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  'I see. And what was this bargain?'

  'That you would not stop me from my work, so long as I was training an apprentice.'

  Osh chuckled. 'Ah, that would explain it. Yes, a fair bargain – one that I will stand by.'

  'Good.'

  'Tell me, then. How did you choose him?'

  Ash was unsure of how to answer that. For a moment he was back in Bar-Khos, drifting in dreams during the long hot siesta, as a young man sneaked into his room to steal his purse.

  Ash had been dreaming of home then: the little village of Asa, snuggling deep into a twist of the high valley floor – the view pitching sharply downwards past the many terraces of rice and barley to an endless stretch of blue sea that reached as far as the horizon.

  Butai, his young wife, had been there, too. She was standing in the doorway of their cottage, a basket of wild flowers in her arms. She had a gift for making them into subtle perfumes, forever surprising him with new fragrances, and she was watching their son for a moment as he chopped wood in an easy, practised way; a boy of perhaps fourteen.

  Ash had waved to them, but they did not see him – they were laughing instead at something the boy had said. Beautiful in her laughter, his wife looked as girlish as she ever had.

  And then Ash had awakened in a strange room, in a strange city, in a strange land, in a strange life that was not in any way his own… his eyes wet with grief, the sense of loss within him as raw as though it had happened only yesterday. Pain washed through his head so sharply it was enough to blind him. He had called out to someone nearby, thinking for a moment that it was his son – yet, even as he did so, he knew that it could never be his son. In that same moment he had felt an isolation so all-consuming that he could not move for it. I will die alone, he had thought. Like this, blind, with no one by my side.

  'It seems', he heard himself say to Osh, 'as though he was chosen for me.'

  Osh accepted this, at least partly. 'For what purpose, do you wonder?'

  'I do not know, but it is as though we both have need of each other in some way. I cannot say how.'

  Osh nodded, with a knowing smile, but whatever it was that he suspected he chose not to voice it. Instead, he said, 'So you have not changed your mind about taking over the reins from me? I thought perhaps that you might, if I goaded you enough with Baracha's name.'

  Ash could no longer meet his master's eyes.

  'What would be the point? The illness is growing worse, and I do not think I have much time left to me. You know of my father, and his father before him. After their blindness struck, they went with great speed in the end.'

  The smile on Osh's face faded, as a soberness came over him. He inhaled a sharp breath. 'I feared as much,' he admitted. 'But I hoped otherwise. I am deeply sorry, Ash. You are one of the few true friends I have left.'

  A bluebird was singing outside in the courtyard. Ash turned his attention to it, away from his friend's untypical display of emotion.

  The young Osh would never have been so open-hearted – not that Osh who had trained as Rshun back in the old country and in the old ways where only a few ever survived the ordeal. The same Osh who had left the original Rshun order after they had sided with the overlords, and who later became a soldier and fought at Hakk and Aga-sa, and somehow survived them both too; who had gone on to win honour after honour in the long war against the overlords, creating a name for himself, earning a high command in the ultimately doomed People's Army. Back then, it would have been unimaginable to hear the general lamenting so openly over the fate of a comrade. Even less so as he subsequently led them into exile, the only general able to fight his way out with his body of men intact after surviving the final, fateful trap that had destroyed the People's Revolution once and for all.

  Osh had been lean and strong and tough in those days, a hard bastard in truth. His firm command had held them together on their long voyage to the Miders, when most of those in the fleet, including a grief-stricken Ash, had simply wished for death after their defeat and the loss of their loved ones either fallen in battle or left behind. When they had finally made it here to the Miders, and others in the fugitive fleet had taken up arms to serve as mercenaries for the Empire of Mann, or else turn against it, Osh had struck out on a different and much more uncertain path. The path of Rshun.

  Yet here he was a withered old man on a withered old chair, both he and the chair sprouting tufts of hair and creaking every time their age-worn bodies shifted their weight; allowing his regrets to flow freely from his heart, as he finally looked towards the end.

  Ash peered out from the high turret window over to the mali trees that clustered in the centre of the courtyard. The singing bluebird could be seen perching down there, its sky-blue plumage distinct against the bronze leaves.

  'To be sad at passing is to be sad at life,' Ash quipped.

  'I know,' said the old general, with a shake of his head.

  The two veterans sat there in the dusty sunlight, listening for a time to the brief, fresh song of the late-summer bird. Calling out for a mate, Ash thought. A partner lost to it.

  'I only wish…' Osh managed at last, but he faltered, and let the rest of his words hang there without being voiced.

  'To see once more the Diamond Mountain,' Ash finished for him, reciting the old poem. 'And lay my lips on those I love.'

  'Yes,' said Osh.

  'I know, old friend.'

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Serese A strange hush fell upon the monastery after Osh's announcement of vendetta, and the departure of the three Rshun set upon fulfilling it, inspiring a new sense of purpose that had been lacking before then. Even the older men, who had been spending more time cultivating their gardens than engaged in practice, began to re-hone their skills. Rshun huddled together, talking in serious tones, and laughter became altogether less common.

  The apprentices remained largely unaffected by all this earnestness. They were still too ignorant of the gravity of the situation, and their punishing training regime was sufficient to keep their youthful minds focused on their own daily concerns.

