The food was not as good as he had anticipated. The smell had been wonderful, tantalizing—but in his mouth it had no flavor. As if, along with so many things, he had forgotten how to taste. Discouraged, he tossed what remained of his meal into the water. “Eat well, my lord,” he said, before rising and resuming his walk.
He went next to Southtown, though he was in no way certain why. He knew that he had been born there, but the nets in that part of his mind were the most torn and tangled; they held the fewest clear images. Walking down Red Gar Street, the place he remembered best, was like hearing only snatches of a song. Here a shop sign was as well remembered as his name; but blocks would go by that seemed as alien as the depths of the palace. Still, it brought something of a return of his earlier good cheer; his nose and his skin seemed to recognize the street as his eyes did not. A sort of melancholy happiness walked with him, the ghost of recollection.
And then, when he stopped on a corner to watch a boy pick a minor noble's pocket, someone spoke his name.
“Ghe!” An old woman's voice, one he utterly failed to recognize.
He turned in surprise, fingers knitting into deadly shapes. It was an old woman—an ancient woman—dressed as a fortuneteller. Her clothes were faded, shabby, but she wore a steepled hat with golden moons and stars embossed upon it that looked both new and expensive. Before her was spread a velvet mat for her fortune-bones. Her face was split in a half-toothless grin, and her eyes sparkled with an odd mixture of lights—happiness, wariness, and concern.
He knew her face. Images of it lay about his mind like shards of a shattered pot. But no name was attached to it, no past conversations, nothing. Nothing save for a faint, pleasant sensation.
“Ghe? Haven't you come to sit with an old woman?” The old eyes had sharpened with suspicion. He hesitated, searching his mind, thinking desperately. He smiled and knelt by her mat.
“Hello,” he said, managing to sound cheerful. “It has been a long while.”
“And whose fault is that? Ah, little Duh, what has the priesthood made of you? I scarcely recognize you in that collar. You look tired, too.”
She knew about the priesthood. Who was this woman?
“It is a busy life,” he muttered, wishing he at least had a name to call her by. Was she some relative of his? Not his mother, surely. She was far too old for that.
The puzzled, suspicious look was still clear on her face. He had to—do what? He should run, leave, that was what he should do.
“Read the bones for me,” he said instead, gesturing at the inscribed, polished slats that lay on the mat.
“You put store in that now? The priesthood teach you to respect old women properly?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged, picked the bones up, and rattled them around in her hands.
“Whatever happened to that girl?” she asked casually. “The one you liked, that they set you after?”
His dismay must have been as clear to her as the call of gulls above. Her own eyes widened. “What have you done, little one? What is this about?”
Ghe felt a little tremor walk up his spine. He had to do something. He reached out for the httle, fluttering knot of strands that made up her life. She knew it all, this old woman. That he was a Jik, about Hezhi, everything. Best to kill her now, quickly.
But he could not. He knew not why. The moment passed, and he shrank back from the strands, though now he felt a bit of hunger—completely unabated by the bread and meat he consumed earlier.
“Listen,” he hissed. “Listen to me.” He took a deep breath. “I don't know who you are.”
Her eyes widened and then flattened. “What do you mean by that? Life in the palace made you too good to talk to old Li?”
LI He had heard that name in his vision, when he was reborn. Then it meant nothing, just a sound. Now …
Now it still meant nothing, save that it was this old woman's name.
“No. No, that isn't what I mean at all. You clearly know me, know my name, know much about me. But I do not know you.”
Her face cleared then, blanked like a perfect, featureless mask: the inscrutable fortune-teller.
“What do you remember?”
“Bits of things. I know I grew up around here somewhere. I remember this street. I remember your face—but I didn't know your name until just now.”
Her face remained expressionless. “Perhaps some sort of Forbidding,” she muttered slowly. “But why would they cripple you so? This makes no sense, Ghe.”
“Perhaps,” he began, “perhaps if you were to tell me, remind me. Perhaps the memories are only sleeping.”
Li nodded slowly. “That could be. But again, why? You are still a Jik?”
“Still,” he said. “Always.”
“Last I heard from you, you had been set to watch one of the River Blessed. A young girl. Did something happen?”
“I don't remember,” he lied. “I don't remember that, either.”
The old woman pursed her lips.
“I should read the bones, then,” she said. “Maybe the bones will show something. Sit with me here a bit.”
She rummaged in a small cloth bag and began taking things out.
“You gave me this, you know,” she said, as she laid a little cone of incense out on her velvet mat.
“I did?”
“Yes. When you were initiated. This cloth and this hat. Be a dear, little Duh, and go light this on the flame of old Shehwad over there.” She waved her hand at a man cooking skewered meats a few tens of paces away. He nodded, rose, and walked over to the stand.
“Li asked me to light this here,” he told the person—who, despite the fact that Li referred to him as “old,” was certainly younger than she.
The man's sharp features began a scowl, but then suddenly transfigured. “Why, it's little Ghe, isn't it? We haven't seen you about here in an age.”
“No?”
“No, not since … well, I can't remember when. Since before the priests came asking about you.”
“The priests came asking about me?” Ghe asked, straining to control his voice, to sound casual.
“Months ago. There's some flame for you.” He presented Ghe with a burning splinter of black willow from his cook fire.
“Thank you.” He couldn't ask more; it would seem too suspicious. Why would they have sent anyone here?
Because, of course, his body had never been found. The Jik he had killed in the palace had indicated that someone had seen him dead—and then he had disappeared. They had looked for him.
Did the priesthood suspect? Could they suspect? That was worrisome. He had been trained to kill, but his knowledge of priestly magic was not great. Was there some way of seeing what had happened to him? Some magical trail or signature?
He turned back to the old woman. She must know that the priests had been here, but she hadn't mentioned it.
“Light the incense, silly boy,” Li said, when she glanced up from arranging the bones. He complied, touching the brand to the cone until it sputtered. A thick, pungent scent drifted up from the cone.
“Now, just sit here. Ill cast the bones, and we'll read them, just like we used to.”
Like we used to. Ghe grimaced. Who had she been to him? She was so familiar, in some ways. And he had confided in her, told her of the vast empty places in his mind. That had been stupid, but what other choice had there been?
Watching the people moving up and down Red Gar Street, he knew the answer to that. He watched them; the wealthy and the poor, the noble and the mean—none of them saw an old woman and a man clad to his neck in rough silks. They were unnoticeable, invisible. Every person that passed had some pressing business, some private thought, some destination, known or unknown. If he were to reach into Li, take her life …