Tivi's Dagger Read online

  “Your guide has seen no more than nineteen winters,” Mother Kiti said, when her glass was empty. “Do not be dismayed by the appearance of such youth. It is rare for one so young to wish for a monastic life, and it is not at all desirable. This is the main reason why I encourage my grandchild to venture out of this sanctuary to embrace the world and all the joys therein. But fear not, Kari is a warrior of Tivi as we all are, and will be a competent guide to lead you to your destination.”

  Brin frowned again. “I had hoped we would have a guide who had at least left the Temple.”

  The old woman laughed. “You misunderstand me, child. As all who wear the silver must do, Kari accompanied me on the same pilgrimage not two years ago. If you are – as you said in your letter of introduction – determined to take the shorter path, you will need guidance through the caverns of Khar Tam. And besides, this can be a dangerous land for explorers to blunder through blindly.”

  “Is Kari really your grandchild?” Lara said. “But I thought monks weren’t allowed to…”

  “Love? Have sex? Have children?” The old woman finished her sentence with a naughty gleam in her eye, fingering the hoops in her ears with a wistful smile. I smothered a grin as Brin almost spat out his wine at such a casual mention of the act. “Perhaps not in Lis. But life is different here, child. These things are as natural as breathing the air around us. I knew numerous wonderful men in the years before I assumed the silver mantle. Kari is but one of my grandchildren. When my youngest daughter came to take her own vows she was with child, although she did not know it at the time. Kari has grown up in the Temple. We’ve all agreed that it is time for —”

  Just then, there was a knock on the door. Another monk. I took the opportunity to pour myself another glass of wine as the newcomer – presumably this guide who had left the monastery but once – entered soundlessly and knelt beside the Mother. She was tall and slender, with the same ice-blue eyes as her grandmother and graceful, gloved hands which she folded on her knee.

  I looked into those eyes and just for a second, I felt something odd pull at my heart. They were bright with intelligence, and fixed on my face. My mouth edged itself into some sort of smile; I couldn’t help myself under the warmth of that gaze. I sipped the wine again and grinned like a fool, much to Lara’s obvious amusement.

  Kari eased her gloves off and I was surprised to see calluses on her palms, cuts on the long, slim fingers, and ground-in dirt around cracked nails. Her eyes smiled at me and I was off on the clouds again. But when she spoke, I came back down to earth with a resounding thump. Kari’s voice was slightly husky, as if it had not been used for some time.

  Slightly husky, deep, and definitely male.

  “I look forward to accompanying you on your pilgrimage, although I must confess I go under duress.”

  The Mother shifted and her eyes narrowed slightly; she looked at Kari with a sigh that told of past quarrels not necessarily resolved. She poured another glass of wine for Kari, and he unwrapped the silver slightly, revealing a strong, stubbled chin and a sensuous, smiling mouth. Together they held their glasses to the sky, before taking a simultaneous sip. Lara and I followed suit enthusiastically; I suspected she was missing the drink as much as I was. Kel, unused to alcohol, was already glassy-eyed. As for my brother, they might as well have served him a glass of their famed poison, so dark and put-upon was his expression.

  “By the Gods, you’re a man!” Brin said, raising an eyebrow.

  Kari laughed, a joyous sound as warming to the heart as the wine. “Why would you think otherwise? For our bath, we will use the hot spring at the back of the living quarters to ease your bodies before I show you to your room. The nearest town on our path is a twelve-mile away, and we must get there before the fall of darkness.”

  “Why is that?” Brin asked, getting to his feet. My knees groaned as I followed suit.

  Kari and the Mother glanced at each other. “Things more fearsome than your dreams lurk in the darkness, Brindar of Lis.”

  “I am afraid of no beast.”

  Again, a brief look passed between them before Kari turned to us and smiled. “Come. You must be tired. I will bathe with you, as custom requires.”

  Brin looked so uncomfortable that I almost hugged myself with joy. “I would prefer to bathe alone.”

  Kari seemed undeterred. “I will bathe with you and then we will rest.”

  The Mother put her hand on Brin’s arm. “Tiyal, a bonded group bathes naked and equal, without symbol or sword, without pride or shame.” Her eyes smiled again. “It is the way of things.”

