Markswoman Read online

  The gong sounded, reverberating through the caves.

  Goddess, was it already time for the ceremony? Kyra leaped up and grabbed a comb to run through her long hair. She tried to get the tangles out, but it was impossible, and at last she gave up and tied it in a loose bun, hoping she looked neat enough. She took down a tiny mirror from a shelf above and brought the candle close to her face to check for smudges. Her features—the snub nose, dark brown eyes, and generous mouth—reflected back at her as always. But today, it wasn’t just the face of Kyra. It was the face of a soon-to-be Markswoman.

  She tossed the mirror back on the shelf and withdrew her katari from its scabbard.

  * * *

  The Markswomen filled the cavern, all dressed in the brown, loose-sleeved robes with divided skirts that were the uniform of the Order, embroidered with their symbol: an inverted katari encircled by a ring of fire. White novice robes and green apprentice robes were conspicuous by their absence; only a full Markswoman could attend the initiation rites. Kyra knew this, but the fact that she was the only one wearing green made her heart beat faster. The katari almost slipped from her sweaty palm. She discreetly wiped her hands against her sides and clutched it. She would not drop the blade and make a fool of herself.

  The women streamed out of their cells in silence, looking not at each other but at their blades. Kyra joined them at the wooden benches surrounding the central slab, but she found it hard not to fidget. Her last hour as an apprentice.

  When everyone was seated, Shirin Mam stepped into the cavern and took her place by the platform in the middle. She looked different, somehow, from the small, slight woman who had spoken with Kyra a short while ago. Her back was straight, her robe a shimmering black, the katari shining before her in translucent diamond-like splendor. Her face in the torchlight was neither young nor old, neither good nor evil. She simply was, Shirin Mam the Mahimata of Kali, leader of the most ancient Order of Peace in Asiana.

  “. . . and Ture-asa, the last king of Asiana, decreed that to live we must die, and to rule we must serve, and to uphold the peace we must kill. Thus was the Order of Kali born and to this day we, the chosen ones from all the clans, the shining outcasts, do follow the path laid down for us. In our sacrifice lies the salvation of Asiana. And so it will ever be.”

  “And so it will ever be,” they all intoned, their voices echoing through the cavern.

  Shirin Mam’s voice grew deeper. “This day a new Markswoman is born among us. Rise, daughter of Kali, and come to me.”

  Kyra rose and advanced to the central slab.

  “Kneel,” commanded the Mahimata.

  Kyra knelt and Shirin Mam touched her forehead with the tip of her lucent blade. Kyra closed her eyes and held herself rigid as the Mahimata’s katari seared her flesh for a long, excruciating minute. This was the mark that would brand her as a Markswoman of Kali forever. Through a haze of pain she heard Shirin Mam’s voice ring out like a bell on a clear autumn day:

  “May you walk on water and pass through fire. May the blood that you shed nourish the soil and the bodies you strike feed the crows. May the katari protect your flesh and Kali protect your soul. And when your work is done, may the Ones take you with them to the stars for the last journey of your life.” Shirin Mam grasped Kyra’s shoulders, helping her up. “Drink,” she said.

  Kyra stared at the swirling red liquid in the wooden bowl that had materialized in her hands. It looked like wine or . . . blood. Wyr-wolf blood? The rumors were true. Yuck. Kyra shuddered but there was no help for it. She took the bowl and raised it to her lips. A collective sigh rose from the Markswomen.

  Kyra drank without stopping, without thinking, without tasting. When she had drained the last drop from the bowl, a mighty cheer rang through the cavern. Her head swam and faces danced before her eyes.

  Shirin Mam slashed open Kyra’s apprentice robe with her katari and led her to the slab.

  Kyra lay on the raised platform, clad in just her shift, trying to ignore the goose bumps on her skin. The five black-robed elders—Navroz Lan, Chintil Maya, Felda Seshur, Mumuksu Chan, and Tamsyn Turani—surrounded her. The first four touched her forehead with their kataris, their lips moving in silent benediction. But Tamsyn, her face distorted in the torchlight, laid the bloodred tip of her weapon in the middle of Kyra’s chest, just above the heart. Pain rose like a scream within her, then subsided to become a distant, bearable thing.

