Read Online The Leopard (Marakand) by K.V. Johansen - Free Book Online
Authors: K.V. Johansen
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orange hair. If you think it’s so, send her to her brother to be made queen, and tell the goddess she has an heir and no need for vengeance on the city.”
“You think she doesn’t know already, if it’s so? Don’t wish that on the child. The Duina Catairna is truly cursed, whatever she believes.”
“Who cursed them?”
“I did.” Ahjvar hurled a chip of stone out over the cliff. It was a long time falling, and the splash was lost in the rising tide. “When the hag killed me. I told you that.” He added peevishly, “You make me tell you things. I don’t know why I do. I don’t know why—”
He didn’t finish that thought. Why I can’t get free of you? because the obvious answer was that he could. Ghu dead could not dog his steps. Such thoughts came too easily, too lightly, and it was likely to come true, though the boy—man, now, but he seemed so young still, save for the unguarded eyes that strangers never saw—had survived four, or maybe it was five, years with him and had never been . . . never been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Ahjvar was careful, too. He wasn’t so far gone in madness but that he knew such thoughts shouldn’t be his own. And there was work enough for the clan-fathers of the Five Cities to feed the madness. Assassination wasn’t law and it wasn’t justice, but it was . . . not innocence, either. Their lords had bodyguards, and wizard guards, and the ones who hired assassins expected assassins. There was a code, of sorts. It was warfare of a different type, maybe, and it kept the blackness eased and quiescent and . . . how, by the cold hells, was he to get to Marakand, on the long road, with Ghu by his side?
There was a time, a long time, lifetimes, when everything was dark and nothing mattered, so long as he kept within the walls he made himself, let nothing in, and ran away from anything that tried to get in, or pushed it away, or—Ghu was a cat. He always found a way in.
Going away didn’t seem to be an option. The man would simply follow.
How, Old Great Gods forgive him, did he end up keeping Ghu, when he wouldn’t even let himself have a dog to care about, to see innocence defiled by loving him? The boy—and Ghu had been a boy, then, though the tale he told of his life packed too much into too few years—had followed him all the way from Gold Harbour, had sat on the garden wall in a spring gale, wet and shivering and turning blue, until Ahjvar dragged him in by the collar of his ragged robe and dropped him by the fire. Feed a cat and you were stuck with it.
“So . . .” Ghu rose to his feet, stretching. He wasn’t all skin and bone and hollow eyes now, anyway, but compact, taut muscle. And no gang of street-toughs was going to be able to work him over for their own amusement ever again; Ahjvar had made sure of that. Nobody hit Ghu but him, these days. The man refused to learn the sword, though. Someday I may have to learn to kill. Not this day. Ghu hadn’t meant it as reproof. Sometimes it sounded prophecy, what fell from his lips. “That’s why we’re going to Marakand? For Catairanach and what she offers?”
“ I am going.” Ahjvar frowned. “Not for Catairanach.” But because he did take her at her word? Maybe. But more, because the goddess who’d flung him out to damnation knew him. He would not see the Duina Catairna made subject to any foreign temple.
He shrugged. “Maybe they’ll kill me at last, for good. These Red Masks sound . . . a challenge. But you’re not going.”
“You need me.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I don’t need you. You followed me home, remember?”
“Because you needed me.”
“I needed you to hold my horse. For an hour or so. I paid you a quarter-gull and that should have been that. I don’t remember at all, I really don’t, saying anything like, ‘Why don’t you trail me home and move in with me and convince all these good folk, who think I’m a nice respectable man of law, that I’ve
“You think she doesn’t know already, if it’s so? Don’t wish that on the child. The Duina Catairna is truly cursed, whatever she believes.”
“Who cursed them?”
“I did.” Ahjvar hurled a chip of stone out over the cliff. It was a long time falling, and the splash was lost in the rising tide. “When the hag killed me. I told you that.” He added peevishly, “You make me tell you things. I don’t know why I do. I don’t know why—”
He didn’t finish that thought. Why I can’t get free of you? because the obvious answer was that he could. Ghu dead could not dog his steps. Such thoughts came too easily, too lightly, and it was likely to come true, though the boy—man, now, but he seemed so young still, save for the unguarded eyes that strangers never saw—had survived four, or maybe it was five, years with him and had never been . . . never been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Ahjvar was careful, too. He wasn’t so far gone in madness but that he knew such thoughts shouldn’t be his own. And there was work enough for the clan-fathers of the Five Cities to feed the madness. Assassination wasn’t law and it wasn’t justice, but it was . . . not innocence, either. Their lords had bodyguards, and wizard guards, and the ones who hired assassins expected assassins. There was a code, of sorts. It was warfare of a different type, maybe, and it kept the blackness eased and quiescent and . . . how, by the cold hells, was he to get to Marakand, on the long road, with Ghu by his side?
There was a time, a long time, lifetimes, when everything was dark and nothing mattered, so long as he kept within the walls he made himself, let nothing in, and ran away from anything that tried to get in, or pushed it away, or—Ghu was a cat. He always found a way in.
Going away didn’t seem to be an option. The man would simply follow.
How, Old Great Gods forgive him, did he end up keeping Ghu, when he wouldn’t even let himself have a dog to care about, to see innocence defiled by loving him? The boy—and Ghu had been a boy, then, though the tale he told of his life packed too much into too few years—had followed him all the way from Gold Harbour, had sat on the garden wall in a spring gale, wet and shivering and turning blue, until Ahjvar dragged him in by the collar of his ragged robe and dropped him by the fire. Feed a cat and you were stuck with it.
“So . . .” Ghu rose to his feet, stretching. He wasn’t all skin and bone and hollow eyes now, anyway, but compact, taut muscle. And no gang of street-toughs was going to be able to work him over for their own amusement ever again; Ahjvar had made sure of that. Nobody hit Ghu but him, these days. The man refused to learn the sword, though. Someday I may have to learn to kill. Not this day. Ghu hadn’t meant it as reproof. Sometimes it sounded prophecy, what fell from his lips. “That’s why we’re going to Marakand? For Catairanach and what she offers?”
“ I am going.” Ahjvar frowned. “Not for Catairanach.” But because he did take her at her word? Maybe. But more, because the goddess who’d flung him out to damnation knew him. He would not see the Duina Catairna made subject to any foreign temple.
He shrugged. “Maybe they’ll kill me at last, for good. These Red Masks sound . . . a challenge. But you’re not going.”
“You need me.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I don’t need you. You followed me home, remember?”
“Because you needed me.”
“I needed you to hold my horse. For an hour or so. I paid you a quarter-gull and that should have been that. I don’t remember at all, I really don’t, saying anything like, ‘Why don’t you trail me home and move in with me and convince all these good folk, who think I’m a nice respectable man of law, that I’ve
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