  “Naked?” Brin looked as if he was about to explode.

  “You don’t presume to bathe in full mail and plate, my son? You will surely rust.”

  I smothered my mirth, recalling that under the wretched Rite Brin had invoked, he could punish any small rebellion of mine in any way he chose.

  Lana, however, was chuckling openly. “Oh, come now, Brindar, this will be most illuminating. I’ve always wondered what treasures the Protectors keep hidden under all that metal. Such rumors abound about hidden weaponry and the like; I am most curious!”

  “Hold your tongue, woman!”

  Poor Brin. I sighed with pleasure at his writhing discomfort. This pilgrimage was turning out to be more fun than I had ever dreamed, and, no doubt, a lot less fun – if that was indeed what he had anticipated – than my brother ever could have believed. Forced to drink alcohol and faced with the prospect of stripping naked in front of a female and a stranger, Brin must have thought he had stepped through the Burning Portal and into the Plane of Demons itself.

  “Come,” Kari said. We followed him back out into the clearing and along a well-trodden path behind the main building to the living quarters, Nearby, silver-clad monks were sitting around a newly-lit fire, blowing on the wood and warming their hands against the burgeoning flames. The crackle of the wood and the aroma of the smoke was a homely smell, and I watched Kari bow as we passed them. He was as tall as Brin and slender in his robes, but the way he carried himself spoke of grace and power. I was intrigued to find out what lay beneath those robes even though he was a man; the hidden, in my experience, was always something worth laying eyes upon.

  With the donkey tethered in the stables, Brin laid its burden on the floor of the room in which we were all to sleep. It was an austere wooden room with a tiny window at the top through which a shaft of light illuminated four mattresses thick with straw evenly spaced across the bare floorboards. The meager furnishings consisted of a small table and a chest where he stashed the sealed box and our purses before sealing it with a chain pulled from his pack.

  “What’s in this box you guard, Brindar?” Lana said, dropping her pack on top of the nearest mattress.

  Brin placed his belongings on the mattress furthest from the one she had selected and scowled. “It contains none of your business.”

  I suspected that the box contained a stolen copy of the Protectors’ Bible; Brin could no more surrender it than his own sword arm. Some light reading for the long journey ahead, no doubt; I hoped he would keep its content to himself. The irony of our situation did not escape me. I, a true apostate, could live easy and without fear as long as I did not opine about religious matters in public, whereas Brin had always been a devout soldier of the Thirteen and yet now faced an uncertain and dangerous future.

  Kari was waiting patiently at the door. I deposited my pack on the mattress next to Lana’s, and went to stand beside him. My eyes travelled over the silver metal, knitted so fluidly over his body and – once more – his face. It seemed he had a strong nose underneath the cloth, black eyebrows and bright blue eyes lined with the thickest black lashes I had ever seen and which would have, had he been a woman, hinted at a great beauty.

  “Why do you cover your face, and yet don’t hesitate to remove your clothes?” I asked him.

  His eyes smiled again. “Winters are harsh at these heights. Sometimes the snows fall so thick about the monaster
y that we are cut off from the world for weeks at a time. Covering the head and face is necessary in such conditions, for warmth. Our mode of dress became a tradition, or a fashion if you like, many years ago. That’s all. I’m ashamed of neither my face nor my body, if that’s what you thought.”

  I fingered the material of his robe. It was indeed metal, as I had suspected, both an armor and a cloth. Dark underclothing protected his skin from the itchy feel of the metal. I wondered whose hands had spun such an impossibly fine mesh. The tailors of Lis could only dream of such workmanship. It made the rolls of silk we were carrying look perfectly shabby.

  “It is a grand armor you wear.”

  He was watching me intently. “And yet you wear no armor at all, nor cover any part of yourself.”

  We walked outside. “I am clothed, is it not enough?”

  “I didn’t mean your clothing. Come, the pool.”

  The pool was a natural one, fed by steaming water which overflowed from it down the face of the sheer drop to the left. The face of the rock beside was bare of creepers. There was a very faint smell of rotten eggs in the air. With no shelter around us, the wind bit at our exposed flesh. The steamy depths, full of bubbles, suddenly looked very inviting.

