An Affinity for Steel, page 99
That seemed a fair question to her. It had never really sought anyone with the unerring grip that it had sought Lenk. Of course, fair or not, it didn’t answer. Perhaps it had heard that one before. Or maybe she wasn’t asking the right question. And, in its silence, she furrowed her brow as a new thought occurred to her.
‘Who sent you?’ She held her hand up to the sun, as though the light would finally deign to give her an answer she had been asking for all these years and shine through the flesh to reveal its purpose. ‘Why is it you wanted him? What did he do to …?’
And she remembered his eyes, his voice, his cold grasp. And so, she asked.
‘Did he …?’ she whispered. ‘Does he deserve it? Should he die?’
A sudden breeze struck. Clouds shifted. Branches parted. The sun shone down with more intensity than it had before, focusing a great golden eye upon her. She gasped, beholden, and stared back at the eye, unblinking.
‘Is that it?’ she whispered. ‘Is that the answer? Is what I’m meant to do with this?’ She bit her lower lip to control the tremble that racked her as she raised her head and whispered with a shrill, squeaking voice. ‘Please, I just want to—’
A shadow fell. Light died. She blinked. Giant green orbs and bright white angles assaulted her senses, narrowing and twisting into horrible shapes as greasy yellow strands dangled down and pricked at her skin.
She recognised Kataria too late. Too late to keep herself from starting and far too late to avoid the shict’s forehead as it came down upon her own with a resounding crack. She cried out, clutching her throbbing brow and scrambling to get away. She raised herself on her rear, staring at the shict, caught between shock and anger.
Kataria’s own expression seemed settled on a grating, irritating grin.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Why did you do that?’ Asper shrieked.
‘Do what?’
‘You headbutted me.’
‘Yeah, you looked busy.’
Asper stared intently at her. ‘How … how does that even—?’
‘You seem like you’re going to dwell on this for a while and leave me no opportunity to give you the present I brought you.’
‘What?’
The question was apparently enough of an invitation to spur the shict into action. She snapped her arm, sending a brown, multilimbed body into Asper’s lap. The priestess looked down at the gohmn, aghast; it was browned from cooking and, if the sticky substance dripping onto her legs was any indication, basted in something of origins she fiercely fought the urge to inquire over.
Instead, she merely scowled up, her distaste compounded as the shict brought a barbed roach leg to her teeth and tore a tough chunk from it.
‘Like venison,’ she said with a grin, her teeth white against the brown smear on her mouth, ‘except a tad roachier.’
‘I’m …’ ‘Leaving’ would be a good thing to say, Asper thought, or ‘furious’ or ‘about to strangle you.’ ‘Not hungry.’
‘Eat while you can,’ Kataria said. ‘You don’t know how much you’ll miss basted bug meat when there’s no room for them on the boat.’
‘There’s a boat?’ Asper asked, eyes widening. ‘Sebast! He’s all right? He’s come?’
‘No, no,’ Kataria said, shaking her head. ‘Togu is lending us one to take back to the mainland … well, giving us one, since we can’t bring it back, obviously. We’ll set out tomorrow, Lenk says, after the party tonight.’
‘There’s a party now?’
‘A farewell celebration, I guess? Togu was insistent on it, so we figured it’d be less irritating to simply glut ourselves tonight and spend tomorrow defecating over the railing than arguing about it today.’
‘How … pleasant,’ Asper said, blanching. ‘Why would he be insistent?’
‘Neediness, maybe? Loneliness? A fierce desire to see half-clad pink skin instead of half-clad green skin?’ Kataria growled, taking another bite from the leg. ‘How am I supposed to know what goes on inside a lizardman’s head?’
‘Well, are they at least going to give us back our clothes?’ Asper asked, gesturing to the aforementioned pink skin. ‘If it’s a choice between coming back to the mainland dressed like this or staying here …’ She paused and frowned. ‘I suppose drowning would be preferable.’
‘I feel like you’re worrying a lot about trivial things,’ Kataria said, licking the bug juices from her lips. ‘It’s quite annoying. You’re starting to sound like Lenk.’