  Kyra struggled to stay conscious but the effort was too great. The last thing she heard was the singing of many voices, sweet and low. The song lifted her from pain and took her by the hand into the corridor of sleep. As Kyra walked down that corridor she saw, as plain as if it were her own reflection in a mirror, the serene face of her mother, beckoning at the far end. Joy filled Kyra and she ran toward her. Mother, I’ve missed you. She ran and ran, but her mother was no nearer than before. The corridor stretched away into the distance and her mother’s form dimmed. No, Kyra tried to shout, don’t leave me again.

  But no words escaped her lips and her mother faded away, still smiling, still beckoning. Kyra collapsed, sobbing in frustration and despair. Then she smelled ash, and felt the metallic taste of blood in her mouth.

  A blue-skinned, four-armed woman with a vermilion-streaked forehead and bloodshot eyes stood over her. Twice as tall as Kyra, her black hair rippled in turbulent waves over her wolfskin skirt to her bare feet. A garland of skulls rattled around her neck as she presented Kyra with a lotus in one hand, a pair of scissors in another, and a sword in the third.

  Kyra gaped at the fearsome form in disbelief. It cannot be. She wanted to grovel at her feet. She wanted to run away. In the end, she did neither. And as the Goddess flicked out her long red tongue and held out the final hand in benediction, her eyes bore into the depths of Kyra’s soul, and Kyra’s world went dark.

  Chapter 3

  The Judgment of Khur

  There was no glory in being a Marksman.

  Rustan had learned that quickly living with the Order of Khur, in the cold desert that festered in the heart of Asiana.

  And yet, did it have to be quite so inglorious?

  “Please,” said the kneeling man—the mark—again, tears running down his cheeks and dripping to the dusty street. “I am innocent. Please don’t kill me.” He continued to blubber, a bald, middle-aged man with the paunch that came from too much kumiss and too little labor.

  They all said that, when confronted with the katari. They all became innocent and fearful and pitiable, no matter how heinous their crime. And this man’s crime was of the most despicable kind. He had been found guilty of the murder of his own estranged father by the elders of the Kushan council—a matter of greed and inheritance, the council had concluded. And yet, it took all of Rustan’s willpower to ignore the man’s entreaties. It had been too long since he’d done this.

  It was the first such case in Tezbasti in several years. This close to the camp of Khur, violent crime was rare; premeditated murder even more so. People kept to the law and paid their tithe to the Order of Khur, and the Marksmen kept them safe from marauding bands of outlaws. This was the compact, had been since the Order of Khur was founded hundreds of years ago.

  Go with my blessing, the Maji-khan had said. Deliver the judgment of Khur.

  I will be honored, Rustan had replied, not knowing how little honor he would find in the task.

  He suppressed his disquietude and slid off his camel’s back. Time to put a merciful end to the man’s whimpering. “It will not hurt,” he said, withdrawing his katari. “That I promise. Do you wish to confess?”

  “I have nothing to confess,” the man cried, stumbling to his feet. “My trial was a sham. The council wants my land. I’ve been framed.”

  Rustan delved into him—lightly, so his presence would not be felt—and found nothing but anger, fear, and, overriding them both, a deep sense of guilt. If only I had reconciled with my father and asked his forgiveness while he was still alive.

  It was
enough for Rustan. “Your father forgives you,” he said, and let fly his katari, straight and true, right into the mark’s throat.

  The man toppled over, still maintaining that expression of outraged innocence, while a fountain of blood gushed out of his severed artery. Rustan waited before bending down to recover his blade. He wiped the blade against his sleeve—a gesture born of habit, nothing more, for it was clean as always—and exhaled the breath trapped in his chest. It was not his first mark, or even his second, and it would not be his last. So why this knot of tension in his stomach? Why this feeling of things unfinished or badly done?

  No matter. Tezbasti would be safer, cleaner, without this patricide breathing its air.

  The sand-blown streets were empty, eerily so for midday. The inhabitants of Tezbasti would not emerge until Rustan had gone. But a sound came from one of the mud-walled huts, a high, keening noise that echoed in the flat horizon, setting his teeth on edge. The man’s wife, perhaps. Or a sister. Or a child. Rustan did not know if the man had had a family. It was better not to know such things, for then you would find yourself mourning with them, for them.

