And
dusk it was, or thereabouts. Iman could always tell by the way the sky lost its
blue and turned either a charnel gray or diluted red, usually depending upon
which direction he was facing. But regardless of the color, there was never any
question that dusk had arrived. Out in the Sway, there always seemed to be more
sky than elsewhere in the kingdom, splitting the typical field of view into
one-third horizon and two-thirds sky.
Thus, as Iman sat outside the officer’s
tent at Westpost—his backside going numb on the wooden barrel that served as
his chair—there was no chance he could miss the transition, no matter how gradual
the fading light and no matter how subtle the blending hues. And so he sat and
he watched and wondered miserably to himself how this dilemma had occurred.
Talk about the rock and the hard place,
he whined, lowering his eyes to the rock, which looked an awful lot like
a lieutenant in the king’s army.
The lieutenant was seated across from Iman
on a barrel of his own, his bony fingers rapping impatiently at the table
between them. Iman tried looking at the table—which was, in all actuality, a
crate lid nailed to yet another uncomfortable wooden cask—but that didn’t help,
not with the lieutenant’s chisel-like fingers rumbling on the surface.
Iman opened his mouth to speak, hoping the
words might come if only he primed his mind with the action of his tongue, but
that didn’t help either. His attention seemed intent on avoiding the inner
works of his mind and wafting, instead, through the sights and sounds of the camp,
watching the sky lose a little more color, listening to the soldiers shouting
at the tents, counting the embers as they snapped in the fire.
Across from him, the fingers of the rock—or
lieutenant—continued to thrum.
Iman swung his eyes across Westpost and
settled them on a wall of feed sacks, staring now at the hard place,
or—as he preferred to call him—his dear old friend. But unlike the lieutenant,
the woodsman paid the captain no mind. He just sat on the ground with his head
against the feed sacks and his hands stroking the cat-thing.
Occasionally, Jaysh’s cowl would lift and
take in the colors of the sky, but that was rare and never lasted long. For the
most part, he just sat there and caressed the mangled creature in his lap,
running his hand over the scar tissue on its back and acting as though he had
all the time in the world.
Iman, of course, knew better. He knew that
time was running out and that, any moment now, his dear old friend was going to
leave him where he sat. And under normal circumstance, Iman wouldn’t have
cared. He’d have bid his dear old friend farewell, listened to this last report
from the lieutenant, and then stuck around for a few more games of cube. In the
morning, he’d track down his dear old friend somewhere in the middle of Stick
Day, or whatever it was, ask him why he looked like a porcupine slathered in
strawberry jam, and all would be well.
But unfortunately, these were not normal
circumstances. Iman didn’t have a next
day to track down his dear old friend. He was addressing the council either
tonight or early in the morning and, due to the severity of the incident, they
were awaiting his immediate response so as to send reinforcements if necessary.
Some of the response Iman could have
fabricated himself, like the prickly flora bristling from the Jaysh’s attire.
Obviously, Jaysh had been down on all fours and crawling through the thistles
and burs. As for the profusion of gore coating the flora and Jaysh’s attire,
the captain couldn’t even hazard a guess.
And
was it gore? he wondered, beginning to have his doubts. Some of the mucus
was red—Actually, a lot of it was
red—but some of it was clear, or clearer,
looking as though the fluid had started out as transparent and then had
something crimson mixed in later. Oh,
well. I suppose I’ll find out.
Iman flicked his eyes back to the rock—better known as the lieutenant—and weighed
his options. He could either disappoint the lieutenant and risk losing
his position in the military, or he could plead his case to the hard place—better known as his dear old friend—and
beg for an extension.
On the surface, and knowing what he knew
about the hard place, he had to go with disappointing the rock.
With Jaysh’s rigid routines and indomitable stubbornness, Iman could beg and
plead all he wanted and never change his friend’s mind. He had no choice but to
postpone the telling of the lieutenant’s account.
The lieutenant, possibly sensing that this
decision had come, stopped thrumming his fingers on the table and leaned
forward. This gave Iman a better look at the man he was about to infuriate and,
frankly, he didn’t like what he saw.
The man had the look of an angry
pontificator who knew every rule and standard in the military handbook and, by
crow, was going to follow them to the letter. Iman deduced this last part from
the man’s shaven head and twig-thin mustache, features that tended to go
hand-in-hand with a militant mindset. The anger he deduced from the piercing
blue eyes that had been glaring a hole through him ever since he sat down.
“Listen,” Iman said, his voice placating,
“it’s not that I don’t want to hear your report, because I do. I really
do. It’s just that the other reports took longer than I expected and my scout’s
getting ready to leave for the day and I just don’t—”
“Have time?” the officer finished.
“You don’t have time? To do your
job?”
