She left, but Nineth did not see her go. A darkness came before her eyes. No one had asked after her. No one missed her.
She crawled inside the shelter and settled slowly, painfully, into the lotus position once more. It was said of the Boddhisattva Vajrakanta that he had stayed in the lotus position for more than a year before attaining salvation, but Nineth doubted that she could emulate his feat.
Shirin Mam had said that strength lies not in the body but in the mind. If the enemy is stronger than you, bend like a reed. Yield your blood but not your heart. If you are overpowered and hurt, understand that all states are temporary and this too will pass. The only true weakness is to accept defeat and succumb to despair.
Nineth strove against the despair that threatened to overwhelm her. She pushed away the thought of the slow, lingering death that awaited her in this little hole, and thought instead of the life she had lived.
The scenes flashed one after the other, gathering momentum like a story-play. A pleasant and uneventful childhood among the herders who dwelled in the eastern end of the valley. The surprise and fear at being chosen as a novice by the Mahimata of Kali. Her success at the coming-of-age trial, and the joyful reverence with which she beheld her new blade. Katari-mu-dai, the moment of bonding. Meditating on a grassy, moonlit patch under the guidance of Navroz or Shirin Mam. Collecting blackberries with Kyra for one of Tarshana’s pies, their hands scratched from the thorny bushes, their mouths stained with berry juice. Rubbing down the horses in the enclosure, the smell of sweet grass and sweat commingling in the spring air.
It had not been a particularly noteworthy existence, but it had been a happy one. Certainly it could not have continued so forever. Sooner or later, she would have had to take down her first mark. She had been filled with doubts about this. Could she bring herself to kill another human being, no matter how evil? Too late now to find out.
*
“Are you all right? Here, drink this.”
A worried whisper of a voice, faintly familiar, intruded on Nineth’s drifting thoughts. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids were too heavy.
The owner of the voice touched her arm, and the pain she had succeeded in banishing from her consciousness flooded through her. She would have screamed if she could, but all that escaped her throat was a small moan.
Something sweet and fiery trickled into her mouth. She gulped it down. It burned as it slid down her throat, but it lessened her pain.
“Easy does it,” said the voice. “You don’t want to take too much. Let’s get out of here first. We’re too close to that witch for comfort.”
Nineth felt herself being lifted up from the ground and swung around by a pair of broad, muscular shoulders. Her eyes fluttered open.
Darkness. She had a moment of panic. Had she gone blind?
No, it was simply the dark of a cloudy night. She could see a small patch of starry sky. Somewhere, a horse whickered.
Who are you? Where are you taking me? she wanted to say. But all that came out was a hoarse groan.
“Don’t worry,” said the voice. “You’re safe.”
The moon sailed out from behind a cloud and its light fell on the face of the man carrying her. Hattur Nisalki.
Nineth stared at him in shock. She was dreaming. She had to be.
He grinned at her. “Aren’t you glad I followed you to your caves that night?” he said. “Kept an eye on you. The caravan’s going south to the Tajik Plains for the winter, and you’re coming with us. Neri’s the fastest horse we have. I’m rescuing you.”
Rescuing? Let me go, idiot. Nineth tried to shout, tried to move, but she was too weak.
“Hush, don’t try to talk,” he said. “You can thank me later.” He lifted her onto the saddle and leaped up behind.
After a while Nineth gave up trying to speak and drifted off into a state of semiconsciousness that was strangely like the first-level meditative trance. Dimly, she wondered if she would ever see Elena or Kyra again.
Chapter 25
The Spirit of Varka
At first sight, Samant looked dead. His body was thin beneath the ragged blanket, shrunken like a starving child’s. His cheeks were hollow with a dark, unhealthy flush. A smell of decay emanated from the bed. But his chest rose and fell; life clung on, despite the odds.
Rustan knelt next to the wooden bed and felt a wave of fury at the superstitious fools who had left the elder to waste away in their “death hut” instead of giving him medicine or sending for a healer when he fell ill. There were herbs to treat fever and deliruim, but the Ersanis professed not to know of them. A mere mile away from the walled town of Herat with its libraries and schools, they might as well have been in the middle of a jungle with their thatched huts, ragged children, and the twitchy shaman who had tried to prevent Rustan from entering the village in the first place.
Rustan laid Samant’s blade on his chest and reached for the elder’s hand. It was dry and burning hot. Samant shuddered and opened his eyes.
“It’s all right, Elder,” said Rustan softly, “I’m here now, and so is your katari. As soon as you’re well enough to ride, I’m taking you to Herat to be treated by a medicine woman.”
Samant looked through him, unseeing. Rustan forced a few spoonfuls of sugar water into his mouth and, after a few minutes, the elder slipped back into sleep. Rustan leaned back on the mud-daubed wall, numb with weariness. He had ridden hard and fast across the Empty Place to reach the Hub of Kashgar, stopping only for a few hours every afternoon to rest his camel.
But no matter how hard he’d ridden, he hadn’t been able to get away from Kyra. Her face, words, and gestures were seared into his mind. Every step that he took farther away from her only sharpened his pain.
His anger toward her and Shurik had begun to cool as soon as he mounted his camel and left the camp of Khur. He regretted leaving abruptly without a word of explanation or farewell. But what could he have said that didn’t sound forced or melodramatic?
On the way to Kashgar, with only his camel for company under the silent stars, Rustan had allowed himself the luxury of emotion—grief for the one who had gone, fear for the one who stood poised on the edge.
He would find Samant and return to Kashgar, he’d decided. If he hurried, he could make it back before they all left for Sikandra Fort. He could at least say goodbye to Kyra, and wish her well.
Then he’d arrived in the village of the Ersanis, and Samant’s plight had taken precedence over everything else.