log of what had transpired, but now it feels like more than that. I don’t want this story, my story—our story—to just disappear. We have seen terrible and wonderful things, and those sights should be recorded.”
Khent nodded, grinning at the girl as she returned with two foaming cups of beer. She blushed under his attentions, and it was not difficult to understand why.
“Well, your penmanship is a disaster,” he said when she was gone. “What sort of scribe taught you? A blind one?”
“It isn’t adisaster,” I shot back, defensive. “Nobody can read it. It’s a language of my own. Shorthand. All of these curiosities and secrets should be kept, but they are not for all eyes.”
His eyebrows rose at that, and his dark purple eyes glimmered over the cup of his beer. “Not bad, Bennu. You’re full of surprises.”
“As are you, my friend.” The beer was not cold but it did taste wonderful, enough to wash out the salty residue in my mouth leftover from the sea. “What are those marks on your arms? Where did you come from? You have the look of a nobleman’s son and you do not sound like anyone I know in my village. You speak perfect Greek. What sort of scribe taughtyou?”
He gave that strange wild laugh again and sipped his beer. “I like you, Bennu the Runner, I like you very much. And to your question—it was a royal scribe who taught me, and that is all you must know for now.”
We remained at the inn for two nights, two blissfullyuneventful, restful nights. Khent still slept fitfully, but that did not bother me. In fact, I was glad to have someone so watchful at my side. The book I carried attracted bad luck like honey attracted flies, and his vigilance afforded me better sleep. We hard hardly left the inn at all, which let me carry the bag less, and my shoulder began to heal. But we could not stay forever, which became obvious on the third morning, when I woke from night terrors, pink spittle rushing from my lips.
Khent saw it, for he always woke well before me, and at once he donned his traveling cloak. “It is time we moved on,” he said solemnly.
“What does it mean?” I asked, climbing regretfully out of the blankets and cleaning my chin on a basin rag. “I have seen it before. The girls who sent me on this journey, they were praying by the book and had visions....”
“It’s Mother speaking to you,” he said, and handed me my cloak. “It means we need to leave.”
And leave we did, by the north gate, hitching a ride with a wealthy goatherd who allowed us to ride on his cart for the hillier, more treacherous stretches leading from the city. My feet were glad for the goatherd, but he could only take us into the countryside, a place greener than I had ever seen before, with rocky hills dotted with fluffy sheep and grazing goats. We sheltered that night in an abandoned herder’s shack shaded by tall pines. It was strange to be so far from home, to look out onto grassy hills and not the familiar serpentine rushing of the Nile.
Khent retrieved bundles of grass from the shallow woods behind us and helped me pile them into bundles for sleeping. Then he made a small fire outside the shack, and we sat and watched the stars emerge, each of us munching on goat cheese given to us by the helpful herder. A shape appeared in the sky as we ate, a winding thing that slithered its way in front of the stars, higher than a bird might fly but not by much. It was massive, black, with faint stripes of yellow and red. I gasped and pointed, mouth full, watching it glide effortlessly.
“A Sky Snake,” Khent said, grinning. “A good omen; my heart is glad to see it. We will follow it, and soon; we should leave while we still have the cover of dark.”
I huddled under my cloak and tried to sleep, but the hillside soon grew cold, too cold for our meager fire to banish, and I felt vulnerable, the rickety old shack offering a clear view of us curled up inside. I do not think I slept until I heard the song.
It was quiet at first, haunting, a mother’s lullaby turning sour at the edges. Sad. The woman who sang it sounded like she was in mourning. But it was beautiful, and for a while I rested as if inside it, comforted by its soft, winding verses. Then listening to it in dreams was not enough, and I woke up, refreshed. I could not say how much time had passed, but the moon was out and full again, almost garish as it hung shining in the sky.
The Sky Snake was gone, but the song had come, and so I climbed out from under my cloak and stood. It seemed wrong to leave the satchel, for it was mine to protect, so I hoisted it onto myshoulder and winced from the pain, then shook off the discomfort and went in search of the song. I felt compelled to find it, called to it like a gull called to the sea. It drifted out from the shallow forest, and in I went, feeling the pine boughs brush against my cheeks as I blindly searched, using my ears and not my eyes to go by.
The song grew louder. It had words yet it did not, or I did not understand the words; they folded in on themselves. And then the woman would sing a note, a high note, one that plucked at my heart, stirring a longing there that almost brought me to tears. Why was she so sad? I had to find her.
A tiny brook wound its way through the trees, and my feet splashed in it, the water leading me to a large, rounded rock, and there she sat. I had never seen a woman so beautiful in all my life. She was dark-skinned and plump, with wide, catlike eyes, and she wore nothing but black hair that fell like a shroud and pooled around her feet. Her knees were drawn up to her chest as she combed her fingers through that hair and sang, her lips shining as if painted with gold.