Asper went rigid, fixing a hard stare on Kataria.
‘What,’ she asked, ‘do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing,’ Kataria replied, canting her head to the side. ‘I’m merely suggesting that you’re being overly stupid about things that don’t matter and very rude when I bartered, slaughtered, cooked and slathered a twitching roach for you.’ She sneered. ‘You’re welcome, by the way.’
‘There are just enough things offensive about that sentence that I don’t feel bad for it.’ Asper rose up, futilely trying to wipe the juices from her skin. ‘Or for leaving. Good day.’
She fought the urge to recoil as the shict leapt in front of her, but could do nothing to prevent the sudden beating of her heart. Kataria’s muscles tensed as she regarded the priestess with an unflinching stare.
She heard me, Asper thought. She heard me ask if I should kill Lenk. She heard me. And now she’s going to … Asper’s face screwed up in confusion as the shict’s softened, her green eyes quivering. Cry?
It certainly looked that way, at least. The savage humour, the feral grin, the bloodlust always lurking: all evaporated in an instant. Kataria’s mouth quivered wordlessly, fumbling for words to defeat this expression to no avail as she rubbed her foot self-consciously upon the moist earth.
Asper found herself unable to leave for the painful familiarity of it all. She hadn’t seen such a display since …
Since I saw myself in the river today.
‘I need …’ Kataria spoke hesitantly, shaking her head and summoning up a growl. ‘I want to talk.’
‘Oh.’ Asper glanced over the shict’s shoulder. ‘Lenk went into the forest, last I saw.’
‘Not to Lenk,’ Kataria snarled suddenly, then clenched her teeth, as though it pained her to spoke. ‘To you.’
‘What?’ Asper looked incredulous. ‘What did I do?’
‘What is that supposed to mean? I just … I want that thing that priests do.’
‘The last time I tried to bless you, you bit me.’
‘I don’t want that. I want the other thing; the one where we talk.’
Asper looked at her curiously. ‘Confession?’
‘Yeah, that.’ Kataria nodded. ‘How’s it work?’
‘Well, with people of the same faith with something they seek atonement for, we usually sit down, they tell me their sins or their problem, and I listen and help if I can.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Kataria’s nod became one of vicious enthusiasm. ‘We need to do that!’
‘I’m not sure it’s—’
‘Immediately!’
‘Look, we’re not even of the same faith!’ Asper replied hotly. ‘Besides, your problems always seem to be the kind that are solved by shooting someone in the eye. What makes this one so special?’
‘Fine, then,’ Kataria spat as she turned away. ‘I’ll figure it out myself, as usual.’
The shict’s impending departure should have been a relief, Asper knew. After all, any problems Kataria was like to share were equally likely to be foul, unpleasant and possibly involving the marking of territory.
And yet, she couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of Kataria’s face as she turned away. A choked expression, confused, lost.
The shict had a question without an answer.
And the priestess had an oath.
‘Wait a moment.’ Her own words should have been a worry, Asper knew, but she forced a smile. ‘I can listen, at the very least.’
Kataria turned and stared as Asper took a seat upon a patch of moss, gesturing to the earth before her. With a stiff nod, Kataria took a hesitant seat before her. For an age, they simply sat, staring at each other with eyes intent and befuddled respectively. After waiting long past what would be considered polite, Asper cleared her throat.
‘So,’ she said, ‘what did you want to—?’
‘This is supposed to be anonymous,’ Kataria interrupted, ‘isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘I thought there were curtains or something.’
‘In a proper temple, yes,’ Asper replied. ‘But … look, even disregarding the fact that we’re in a forest, disregarding the fact that you asked me to do this, I’ve known you for a year now. Kat, I know you by voice and by smell both.’
‘What I smell is a loss of principles,’ Kataria replied, far more haughtily than someone clutching a roach leg should be able to. ‘And you, my friend, are reeking.’
‘Oh Gods, fine!’ Asper loosed a low grumble as she shifted about in the earth, turning her back to Kataria. ‘There, is that better?’