  A line of wooden boxes with lids lay in the brush beside the pool. Kari gestured to them and waited expectantly for us to remove our clothing and place it inside. Lana whipped her leathers off in good humor, followed by Kel, who was blushing once again. Finally my brother began to remove his armor and allowed the pieces to clank into the box with a thunderous expression on his face. I took off my coat and waistcoat and unbuttoned my fine shirt and breeches, trying not to gaze at Kari. He stood by the edge of the pool with the wind in his face and the view of white mist ahead, slipped off his shoes, then began to unwind the silver cloth from his body.

  It was like watching the peeling of an unknown and exquisite-looking fruit. First, he revealed his legs, firm and covered in dark curls of fine hair that thickened toward the thigh. Underneath the silver he wore a dark brown swathe of cloth as an undergarment, which he unwound quickly to reveal a muscular torso – not the bulky body of someone used to carrying heavy weights and fighting with clubs in the pits, but one whose strength lay in agility. His skin was a creamy shade of brown, much lighter than our own, and his chest was lightly dusted with black hair. Last – or almost; there was still the final gray undergarment at his crotch – he peeled off the silver covering his face and head.

  Shiny black hair fell down his back in thick curls, tapering toward the end into thin ringlets that brushed the top of his undergarment. It was hair that had never felt the touch of a blade. When he turned to us, I observed that his jaw was pleasingly angular with his chin strong and dimpled in the center and his mouth wide and honest. There was a small gap in the front of his white teeth which he flashed to us in a shivery smile as his dark nipples hardened against the wind. I wondered how we could ever have mistaken him for a woman.

  “Are you waiting for the mists to swallow you? Let’s lie in the warmth of the spring!” And with that, he whipped off his undergarment and stepped into the steamy pool, flashing a glimpse of dark arse-crack and firm buttocks.

  Kel slipped into the water like an eel and scooted to the far side where he clung to the edge and stared into the expanse of gray sky. Brin kept his back to us, muttering mutinously, until he was up to his ears in the water, one hand covering the apostate’s brand over his heart and the other his genitals. Lana was frozen in the middle of removing her final boot, open-mouthed at the sight of Kari, who was now floating shamelessly in the water on his back, eyes closed, tiny bubbles clinging to his hair as it spread out all around him like seaweed, a look of free contentment on his face.

  I took Lana’s hand and we stepped into the water together. The stones underfoot were warm and slippery. It was a wonderful feeling to be immersed in the steaming pool with the air so cold around us. Kel was doing a very poor job of trying not to ogle Lana’s body. She relaxed into the wet warmth with a sigh of joy and I was gratified to see a faint blush darkening my brother’s cheeks as he kept his eyes fixed on the horizon.

  Completely in tune with my desire to surreptitiously annoy my brother at every opportunity, Lana unwound her hair from its long braid and made a good show of washing herself. By the time the skin on our fingertips was starting to wrinkle, Brin’s face was almost purple and Kel was trying covertly to tame an obvious erection. Kari seemed oblivious to the tension in the air and stepped out of the water into the bitter wind with a shiver. He pulled a towel from one of the boxes and began to dry himself vigorously as he shone a smile on us. “Was it not glorious?”

  “Glorious indeed!” I affirmed heartily, getting out beside him and grabbing a towel as Lana did the same.

  “Are you planning to stay in there forever, Brindar?” Lana spoke brightly through chattering teeth, as she rubbed the cloth around her crotch.

  Brin needed both his arms to haul himself out of the water and for a few seconds he was exposed completely. The brand on his chest had faded from a seared, angry red to a shade of brown. He had battle scars as well: the circle on his shoulder from an assassin’s blade, a jagged cut on his neck from a drunk wielding a broken bottle while the Protectors were shutting down yet another tavern, a Y-shaped burn on his leg where the skin still stretched red and raw-looking after all these years. That one was all me, a clueless child playing in the apothecary who had thought it would be most amusing to throw a vial of green bubbles over my older brother’s trousers. As he seized a towel he glared at me, and I dropped my gaze.