“Well, I…I did some of it,” Iman
said. “Most of it,” he amended. What he wasn’t telling the lieutenant
was that he had actually done a good deal more
than his job. He had taken the four men he had interrogated into a tent at the southern
fringe of the camp—due to the confidential nature of their reports, of course—and
played cubes with them. Then, one thing led to another, the good captain began to
lose his money and didn’t want to stop, and the next thing he knew it was dusk,
or thereabouts.
Raising his hands in supplication, Iman
said, “Look, I have five reports from six witnesses. So it’s not like I’ve been
standing around twiddling my thumbs. And normally I’d stay tonight and hear your report as well—I just can’t.
I need to escort my scout to his sleeping quarters so I can hear his report
along the way. I’ve heard Westport
“Hold up,” the lieutenant sneered, leaning
forward and clutching the table. “Are you talking about a soldier in the
king’s military?”
Iman leaned back, suddenly aware that the
guys at the Wound hadn’t been kidding. Before he’d left, several of the
colleagues had told him that the commanding officer at Westpost, a Captain Tane,
was a nice enough officer—not unlike General Branmore in many respects—but that
his second in command, a lieutenant hardcase (apparently), was
something of an idiot.
Against his better judgment, Iman gestured
at his dear old friend. The lieutenant jerked his head around and glared at
what appeared to be a partially-skinned cat lying in the middle of a bloody,
thistle-strewn cloak, the only evidence of life coming from thistle-strewn hood
as it cocked itself back and took in the sky.
With
a mild expression of contempt, the lieutenant followed the scout’s gaze,
lifting his eyes to the graying air above.
In anticipation of the lieutenant’s
question, Iman said, “He’s checking the light. He has to leave at dusk—We both
have to leave at dusk.
That’s why—”
“You outrank him?” the officer asked,
reasserting his glare on the captain.
Iman’s eyes darted to the cloak. “I,
uh…yes. In a way, yes…I do. But you know how the military is,” he said,
shrugging as if there was nothing he could do. “Sometimes you have authority
over someone, sometimes that person has authority over you, so it’s not like—”
“You need to take control of your man,”
the lieutenant said, staring straight through Iman. “I’ve worked very hard
to prepare my report and I’m going to give it. It’s required by military
protocol that I give it. And to not give it would be a breech of
everything we stand for, so you either go over there and take control of your
man,” he drummed his fingers on the table, “or I will.”
Iman felt a momentary pang of discomfort
as the rock and hard place converged from both sides. The rock
had thrown up military protocol and accused Iman of breaking it, and even
though Iman had no idea what protocol was, he was fairly certain—judging by the
smug look in the rock’s eye—that breaking it would be a rather unhealthy
career move. And although he hated—nay, despised—his career in the
military, it was the best thing he had going. It certainly beat the time out of
shoveling horse crap in the stables or mining ore in the Kilashan.
On the other hand, he
didn’t relish the idea of losing ties with Jaysh either. The council had
already given Iman the Dome expedition tomorrow, the Leresh the day after, and
the Mela the day after that. But each investigation had come with the
stipulation that his dear old friend accompany him.
And what are the chances Jaysh says yes,
Iman wondered, if this raging idiot goes over there and calls all manner
of attention to him?
In the good captain’s mind, he saw the
lieutenant moving for Jaysh, saw Jaysh throw a handful of straw at the man as
he went scrambling to his feet and made for the corrals, then he saw the
lieutenant running after him—because that’s what guys like him did—and saw
Jaysh being tackled by some lesser idiot who was just doing his job and
then the two of them—raging idiot and lesser idiot—slowly realizing what they’d
done.
After that, word would spread through
Westpost like wildfire and, pretty soon, Jaysh would be standing in a whole the
ring of idiots and watching as they all grinned and stared in that special
way Jaysh so hated.
And the only thing worse than that,
Iman thought, turning and scanning the canvas and crates, would be for one
of these idiots to see Jaysh’s watchful friend—old big, blue, and shiny—because
if that happens we’re going to be here all night.
Since being here all night would also infuriate
his dear old friend, it was with an intense sigh of relief that Iman found the
creature absent from camp. Of course, if he aimed to keep it that way…
“Look,” he said, turning to the lieutenant
and fixing him with a stare, realizing suddenly that he’d forgotten his name.
When he asked for it, he watched the lieutenant wrinkle his quill-thin
mustache.
“It’s Batterolf,” the man said. “Lieutenant
Batterolf.”
Suppressing a grimace of his own, Iman
said, “Right, right, Butterolf. Look, it’s like I was saying, my scout and I
are in a bit of a hurry and we really need to go. Not to burden you with our
sorry lives—because I know you have your own problems—but I do have a
report to write and I do have a council to address and my colleague
there is headed to the Shun to…to do whatever it is he does, so you can
see that we both have early-morning engagements and it’s nothing personal.”
Eyes like murder holes, Batterolf drummed
his fingers on the table.
