Innkeeper's Song

LAL

I said, “What? Excuse me? You are going to do what?”

“I have to go back,” Soukyan repeated. “There really is no other choice.”

We were alone in the travelers’ shrine. Soukyan wanted to make a departure prayer, since we would be leaving tomorrow. Until now he had not spoken of his plans, and I had assumed that we might journey pleasantly together as far as Arakli, where many roads meet. Now, carefully fitting the greenish lumps of incense into the two tin burners, he said, “I am tired of running, Lal. I am also getting a bit old for it. If I am not to spend the last years of a short life trying to deal with new teams of assassins as they keep coming after me, then I must return to the place they all come from. The place I come from.”

I said, “That is completely insane. You told me yourself—they don’t forgive, and they won’t rest until you’re dead. You might as well commit suicide right here, where you’re guaranteed a decent burial, and spare yourself the ride.”

Soukyan shook his head slowly. “I don’t want them to forgive me. I want them to stop following me.” He made a quick gesture of blessing over the burners and lit the incense. “I want it done with, that’s all, one way or the other.”

“Oh, it will be done with,” I said. “That it will. I fought one of those people, remember.” Soukyan had his back to me, murmuring inaudibly into the thin fumes that smelled faintly like marsh water. I was furious. I said, “So you’ll fight them all at once and get it done with indeed. A hero’s death, no doubt of it. I would have let you drown if I’d known.”

Soukyan laughed then. His laugh is a private laugh, even when shared: there is always something kept aside. “Did I say I was going to fight them all? Did I? I thought you knew me better than that, Lal.” He turned to face me. “I have a plan. I even have an ally or two back there, and some old sleights and confidences to bargain with. Believe me, I will be as safe as I was with you on the river.” He put his hands on my shoulders, adding quietly, “Though not as happy. Likely, never again.”

“Stupidity,” I said. “I cannot abide stupidity.” I sounded like Karsh. I had never been so angry with him, not even when I discovered his deception, and I was angrier because I had no possible right to be angry. I said, “What plan? Let me hear this wonderful plan.”

He shook his head again. “Later, maybe. It’s far too long a story.”

“Everything is a long story,” I said. I felt very tired, suddenly not the slightest bit ready for any new adventures, any voyages anywhere. I put his hands away and moved restlessly around the little windowless room. It was designed and appointed more or less like any travelers’ shrine in this half of the world: always white, always freshly painted (there is a law, and even Karsh apparently heeds it), always provided with the ritual cloths and candles and statues of a dozen major religions. They vary somewhat, depending on the region, but the one in which I was raised is never among them. Mostly I find that just as well, but not then.

Behind me Soukyan said, “Lal, it has nothing to do with you. This is my life, my past, my own small destiny. I am finished with waiting for it to bring me to bay one more time. I will go and meet it, for a change—and not in a bathhouse or on a river shore, but on a field of my choosing. There’s really no more to be said.”

Nor was there, for some while. He commenced a cumbersome process of passing his bow, sword, and dagger back and forth through the two tiny threads of incense, muttering to himself as he did so. I went outside and sat in the dry grass, chewing weeds viciously and watching a flock of tourik birds mob a snow-hawk that had ventured too close to their nests. Then I came back into the shrine, though you’re not supposed to reenter after leaving a ceremony. Soukyan was kneeling, head bowed, weapons arranged just so before him. I said, “You can’t cross the Barrens in winter.”

Without looking up, he answered, “I know that. I will make for the coast and turn south at Leishai. A longer road, but a safer one, for some way at least.” When the last of the incense had smoldered away, he rose stiffly to his feet, making a final obeisance to nothing. He said, “And you?”

I shrugged. “Arakli, I suppose. I have wintered there before.” The marshy incense-smell still lingered in my nostrils, irritatingly heavy with memories that were not even mine. Soukyan said, “And after Arakli?” I did not answer him. He said, “Come, I’ve told you my destination. It would comfort me much to know where you are.”

“I am Lal,” I said. “That is where I am.” Soukyan looked at me for a moment longer, then nodded and strode to the shrine door. When he opened it, we both heard Lukassa laughing nearby, a sound neither of us had ever imagined hearing: it went by us like a breeze in the grass. Soukyan held the door, but I said, “I will stay here for a little,” and turned back toward the white chests full of other peoples’ gods.