  Rustan sheathed his katari and leaped on his camel’s back. “Let’s go home, Basil,” he muttered. “Our work here is done.”

  The camel snorted and heaved itself up. Twenty miles across the sandy wastes to Khur—they could make it before midnight, even with a short break in the afternoon. Rustan had hoped to rest his camel in Tezbasti itself, but all he wanted now was to put as much distance as possible between the wailing noise from the hut and himself. As if distance could make him forget it, grief made audible, and the guilt of his own hand, his own heart. As if distance could answer the questions, rearing serpent-like inside him: What if he was truly innocent? Who am I to take a life, even a wicked one? And—what is wrong with me, that I feel this way?

  This was foolish. He had simply obeyed orders. He was a Marksman and this was what he was trained for. In the two years since his last mark, he had become soft, forgotten the dark edge of a Marksman’s reality. No wonder the Maji-khan had selected him for this assignment. The Order was testing him.

  But the mark two years ago had been different; he had ridden with Shurik and the others between the dunes, chasing a band of outlaws, dust tearing his eyes, his throat hoarse with shouting. There had been excitement and danger, even a kind of heroism to it. The outlaws were armed with bows and arrows, and two of the Marksmen had suffered flesh wounds.

  In truth, all his marks thus far had been, if not exciting, then at least gratifying. Rustan earned his first mark while protecting a caravan bound for Kashgar from bandits, and his second while breaking up a fierce fight between warriors of the Kushan and Turguz clans. He’d killed the leaders from each side, ensuring that the rest laid down their arms and turned to Barkav to mediate peace. It was an achievement to be proud of.

  Whereas this . . . this was an execution.

  Rustan urged Basil on, but the sounds of lamentation followed him still, until he wanted to close his ears and shout: I did my duty. That is all.

  * * *

  A pale and bloodless moon had risen in the sky by the time Rustan returned to the Khur camp. A vast dune shimmered in the moonlight ahead of him like an immense silver shield. Rustan made out the cluster of tents at its base, and his heart lifted. He was home. He would make his report to the Maji-khan, and everything would be all right. He would sleep, and wake rested to a normal day. He would tell Shurik everything; Shurik would listen to him and grin and punch his arm, say he was too sensitive, that he was lucky to be selected by the Maji-khan.

  An apprentice was waiting at the camel enclosure, rubbing his hands and shivering in the cold wind. Rustan handed over Basil to him, inhaling the familiar, pungent aroma of the enclosure with pleasure.

  He stopped short outside his tent. A tiny, hooded figure was standing at the entrance: Astinsai, the seer and katari mistress of Khur. What was the Old One doing here at this hour? She barely deigned to speak even to the elders; her presence here could mean nothing good.

  Rustan bowed. “Mistress,” he said warily, “you could have summoned me to your tent. I would have come anyway, after making my report to the Maji-khan.”

  “Barkav can wait,” said Astinsai, her voice hoarse with age and smoke-weed. “This cannot. Follow me.”

  Why? he wanted to ask. But he kept quiet and followed her as she slowly made her way toward her tent, despite his growing bewilderment. Astinsai was one of the few people alive who could make kataris from the kalishium that the Ones had left behind when they went back to the stars. It was a long and arduous process, and it was now many years since she had accepted a new assignment. But she had made many of the kataris that the Marksmen of Khur now carried, including Rustan’s. He could not have disobeyed her, even had he wanted to.

  They reached Astinsai’s tent at the southern edge of the Khur camp, Rustan bending almost double to squeeze inside. He could not remember the last time he had been in the Old One’s smoky little home. She did not often invite anyone inside, preferring to keep to herself or, if needed, summon people to the council tent.

  Astinsai lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the felt carpet, and the hood fell away from her seamed face and sparse white hair.

  “So, you become stronger and braver, Marksman?” she said, dark eyes flashing in the lamplight with an emotion he could not identify. “Let me see your katari.”

  Feeling light-headed from exhaustion and from the close air of the tent, Rustan withdrew his katari and proffered it. The kalishium blade pulsed with a soft blue light and, as always, he was struck by its beauty. It seemed more alive than either him or the bent old woman who had forged it.