A sudden jolt was her answer as Kataria pressed her own back against the priestess’.
‘Sort of.’ The shict’s hum reverberated into Asper. ‘Is there any way you could do this in a different voice so—’
‘No.’
‘Fine.’
The shict’s snarl was the last noise she made for a long moment. In the silence that followed, it occurred to Asper with some mild dismay that she had never actually wondered what her companion felt like. She had always suspected that Kataria would be more relaxed, her muscles loose and breath coming in slow and easy gulps of air.
Someone who cuts wind with as much abandon as she does would have to be relaxed, right?
But there was nothing but tension in the shict’s body. Not the kind of nervous tremble of dismay at having another woman’s bare flesh touching her own that now enveloped Asper, Kataria’s tension was muscle-deep, her entire body feeling like she had been twisted so tightly that she might explode in a bloody, stressful mess at any moment.
One more regret for ever having agreed to this, Asper thought.
‘So, did you want to talk about?’
‘What’s it like?’ Kataria interrupted.
‘What’s what like?’
‘Being a coward.’
‘What?’ Asper began to rise. ‘Did you get me to sit down just so you could insult me? Because it seems like a lot of work for something you already do standing up.’
‘Wait.’ Kataria’s hand shot out and wrapped with a desperate firmness about Asper’s wrist, yanking the priestess back to the earth. ‘I mean … I’ve watched you. When we fight.’ Her grip tightened. ‘You’re scared.’
Asper opened her mouth to retort, but found precious little to say by way of refuting the accusation, and even less to say to pull her hand back.
‘I suppose,’ she said, pressing her back up against the shict’s again. ‘It can be a frightening thing, combat.’
‘But you don’t run,’ Kataria continued. ‘You don’t back away.’
‘Neither do you,’ Asper replied.
‘Well, obviously. But it’s different with me. I know how to fight. If I can kill it, and I usually can, I do kill it. If I can’t kill it, and sometimes I can’t, I run away until I can kill it and then I come back, shoot it in the face, tear off its face and then wear its face as a hat … if I can.’
‘Uh …’
‘But you,’ Kataria said, her body trembling. ‘You look so terrified, so uncertain … and really, sometimes, I’m uncertain when the fight breaks out. I don’t know if you’ll make it out of this one or that one and I expect you to run. I would, were I you.’
‘But,’ Asper said softly, ‘you’re not.’
‘No, I’m not. I don’t stick around if it’s not certain.’ The shict leaned back, sighing. ‘It was all certain when I left the forest to follow Lenk, you know? I knew I couldn’t stay there because I didn’t know what was going to happen. But everyone knows what a monkey will do. Even one with silver fur just fights, screams, hoards gold and tries to convince himself he’s not a monkey.’
‘Fighting, screaming and hoarding gold is all we’ve done since we left on the Riptide,’ Asper said. ‘Come to think of it, it’s all we’ve done since I met you.’
‘So why doesn’t it make sense anymore,’ Kataria all but moaned as she slumped against the priestess’ back. ‘This was all so much fun when we started. But now we’re just sitting around in furs, talking instead of killing people.’
‘And … that’s bad?’ Asper asked. ‘I’m sorry, I really can’t tell with you.’
‘That’s bad,’ Kataria confirmed. ‘I should be running.’
‘But you’re not.’
‘And why am I not? Why don’t you run when you feel like it?’ The shict scratched herself contemplatively. ‘Duty?’
She swallowed the question, and Asper wondered if Kataria could feel her own tension as it plummeted down to rest like an iron weight in her belly. Why did she stay? she wondered. Certainly not to protect her friends. I need it more than they do. To survive, then? Maybe, but why get involved at all with them, then? Duty?
That must be it.
Yeah, she told herself, that’s it. Duty to the Healer. That’s why you fight … that’s why you kill. It’s certainly not because you’ve got an arm that kills people that you can’t possibly run away from. No, it’s duty. Tell her that. Tell her it’s duty and she’ll say ‘oh’ and leave and then there will be two people who hate themselves and don’t have answers and you won’t be alone anymore.