  *

  Nico had never been able to make friends easily, and he discovered that had not changed much, even here in this high place of isolation. The constant company of others tended to drain him after a while, to the point where he often withdrew into himself for escape. At times, Nico knew, this made him appear aloof.

  He had found, in the past, that this reticence had attracted its fair share of trouble, but here he found the opposite to be true. The other apprentices appeared to like Nico well enough, and joked and conversed with him easily. But they also sensed his distance and, knowing him at least a little better by then, took it not as arrogance but solely a desire to be left alone. They respected that desire, and in doing so often excluded him from those moments of true camaraderie that they shared amongst themselves, so that even when he genuinely wanted their company, he could never quite manage to breach the gap that had grown between himself and the others.

  It was ironic, therefore, to discover, that another of the apprentices was afflicted by a similar condition and that one should turn out to be Aleas.

  They all liked Aleas, too, but he was the apprentice of Baracha, who they roundly despised. More than that though was Aleas's manner. The young man was humble in his way, and naturally so, yet all the rest could see how brilliant he truly was. This unsettled his peers. Such talent and modesty combined suggested to them, in their own private thoughts, that Aleas was somehow superior to them, and they in turn his inferiors. Such personal dynamics do not offer a sound basis for friendship.

  Yet it was because Nico and Aleas were both outsiders that inevitably their shared condition each spoke to the other. It suggested something of similar ways. At times, the two young men would both laugh at something only they considered worthy of humour, or one would find his words supporting the other's in some heated group debate. Often they would find themselves paired together for want of anyone else. Still
, that distance remained between them as it did with the others – Nico somewhat intimidated by this confident young man, while Aleas felt restrained by his master's wish that they stay apart.

  For Nico, a natural loner, life here was not at all as he had imagined it, though it was hardly as if he'd had any clear notions of what to expect upon his arrival. But whatever dim expectation he may have entertained of this strange place where men trained as assassins, it was not this.

  For hours each day he hacked at the air in the practice square, stabbed and garrotted straw-stuffed mannequins, concealed himself from imagined foes, poured arrows on distant targets painted as men. Yet so engrossed was he in doing well, in maintaining his reputation, in surmounting the challenges of each new exhausting day, that rarely did he pause to connect these actions with the reality of what they meant, or the path that he was now set upon. For he was carefully being trained to cross a threshold without thought or hesitation. Some day, he would be expected to commit murder in cold blood.

  Still, that was not on any day soon, and meanwhile the practice eventually made him insensitive to such a prospect, and hard effort obscured his contemplation of what it was all leading to. After a while, Nico did not dwell on it further.

  It was a pleasant surprise for him to find how much he began to look forward to his daily sessions of meditation. They took place twice a day, for a full hour each time. Some of the apprentices struggled with these sessions, mostly those who still held to religious beliefs other than Daoism, which was odd, Nico thought, since all that was required of the apprentices was a commitment to the Daoist practices of stillness.

  Nico was hardly much of a believer himself, having rarely connected with the rituals his mother had forced him to sit through, performed by those droning monks in their smoky temple whenever he had been unfortunate enough to be dragged along. Yet now he began to look forward to these hourly sessions in the quiet polished-wood confines of the chachen hall, or outdoors in the courtyard whenever the weather was fine. There was little religion involved, he found, for the Rshun did not concern themselves with doctrine. They merely knelt there, with hands in laps, and concentrated on the soft inrush and outrush of their breaths until a chime sounded the end of the session.

  In time, Nico found that stillness was increasingly attainable once he learned how to relax while still maintaining his focus. Afterwards, he would feel refreshed and centred; altogether more comfortable in his own skin.

  Weeks passed before he remembered to write a letter home. Nico felt somewhat chastened that he had forgotten about his mother so easily. In his untidy handwriting he let her know that he was well, and filled the rest of the page with an account of the more mundane aspects of his new life. He carefully left out anything that might suggest how desperate certain situations had been.

  Ash's old friend Kosh was happy enough to arrange for its delivery, and had it taken down to Cheem Port along with some of the Rshun who were travelling down to purchase supplies. From there it was passed on to a smuggler who made his living by running the Mannian blockade of the Free Ports. Nico hoped that it eventually reached her. In truth though, after that, he did not think of his mother often.

  Every Foolsday they were given a day off, and were free to do as they pleased. On such days, when the others would team up in groups of two or three, Nico would leave them to their bantering and their small complicities and take himself off for a hike into the surrounding mountains, to spend some cherished hours by himself in their high clean splendour. It was like nourishment to him, to be this alone with his thoughts, which on those particular days, after a long enough walk, were mostly a form of no-thought, the same as when he had been a boy, and he had ventured into the foothills near their cottage for an afternoon just with Boon; times of peace, a way of finding quietness.

  The routine of it all carved its own particular grooves in him. For a time, Nico looked neither backwards nor ahead.

