Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

She reached the top of the beach where the grass began. Crouching beside one of the denser clumps, she pulled out a bundle of clothes. Ott watched her dress: black blouse and leggings, loose-fitting but tight at wrists and ankles. Then she bent down again and lifted a knife.

Gods of death, she was a sfvantskor! For the knife was unmistakable: the glint of quartz, the hawksbill curve at the tip. It was the ritual blade from the wedding ceremony — the only weapon King Oshiram had permitted the Mzithrinis to bring ashore. Only the vadhi, the Blessed Defenders, could carry such knives. And the only vadhi as young as that girl were the newly-trained sfvantskors. There'd been a report. Girls among them. Yes, three of the seven were girls.

What in Rin's name was she up to? The way she held the knife — as though it were burning her, but impossible to drop — told him she had blood to draw. But whose? The girl was walking back to the waves, with resolve and something like fury in her movements. Someone else in the sea? There was light aplenty now, and Ott saw no one at all.

Then the wind gusted from her direction and it carried a sob and he knew at once what was happening.

We will never belong among those who belong.

Neda set the knife to her throat. The waves striking her knees made it hard to stand still. One swift cut, long but shallow, not over the vein. She had to be strong enough to swim beyond the breakers, where the sharks would find her before she sank.

Bad blood in her. Sooner or later it had to come out.

They were out there, hungry, circling. They would come like flies to a feast. She had moved among them in another form, with her brothersNo, no, they were not brothers or sisters. They hated her, the Ormali intruder, the walking shame. They had always known she would fail, and yesterday she had. What had the Father forbidden her? To speak to Pazel, and that she had done. Someone at the wedding had noticed, and word had come to Cayer Vispek, the great sfvantskor hero who served on the Jistrolloq. Cayer Vispek had whispered to the Father. The old priest had jerked his head upright, looked at her quizzically across the shrine, and some pride or hope for her had fled his eyes. It had not returned at sunset, when the sfvantskors performed feats of strength and acrobatics for the awestruck crowd. Nor at predawn prayers, when he touched her forehead with the sceptre and pointed at the sea. Go and swim, and forget this pain. Above all forget the one named Pazel Pathkendle. She swam, she changed, she became herself again, but she did not forget. She would never forget, and the Father's look of love would never return.

The other aspirants knew she had fallen into disgrace. Malabron, big pious Malabron of Surahk, had started the gloating. Bad blood. It's not her fault, really. The faith burns right through weaker souls. Like fire through a thin-bottomed pan.

Little Phoenix-Flame, another had whispered, his voice dripping scorn. And Suridin, Admiral Kuminzat's daughter, had simply watched her with knowing eyes. She was the best of them, Neda thought, and her silent judgement hurt more than all the insults combined.

Bad blood. She had known it even as a child. Blood of Captain Gregory the Traitor. Blood of Suthinia Pathkendle, who had tried to poison her children. Look what had become of Pazel. He was no slave. He loved those Arqualis, the people who had burned their city, stabbed children in Darli Square, rutted inside her one after another for a day and a night. There were words for women like her in every tongue. Unclean. Unchaste. Damaged goods.

She knew now that the Father had only wanted to spare her pain. He had forbidden her to speak to Pazel, or even to remember him, because Pazel like their other enemies had forsaken his soul.

Tasmut. Stained. That was how you said it in Ormali. She was a stained rag, fouled, reeking, and no power in Alifros could'Lower that blade, lass.'

She whirled. An old man in a dark shirt and leggings stood behind her with his feet in the surf. Not armed, not moving. A scarred and battered face, bright with savagery and thought. He had spoken Mzithrini, but he was not one.

'Get away,' she said, in a warning tone.

The old man shook his head. 'You don't want to fight me. I can see you'd be a blary hellcat, but odds are I'd kill you. I've had more practice in the art, you see. More practice than a man ever should.'

Neda rushed him. Astonishingly he did not move. As she raised the knife for a killing stab he looked casually aside, and something in his very calm made her freeze, shocked and terrified. He turned and glanced up at the blade.

'You wouldn't mind me killing you,' he said, matter-of-fact. 'You were about to do it yourself, after all. But you're a sfvantskor, a true believer. And if I do manage to kill you, I'll carry your body back to the shrine and tell your priests the simple truth — that I'd interrupted a suicide. And I know you don't want that.'

Neda gaped at the ugly old man. Suicide was an unforgivable sin.

'Or maybe,' he said, 'you're not a believer any more? Is that what's brought you to this pass?'

'I will kill you,' she stammered. 'Monster. Who are you?'

'A spy,' he said. 'And you, lass, are a brilliant young novice with much to live for, though obviously you cannot see it. What's the matter, then? Lost your faith in the Faith?'

'No!'

'It's strange,' he mused. 'When the thing we most fear comes to pass — the thing all our will is bent on avoiding — it sometimes proves exactly what we need.'

She lowered the knife halfway to his throat. The old man watched her arm. 'Bastard!' she hissed. 'You're an Arquali!'

'Like the shedding of a skin,' he continued. 'One we'd die inside, if we didn't cast it off. Ah, but once we let it fall — new worlds, lass. New worlds await us.'

Suddenly Neda leaped back and away. 'You don't know a gods-damned thing! A spy, an Arquali spy!' She was weeping, outraged and disbelieving that he should be here, poisoning her last thoughts, coming between her and death.

For the first time he took a step, in her direction. Stiff, old, slow! He was mad, or lying. He would be easy to kill.

'I don't know why you want to die,' he said, 'but I know the sfavntskor way — better than you, perhaps. I've watched your kind for years. Go on, lass, give it up. You don't want soul-traitor for an epitaph. You don't want to be buried with the waste from the slaughterhouse.'

Such was the fate of suicides in the Mzithrin. The man knew. Perhaps he was exactly what he claimed.

'I'll kill you,' she said again, without conviction.

The man grinned — wolfish, hideous. 'Don't make threats,' he said. 'Not when I can tell your masters exactly what I saw tonight. And I saw quite a lot, lass. A privilege: I suppose no other man ever shall, until the day they strip you for the tomb. Unless the old Father's more corrupt than I know?'

Neda lunged. No man alive would slander the Father to her face. As she drove forward she tossed the blade expertly from right hand to left. Her eyes did not betray the move, nor did her right hand fall away. It was a feint she'd practised ten thousand times.

But her left hand closed empty. The man had moved like a cobra and plucked the knife from the air, and in the split-second that followed Neda learned the astonishing limits of her skills. She was face-down, choking on sand and seawater, helpless with the pain of blows she'd never seen coming.

He spoke from off to her right. 'You're the foreign-born sfvantskor,' he said. 'I've heard rumours about you. Tell me, where did the father dig you up? Where is home?'

With a gasp Neda rolled on her side. The man was holding the blade by two fingers as he studied her face. 'Do you know,' he said in a changed voice, 'I've just had the strangest — Rin's blood, the strangest — idea about you.' He squatted close to her. 'How's your Ormali, girl?'