“But anyhow,” Iman said, clasping
his hands and rubbing them together, “here’s what I thought we could do: How
about, instead of listening to your report and wasting everyone’s time,
I just ask a few—”
“Questions?” Batterolf spat. “You
want to ask me questions? Like an interrogation?”
Mouth gaping, Iman shook his head. “Oh,
no. No, no. I…it wouldn’t be like that. No, it’s just that I’ve heard the
incident five times already and—”
Batterolf slapped his hand on the table,
never taking his eyes from the captain. “Did you know,” he asked coldly,
“that interviewing privates ahead of a commanding officer is a breach of military protocol?”
Iman did not, as it turned out, but he
said nothing. He only leaned back on his barrel and thanked Sira the man hadn’t
heard about the cubes.
Batterolf gave him a contemptuous look.
“It’s hard to believe that a captain—in the king’s army—wouldn’t know that.”
Iman’s look of confusion took on a
decisively angry cast. “I guess I made a mistake,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He was
aware of a thick pulsing in his right temple. “Can I ask my questions
now?”
Batterolf continued to stare daggers at him,
his face as hard as the table between them and the barrel upon which it lay,
but in the end he only shook his head. “Fine,” he said, sounding as
though it were anything but fine. “I don’t know why I expected anything
less.”
Iman, who’d been about to ask his first
question, closed his mouth and leaned forward on his makeshift chair. “What was
that?” he said.
“I said,” Batterolf snarled, leaning
forward as well, “that everyone knows how you ascended the ranks…Captain.”
“Do they,” Iman said, pulling his hands
from the table and letting them hang at his waist.
“They do,” Batterolf said, “and they think
you’d know more about military protocol, if you’d been promoted to your
position instead of having it handed to you.” His eyes darted to Iman’s
flowing black locks. “Or maybe if you’d stop primping long enough to pick up a
procedural manual.”
Iman’s eyes fell to the lieutenant
squiggle of a mustache. “Oh, yeah?” he sneered. “How long’s it take to trim that?
Or can you not grow a real one?”
“At least men wear mustaches, you
beard-loving—”
“And if we’re talking about reputations,”
Iman went on, coming to his feet, “did you know everyone out here calls you Buggeroff
behind your back?”
Batterolf came to his feet. “Well at
least I didn’t get to where I am—”
“Fact is,” Iman said, raising his
voice and stepping around the table, “the boys in the city call you
Buggeroff too, and when they heard where I was going, and that someone out here
had died, they told me they hoped it was YOU!”
Iman stopped yelling, suddenly aware of
the heat running out of his cheeks and leaving his body, leaving him strangely
cold and acutely aware of his surroundings: the flickering of the fire, the
shouting of the privates, the hilt of his sword in the palm of his hand…
Uh-oh.
He didn’t need to look down
to know the rest of his body had assumed the stance. After feeling the
hard leather of his grip, he was suddenly aware of the bend in his knees and
the slight lean of his upper body. It was the stance all right, the very
one he’d been practicing ever since he’d first noticed his father’s antique
weaponry hanging in the trophy room and went inside to try them out; because
although it was against the rules to enter the trophy room—let alone touch
the trophies—his parents were never home and the swords were just
hanging their, practically screaming at him to be taken down.
So he’d done it. He’d taken one down, he’d
given it a good swing, and nothing bad had happened. In fact, he felt
pretty banning good about it. So he’d taken down another and given it a sound
hefting and again nothing horrible had happened.
What in the name of Sira? he remembered thinking. Father not only
abandoned me, but he’s lied to me as well.
Naturally, Iman had no choice but to start
taking all the swords down and swinging them like mad. He’d wake up, find his
mother reading one of her books in the bedroom, have himself some stale bread
and jam, and then off to the trophy room he’d go. It was wonderful. He bandaged
all of his cuts, hid most of the damaged furniture, and when he could do
neither, he made up fantastic tales to explain them away.
Of course, his parents never asked about
the injuries, or the nicks in the furniture, but he had the excuses ready just
in case, certain that one of these days they would notice the scabs on his forehead
or the cuts on his shoulders or that the whole of their furnishing had been
turned to face the wall and were covered in blankets and stacked high with his mother’s
books…
But they never did. His father just wasn’t
around and his mother…Well, she wasn’t going to notice anything with her nose
in a book.
The lieutenant across from Iman, on the
other hand—the one with the burred head and parchment-thin mustache—he was
noticing just fine. He’d even taken a step back, Iman saw, and he had a look on
his face that implied he’d heard more than one type of rumor about the good
captain. Batterolf had not only heard about Iman’s ascension through the ranks,
but he also appeared to have heard about the good captain’s many barroom
tricks, the sort of tricks that involved pointed bits of steel and flying
pieces of fruit and were only performed after the good captain had consumed way
too many drinks and the patrons—who’d also consumed way too many
drinks—began chanting: Do it! Do the thing with the sword! Come on! Do it!
Do it!
Slipping cautiously onto his barrel,
Batterolf said, “Ask your questions.”