‘Is it your god?’ Kataria asked, snapping the priestess from her reverie. ‘Does he command you to stay and fight?’
‘Not exactly,’ Asper replied hesitantly, the question settling uneasily on her ears. ‘He asks that we heal the wounded and comfort the despairing. I suppose being on the battlefield lends itself well to that practice, no?’
Is that it, then? Are you meant to be here to help people? That’s why you joined with them, isn’t it? But then … why do you have the arm?
‘You have your own god, don’t you?’ Asper asked, if only to keep out of her own head. ‘A goddess, anyway.’
‘Riffid, yeah,’ Kataria replied. ‘But Riffid doesn’t ask, Riffid doesn’t command, Riffid doesn’t give. She made the shicts and gave us instinct and that’s it. We live or die by those instincts.’
And what of a god who gives you a curse? Asper asked herself. Does he love or hate you, then?
‘So we don’t have signs or omens or whatever. And I’ve never looked for them before,’ Kataria continued with a sigh. ‘I’ve never needed to. Instinct has told me whether I could or I couldn’t. I’ve never had to look for a different answer.’
Is there a different answer? What else could there be, though? How many ways can you interpret a curse such as this? How many ways can you ask a god to explain why he made you able to kill, to remove people completely, to your satisfaction?
‘So … how do you do it?’
It took a moment for Asper to realise she had just been asked a question. ‘Do what?’
‘Know,’ Kataria replied. ‘How do you know what’s supposed to happen if nothing tells you?’
How would a woman of faith know if her god doesn’t tell her?
‘I suppose,’ Asper whispered softly, ‘you just keep asking until someone answers.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do,’ Kataria said, pressing against Asper’s back as she pressed her question. ‘But you’re not answering. What do I do?’
‘About your instincts?’
‘About Lenk, stupid!’
‘Oh,’ Asper said, blanching. ‘Ew.’
‘Ew?’
‘Well … yeah,’ Asper replied. ‘What about him? Do you like him or some—’
The question was suddenly bludgeoned from her mouth into a senseless cry of pain as something heavy cracked against her head. She cast a scowl over her shoulder to see Kataria resting the gohmn leg gently in her lap, not offering so much as a shrug in excuse.
‘Did … did you just hit me with a roach leg?’ the priestess demanded, rubbing her head.
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘Why did you just hit me with a roach leg?’
‘You were about to ask something dangerous,’ Kataria replied casually. ‘Shicts share an instinctual rapport with one another. We instantly know what’s acceptable and unacceptable to speak about.’
‘I’m human!’
‘Hence the leg.’
‘So you’ve graduated from insults to physical assault and you expect me to sit here and listen to whatever lunacy you spew out? What happens next, then? Don’t tell me.’ She started to rise again. ‘How many times have you been hit in the head today?’
Kataria’s grip was weak, her voice soft when she took Asper by the wrist and spoke. Asper could feel the tension in her body slacken, as though something inside her had clenched to the point of snapping. It was this that made the priestess hesitate.
‘I’m asking you to listen,’ the shict whispered, ‘so that I don’t find out what happens next.’
Uncertain as to whether that was a threat or not, Asper settled back into her seat and tried to ignore the feeling of the shict’s tension.
‘The thing is, we’re not even supposed to talk to humans,’ Kataria explained. ‘We only learn your language so we can know what you’re plotting next. Originally, I thought that being amongst your kind would be a good way to find that out.’ She sighed. ‘Of course, within a week, it became clear that no one really had anything all that interesting going on in their head.’
Asper nodded; an insult to her entire race was slightly more tolerable than an insult to her person, at least.
‘I should have run, then,’ Kataria said. ‘I should be running now … Why am I not?’
‘Is it’ – Asper winced, bracing for another blow – ‘just Lenk that’s keeping you here?’
‘I protected him today,’ the shict said, a weak chuckle clawing its way out of her mouth. ‘He was going into one of his fits, so I stepped forward and did the talking. I protected a human.’
‘You’ve done that before, haven’t you?’