  The wind was all the colder now we were so warm and I lost no time pulling on my clothes, one eye on Kari who was winding the length of silver about his lithe body with practiced ease. When we were all fully clothed once more, Kari led us back to our quarters and paused by the door as Brin pushed past, clearly fallen into yet another foul temper. Kel wandered off in the direction of the latrines and Lana went to the stables to see to our donkey.

  Kari smiled at me again with his eyes. “I hope you will sleep well, Nedim.”

  “Just call me Ned, everyone else does.”

  “Nedim is a beautiful name. In our language, it means something close to proud one.”

  I gave him what I hoped was a modest grin. “Not me at all, then. Just Ned, that’s fine. Really.”

  “As you wish, just Ned.”

  There was a silence as we looked at each other in the creeping dusk. Pale birds were gathering in the branches above us, chattering and flapping as they settled for the night. Kari’s eyes seemed to change color to match the sky, just like the sea. I found it very difficult to look away from that exotic gaze.

  “You have a beautiful face, Kari. I wish you didn’t cover it so fully.”

  The smile never left his eyes. “You will see it every day from tomorrow on. Come the morning, the Mother will release me from the Temple and then I’ll be just a pilgrim, as you are. If you happen to get up with the dawn, you may come and watch the ritual. It would be an honor, tiyal.”

  I stretched and felt the weariness in my limbs. “Perhaps. My body is tired and unused to such exercise. If the dawn will wake me, then I will come.”

  “To the dawn, then.” He bowed slightly and walked away.

  ***

  It was not yet light when I awoke to the sound of the pale birds circling outside the window, calling out in their harsh voices that the day was about to begin. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I sat up. Lana and Kel were snoring softly, and my brother’s bed was empty.

  I found it unlikely that Brin would have any interest in watching Kari’s ceremony. Intrigued to see where he had gone, I slipped out of bed, pulled on my clothes, and tiptoed outside. The sky was brightening with a purple pre-dawn haze that penetrated the fog with hints of sky. The trees clawed at the mist as if to part it but without success. The sleeping monastery was a beautiful sight with its ancient wooden beams and sloped slate roofs, and I was tempted to linger in
the yard just to gaze upon it, but my bladder had more pressing demands. I took a lungful of the fresh mountain air and walked toward the latrines, trying to ignore the irritating rub of my boots against my feet.

  After I had relieved myself, I washed my hands and face in a freezing fountain and walked toward the main building, where I assumed the ceremony Kari had spoken of was to take place. The goat was grazing lazily under the tree, surveying the scene through bright amber eyes. I spotted Mother Kiti and some other elderly-looking monks kneeling on straw mats in a semi-circle, all dressed in shining silver. In front of each of them there was a glass tumbler of wine. I hoped that Brin was also seeing these monks drinking alcohol first thing in the morning; imagining the shock on his face brought warmth to my heart.

  I sat on the milking stool near the goat. Mother Kiti waved and called out a greeting that I returned with a smile. The wind was cold, and my breath made shapes in the air, but it was pleasant weather all the same. The monks began a melodious chant and, as they raised their glasses to the sky, Kari appeared from a nearby door and went to kneel in front of the small gathering. He was dressed head to toe in his monk’s garb, face covered in silver, but when he glanced in my direction I saw the smile in his eyes and just for a moment, my heart thumped a little faster.

  It was a short ceremony and I did not understand what they were saying, but the elder monks spoke one by one until finally Mother Kiti got up and stood in front of Kari. She raised her palms to the sky and then pulled a knife from the belt of her robes. Kari unwound the covering from his head and allowed his hair to fall down to the base of his spine. Then the Mother moved behind him and, handful by handful, sliced off the ringlets until his hair reached just above his shoulders. When it was finished, he stood up and the elder monks unwound his silver mantle until he stood in his undergarments, unshivering despite the chill in the air. They dressed him in dark brown travellers’ britches, thick socks, sturdy leather boots, and furs over which they hung a silver tunic, made of the same cloth as their own robes. Finally, he bowed, and Mother Kiti, with tears in her eyes, kissed him on the forehead.