  Astinsai’s expression clouded. “Put it away,” she said. “I have something for you. Something that will set you on a path you cannot yet imagine.” She rose and hobbled to the back of her tent, where she removed the stopper from a decanter and poured a clear liquid into an earthen cup. She held the cup up to him.

  “Drink,” she commanded.

  “Is that Rasaynam?” said Rustan, dumbfounded. “There are easier ways to kill me.”

  Rasaynam was a spirit Astinsai brewed for herself that was rumored to drive men mad. Even she partook of it but sparingly.

  Astinsai’s face softened. “There are, but this is the one we must choose. Rasaynam will show you the truth of what happened today.”

  The terrible doubt that had seized Rustan in Tezbasti rushed back. He swallowed. “The truth is that I took down a mark. I obeyed orders. I should go to the Maji-khan now and report. He will be waiting for me.”

  Astinsai put down the cup. “I cannot force you,” she said. “You must want to know, for it to work for you. You must need it. But ask yourself this: How will you atone?”

  Again Rustan heard the wailing sounds that had followed him out of the village and into the open desert. Again he heard the man’s pleas of innocence.

  Rustan reached for the cup with a hand that was not quite steady. The liquid was bitter tasting, as if flavored by grief itself. Although he wanted to stop and spit it out, he swallowed each drop. And he knew, in the depths of his soul, this was the start of his punishment. For when he had drunk to the bottom of the cup, he saw, instead of Astinsai, the face of his mark, clutching his ruined throat as if trying to prevent blood from spilling out of it. But it spilled out anyway, running between his fingers, leaving red tracks on his arms. And the specter said, full of reproach, “I told you I was innocent.”

  Rustan rose, the cup tumbling out of his hand. He tried to speak, but the scene shifted. Two elders of the Kushan council sat down to a meal with the murdered man, the father of his luckless mark. There was much talking and laughter. And then the flick of a wrist over a cup of tea—the slow-acting poison that would claim the victim’s life later that night. One of the elders stabbed a finger at Rustan. “Do you see?” he said, jovial. “See how we fooled the council and the Maji-khan. See how we fooled you.”

&n
bsp; The victim’s face had become swollen, purple. He opened his frothing mouth and echoed Astinsai’s words, “How will you atone?”

  “I will kill them!” shouted Rustan, and he reached for his katari. But the scene shifted, back to Astinsai’s tent. The old woman had not moved; she sat in the same position, watching him like a hawk.

  “Is that what you will do, Marksman?” said Astinsai, a note of pity in her voice.

  Rustan wiped the sweat from his forehead with a sleeve. His head was pounding as if someone had hammered nails into it. How could the Maji-khan have sent him to Tezbasti to kill an innocent man? Rustan had always trusted his elders, had never questioned them. That trust had been betrayed, his world turned upside down. And no matter the reason, it was Rustan himself whose katari had done the deed. How could he ever rely on his blade again?

  “Why tell me now,” said Rustan, trembling with anger, “when there is nothing I can do about it? Why not tell me earlier?”

  “I am sorry,” said Astinsai, not sounding sorry at all, “but I did not know. Not until your blade took his life.”

  “I must tell the Maji-khan,” he said, wondering at his ability to speak so calmly, so normally, after what he had witnessed. “The Kushan elders will be punished.”

  “But that will not bring back the dead man,” said Astinsai. “It will not undo what you have done.”

  No, it won’t. He wanted to smash something, wipe that knowing look off the Old One’s face. It was as if she saw the torment he suffered, had, in fact, planned it.

  Instead, he left Astinsai’s tent without another word, almost at a run, to find the Maji-khan.

  Chapter 4

  Mental Arts

  Kyra raced up the flower-strewn slopes behind the caves of Kali, where Tamsyn liked to hold Mental Arts. Once again, she’d slept through the gong for morning assembly. She couldn’t afford to be late for class, especially not Tamsyn’s, but it was happening with depressing regularity since her initiation. She now had to take advanced classes with older, more experienced Markswomen, in addition to the classes she usually took, and it was hard to keep up. Most days, she was covered with bruises by the time she lay down to sleep.