‘But he hasn’t come.’
‘I know.’
Berren swallowed. ‘Velgian. He was dressed like a sword-monk. Was he one of you once?’
Tasahre shook her head, almost laughing. ‘We heard the story. Not then, but later. You threw a bowl of porridge at him and then hit him on the nose with a waster and he ran away, yes?’
Berren nodded. ‘He had swords like yours.’
‘Perhaps he meant to be seen? Do you think, Berren, you could have hit a true sword-monk on the nose? Even now?’
He thought hard about that. No, there was the answer. He’d spent nearly two months with Tasahre and her brothers and sisters, and no, he couldn’t have hit any of them on the nose, or probably anywhere else. Not then, before the training, and probably not even now. He shook his head.
‘He was never one of us, Berren. In your heart, you know this. We do not murder men in their sleep. That has never been our way.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I remember His Highness coming to the temple and ordering me to train you. I thought the sun was punishing me for something. I didn’t know what it was but I hated him for doing that to me, for separating me from my brothers and sisters, for giving me such a burden. I didn’t want anything to do with you. I thought you were a stupid idiot boy.’ She laughed. ‘And sometimes you are. You are uncouth, rude, you have so little respect for our ways that you could never be one of us and you would never want to be. I thought all you wanted was to learn how to kill so you could strut about like the snuffers this city seems to breed like rats. And in part, it’s true that you do, and don’t try to tell me it’s not. But we are taught to take whatever the sun passes down upon us and carry it without complaint. So I did as I was asked, and in the end you were not such a heavy stone around my neck.’
Berren got up. His hand throbbed but it wasn’t so bad now. His skin tingled. He wanted to throw himself around her and hold her close to him. He took a step closer but she stopped him, a hand against his chest, gentle and firm.
‘It would not be right.’
He took her hand in his own. Pressed it to him. He could have cried. ‘I want to …’ Wanted to what? Run away with a sword-monk? Yes, but that wasn’t ever going to happen.
A sad smile flickered over her face. ‘The crossing of our paths will be a fleeting one. The time will come when you will leave and I will stay. When you are gone, I will remember you fondly, as you will remember me. I am glad to have met you, Berren.’ She reached out with her other hand. Two fingers glowing with a faint light in the gloom, warm and yellow like the sun, touched his brow. ‘The sun’s blessing be with you.’ For a moment, her fingers lingered. He half raised his injured hand to touch her arm and then stopped. ‘We should go now. The priests will need to decide what to do. I must tell them everything you have told me. I will have no say in what is to be done, but when they are deciding your fate, I will do what I can. When the abomination turned his power on me you had a chance to run. If you had, I would have been lost, but you didn’t. I will not forget that.’ Gently she withdrew and smiled one last time. ‘I am sorry about your hand.’
‘Tasahre, who is Sunbright Ansinnas?’
She laughed and turned to look at him with a smile. ‘You’ve been in this temple for more than a year and you don’t know who Sunbright Ansinnas is? Ansinnas is the Sunherald’s aide.’
A chill ran down Berren’s spine. ‘What does he … what does he do?’
‘She, Berren. The Sunbright looks after the Sunherald. Come!’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that if the Sunherald desires to visit the City of Spires, Sunbright Ansinnas will be the one who makes it so. If someone wishes to see the Sunherald, they will see the Sunbright to ask for his time. Come! We must tell the priests the truth of what lurks by the river.’
‘He did something to me.’ Berren shivered. The pain in his head and in his finger were receding now, but there was still the knife. The vision of his own soul, laid out before him, cutting a tiny piece out of it with his own hands. ‘He made me …’ Made me into something. But I don’t know what! ‘I saw some of the papers that Justicar Kol was looking for,’ he murmured. ‘In Master Sy’s house.’
Tasahre shook her head. ‘Then give them to him. The Emperor is no friend to our path but we do not start wars. That is not what we are for. Come. The priests will know what to do.’ she smiled once more, and he watched her walk away through the afternoon sun towards the temple doors. He made as if to follow but lagged behind a little. She didn’t look back, didn’t wait for him but kept walking, as though she believed he was at her side.
Sooner or later, Master Sy would come looking for his old friend Kuy again.
He stared at the temple gate. He couldn’t shake the sense that there was somewhere he was meant to be, somewhere that wasn’t here.
He turned back to Tasahre, still walking away with the sun on her back, still not looking over her shoulder towards him. She was letting him go, he knew, letting him run if he wanted. She was letting him be free.
No. This was where he was meant to be. He’d made his choice, back in the House of Cats and Gulls, even if he hadn’t known it.
He trotted across the practice yard and followed Tasahre into the temple.
27
The monks didn’t wait for the next day. Berren watched them go, seven of them with the elder dragon himself, as many priests and a score of temple soldiers. Tasahre went with them. They were gone the next day too, Sun-Day, all of them. When Tasahre came back she had her swords with her. She held them up to Berren. ‘They were lying on the floor,’ she told him. ‘The abomination has disappeared.’ And that was all she had to say. For the rest of that day she worked him hard, mercilessly hard; the more questions he asked, the more she pushed him. Twice he tried to ask her about the golden knife, whether it had been found, tried to find the words to ask about what the warlock had done to him. Both times she came at him with a sword for an answer. Gone, he slowly pieced together, meant vanished gone. Not dead gone. Not finished.
And that was all there was. Neither of them talked about what they’d seen there. No one came with questions about Master Sy. There were no visits from Justicar Kol and for the rest of that day it was as though nothing had ever happened; at least until the next sunrise when Berren found himself being shaken out of bed.
‘We have duties,’ Tasahre told him. Once he was dressed, she told him they were going back to the House of Cats and Gulls.
‘No.’ Berren shook his head.
The look she gave him was a strange one, half sadness, half affection. ‘Yes, Berren. Yes you can and you will. We are both going. We will not be alone, it will be daylight, and the abomination is gone. He is merely driven away for now, but my brothers and sisters are hunting for him and they will find him and end him. You have nothing to fear while we are close to you.’
Berren shook his head again. ‘If he’s not there, why do we have to go back?’
She looked away. ‘We must face our fears, Berren. That is what makes us strong. He touched us both and we must take back what is ours.’
However true that was, it wasn’t why they were going. Berren waited.
‘I cannot tell you,’ she said after a bit. ‘I have sworn I would not. Your master had dealings with the warlock. There may be papers. You said you had seen some.’ An uneasy look crossed her face. ‘There may be other things, too.’
Like the golden-handled knife. Berren shuddered.
‘Please.’ She looked him in the eye, full of earnest hope. ‘I cannot offer you much in return, but I will teach you what I can while we are there.’