  *

  One morning, before breakfast, Nico spotted a girl crossing the courtyard, and was startled enough to drop his pail of water to the ground. It was not simply that she was female that gave Nico such a start and set his heart hammering. Neither was it her appearance: a simple black robe which matched the hair that swept long and straight down her back, framing a sun-kissed face of sharp angles and large eyes. Rather, it was the way she walked, long-limbed and confident, with a swinging grace evident beneath her robe that captivated his male eyes starved of such a sight for so long. Nico forgot his bucket as he darted after her, watching her enter the door leading into the north wing. He thought quickly of some excuse to follow and discover who she might be.

  Nico hurried through the door, and glanced to his left and right. She was gone. He even wondered for a moment if he had imagined her.

  *

  Over the next few days he saw her several times again. But each time it was merely a passing glimpse, and always he was engaged in training or on his way to training, and could not linger. It was frustrating, and he soon found that his eyes kept darting constantly from here to there, looking out for her.

  'Who is she?' he demanded of Aleas, one evening at supper.

  'Who?' inquired Aleas, betraying himself with a feigned tone of innocence.

  'You know who! The girl I keep seeing about the place.'

  Aleas flashed him a wolfish grin. 'That is not just a girl, Nico. That is my master's daughter, and you would be best to keep your eyes off her – let alone your hands. My master is fearfully protective.'

  'Baracha's daughter?' Nico was stunned at such a thought.

  'Nico, your liking or disliking of a fellow hardly affects his abilities to sire children.'

  'Well, what is her name?'

  'Serese.'

  It was a Mercian name, and he said as much.

  'Yes,' agreed Aleas. 'Her mother was Mercian. Why all these questions, or need I ask?'

  'What questions?' he said, glancing away. But then he asked, 'How long is she staying?'

  Aleas sighed. 'You sly, sly dog. Let me repeat myself, at the risk of sounding a bore. She is the daughter of Baracha and she is here for a few weeks visiting her father. When she is done, she will return to Q'os, since she works for us there. If, during her stay, she has been molested or accosted in any way – and by molested, I mean talked to, looked at, thought about while fumbling with yourself beneath the blankets – if any of these things have occurred between you and she in that time, then be assured, my master will take a knife to your balls. Look at him yonder. He watches us even now. He will have words with me later for even talking to you.'

  Nico leaned back warily in his chair. He did not doubt Aleas's warning.

  Even so, after Aleas had returned his attention to his broth, Nico scanned the dining hall to catch another glimpse of her, and felt disappointment when he did not gain one.

  *

  The next morning their paths finally crossed, and he instantly knew they were fated to have met. Nico believed in such things.

  It was a Foolsday, therefore his day off, and he was entering the laundry room to wash some clothes before setting off on his customary hike across the valley.

  There, in the steamy atmosphere of the cavernous room, she stood wringing out the last of her own washing. Nico halted in the doorway, unsure of whether to enter or leave.

  'Hello,' she said casually, after a glance over her shoulder.

  Her tone drew him into the room. He closed the door behind him, and crossed the floor. He dumped his clothes next to the metal tub of water bubbling over the fire, then nodded again to her, and smiled.

  She finished folding a wet tunic and placed it on the pile of clothes already in her basket. The sleeves of her robe were rolled up, and her black hair tied back from her face, which was flushed pink from the heat and exertion. He realized that she was around the same age as himself.

  'What?' she asked with a quick smile, aware of his scrutiny.

  He shook his head. 'Nothing. I'm Nico, Master Ash's a
pprentice.'

  He saw the swift change in her at that information – a reappraisal of who she spoke to. Her dark eyes took in his features, seeming to linger. It was the kind of glance, he realized, that always made him look away with a blush – and turned him into a quivering idiot inside.

  Nico kept his mouth shut, fearing that whatever came out of it next would be stammered or stupid or, even worse, both.

  'I'm Serese,' she told him, in a voice that was deep and husky. It sent a thrill up his thighs.

  'I know,' he replied, and instantly regretted it.

  She seemed pleased by that – the fact that he knew her name or his sudden condition of embarrassment, he didn't know which.

  'You must be Mercian then,' he ventured, trying to recover his composure. 'Serese. It means "sharp" in the old tongue.'

  'Ah, I thought I recognized your accent.'

  'Yes. I'm from Bar-Khos.'

  'Ah.' Impressed again.

  A bell rang outside, calling the hour.

  'Well, it's all yours,' she said, gesturing to the bubbling water as she arranged the last of the clean garments.

  'Wait,' he blurted, even as he recalled the stark warning of Aleas. But his pulse had quickened at the sudden thought of asking this girl to spend his free day with him. He pictured them hiking across the valley together, talking, laughing, getting to know one another. 'It's my day off,' he explained. 'I'm going on a hike after I've finished this. Why don't you join me?'

  She seemed to consider it, at least for a few heartbeats. But then she shook her head. 'My father will be waiting for me, I'm afraid.'

  'Oh,' Nico said, defeated; though a small part of him was relieved.

  'But another time,' she said, brightening up. As she stooped to pick up her basket, he could not help but admire her shape from behind.

  'Here,' he said suddenly. 'Let me help you with that.'

  'It's fine. I can manage.'

  He pretended not to hear and snatched the load up anyway. It was heavier than he was expecting, and he barely suppressed a groan.