Shadow and Betrayal

‘That’s truth.’
    ‘I didn’t doubt you would. I’ve seen men far worse off than you pull through just fine. They’ve found your corpse, by the way. Identified it as you, just as we’d hoped. There are already half a hundred stories about how that came to be, and none of them near the truth. Amiit-cha is quite pleased, I think.’
    ‘I suppose it’s worth being pleased over,’ Otah said.
    ‘You don’t seem overjoyed.’
    ‘Someone killed my father and my brothers and placed the blame on me. It just seems an odd time to celebrate.’
    Sinja didn’t answer this, and for a moment, the two men sat in silence broken only by the rain. Then Otah spoke again. ‘Who was he? The man with my tattoo? Where did you find him?’
    ‘He wasn’t the sort of man the world will miss,’ Sinja said. ‘Amiit found him in a low town, and we arranged to purchase his indenture from the low magistrate before they hung him.’
    ‘What had he done?’
    ‘I don’t know. Killed someone. Raped a puppy. Whatever soothes your conscience, he did that.’
    ‘You really don’t care.’
    ‘No,’ Sinja agreed. ‘And perhaps that makes me a bad person, but since I don’t care about that, either . . .’
    He took a pose of completion, as if he had finished a demonstration. Otah nodded, then looked away.
    ‘Too many people die over this,’ Otah said. ‘Too many lives wasted. It’s an idiot system.’
    ‘This is nothing. You should see a real war. There is no bigger waste than that.’
    ‘You have? Seen war, I mean?’
    ‘Yes. I fought in the Westlands. Sometimes when the wardens took issue with each other. Sometimes against the nomad bands when they got big enough to pose a real threat. And then when the Galts decide to come take another bite out of them. There’s more than enough opportunity there.’
    A distant flash of lightning lit the trees, and then a breath later, a growl of thunder. Otah reached his hand out, letting the cool drops wet his palm.
    ‘What’s it like?’ he asked.
    ‘War? Violent. Brutish, stupid. Unnecessary, as often as not. But I like the part where we win.’
    Otah chuckled.
    ‘You seem . . . don’t mind my prying at you, but for a man pulled from certain death, you don’t seem to be as happy as I’d expected,’ Sinja said. ‘Something weighing on you?’
    ‘Have you even been to Yalakeht?’
    ‘No, too far east for me.’
    ‘They have tall gates on the mouths of their side streets that they close and lock every night. And there’s a tower in the harbor with a permanent fire that guides ships in the darkness. In Chaburi-Tan, the street children play a game I’ve never seen anywhere else. They get just within shouting distance, strung out all through the streets, and then one will start singing, and the next will call the song on to the next after him, until it loops around to the first singer with all the mistakes and misunderstandings that make it something new. They can go on for hours. I stayed in a low town halfway between Lachi and Shosheyn-Tan where they served a stew of smoked sausage and pepper rice that was the best meal I’ve ever had. And the eastern islands.
    ‘I was a fisherman out there for a few years. A very bad one, but . . . but I spent my time out on the water, listening to the waves against my little boat. I saw the way the water changed color with the day and the weather. The salt cracked my palms, and the woman I was with made me sleep with greased cloth on my hands. I think I’ll miss that the most.’
    ‘Cracked palms?’
    ‘The sea. I think that will be the worst of it.’
    Sinja shifted. The rain intensified and then slackened as suddenly as it had come. The trees stood straighter. The pools of water danced less.
    ‘The sea hasn’t gone anywhere,’ Sinja said.
    ‘No, but I have. I’ve gone to the mountains. And I don’t expect I’ll ever leave them again. I knew it was the danger when I became a courier. I was warned. But I hadn’t understood it until now. It’s the problem in seeing too much of the world. In loving too much of it. You can only live in one place at a time. And eventually, you pick your spot, and the memories of all the others just become ghosts.’
    Sinja nodded, taking a pose that expressed his understanding. Otah smiled, and wondered what memories the commander carried with him. From the distance in his eyes, it couldn’t all have been blood and terror. Something of it must have been worth keeping.
    ‘You’ve decided,