Mickey Reichert - Flight of the Renshai

The music of night insects rose and fell in a cyclical hum pierced by the occasional owl hoot, fox call, or snore. Wind rustled the leaves overhead and bowed the weeds all around Saviar. He shivered, chilled by the night wind.

Then something touched his right shoulder.

Startled, Saviar leaped to his feet, sword freed and cutting stems before he could think. A shadow reared up in front of him. He charged it.

"Brother, stop!" Subikahn hissed, springing aside.

Saviar barely managed to redirect his blade, slamming the tree trunk instead of his twin. The impact thrummed through his fingers. "What in coldest Hel-!"

"Quiet," Subikahn demanded. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" Saviar whispered back as forcefully, jamming his sword into its sheath. "You know better than to sneak up on another Renshai!"

"I thought you heard me. I said your name."

The lapse only fueled Saviar's rage. "Well, unless my name was changed to…" He imitated the whirring noise of calling foxes. "… I didn't hear you. You're getting more like your sneaky little father every day, and it's going to get you killed."

"Not today." Subikahn dropped to a crouch, easing his back against the same tree Saviar had vacated.

By my graces. "Where've you been?" Saviar demanded.

Subikahn stared. "I didn't expect a party, but you could at least act glad to see me." He added as emphatically as possible at a whisper, "Brother."

Saviar heaved an enormous sigh, then dropped to a crouch beside Subikahn. He did love his twin, but at the moment, he did not feel charitable toward anyone.

"I've never been far, Saviar. Not since we talked. I saw what happened. With… Mama, I mean."

"Who didn't?"

Subikahn's voice fell lower still, and Saviar had to lean in to hear, which only irked him further. "Who do you think killed that Erythanian bastard?"

Saviar jerked to attention, staring at his brother. "The one who fell… on… Mama?"

"He didn't fall. He jumped, the bastard."

"No one knew who killed h-"

"Now you do."

Awe crushed aside Saviar's other emotions, for the moment. "How did you manage it in front of everyone? Without anyone knowing?"

"How did I just sneak up on a Renshai without getting killed?"

Saviar rolled his eyes. "Because I controlled my impulses. I seriously doubt Frendon Harveki's son graciously impaled himself on your sword."

"Not exactly," Subikahn admitted. He examined his fingernails. "But someone had to do it."

"No." Saviar could scarcely believe that the last remaining bastion of sanity in his family had just confessed to doing something so stupid. "No one had to do it. At least not before we pulled a confession from him." He rounded on his brother. "You kept us from proving-"

Subikahn snorted. "Proving nothing. He wasn't going to admit to anything but an accident, not without torture. And then, no one would believe him."

"Whatever you say." Saviar would not let go. "At least we had a chance."

"He needed to die."

"Eventually. After we got some information." The entire world seemed to have gone daft at once, and Saviar found himself even more agitated than before his brother's arrival. He rose and turned away. "You're a moron, Subikahn."

"What?" Subikahn's voice finally rose above a whisper. "I thought you'd appreciate-"

"That my brothers are morons? What's to appreciate?"

"Oh, so I'm in the same category as Calistin now?"

"You put yourself there. You took away our only chance of proving deception on the part of the Northmen." Saviar waved his hand, scarcely daring to believe he had to explain. "Even if we got the information by torture, even if no one believed his confession, it would at least give us a starting point for investigation."

"Investigation?" Subikahn blinked several times in succession, as if trying to ascertain he spoke to his own brother and not a stranger. "You really think an investigation would make any difference? The Erythanians are rid of us. Do you actually believe it matters to them whether that happened fairly?"

"We don't have to convince the populace, you idiot." Saviar found whispering too constraining, though it saved his brother from a tongue-lashing. He moved farther from the sleeping Renshai, clambering around trees, debris, and deadfalls. "We only have to convince the king."

Subikahn followed silently; at least his movements made no sound. "I'm not sure he'll be any more sympathetic."

"The king of Bearn understands our usefulness."

"But it's the king of Erythane we have to convince."

Saviar muttered, "The king of Erythane is a moron."

Subikahn continued to follow until they had gone far enough to assure no one could hear them, even speaking at normal volume. "So he's a moron, too? Is everyone in your little world a moron?"

Saviar beetled his brows. "So far, I've managed to escape that fate."

Subikahn quoted someone or something Eastern: "When you feel you are the last bastion of sanity in a world gone mad, should you question the mind-set of the many… or the one?"

Saviar dismissed the suggestion, never doubting his own world-view. It made too much sense. "If the Renshai believed 'right' was defined by numbers, they would no longer exist. No, Subikahn, it's not all in my head."

Subikahn nudged the discussion in a new direction. "Fine, then, genius. Banned from the North and the West. Do the Renshai plan to live on the moon?"

Saviar still felt like the only human in the area endowed with a brain. "You, of all people, ought to know about a part of the world called the Eastlands, what with your father being king of it and all." Doubt seized him suddenly. "You're not saying Tae wouldn't let the Renshai live there, are you? Because he's never seemed like the type to-"

Subikahn held up a hand. "There's only one Renshai he'll stop."

Saviar stared. "You?"

"I'm banished, remember?"

"Under the circumstances…"

Subikahn shook his head. "I'd rather face the entire North than my father. He has more eyes than a budding fat-root, and the men who work for him show no mercy."

Saviar threw up his hands, now without a modicum of doubt that the entire world had fallen into a vast vat of foolish idiocy. "Subikahn, your father loves you. He wouldn't let his men kill you."

"A man who can't keep himself alive is not worthy of that life." Now Subikahn cited Colbey. "My father believes it, and the Renshai would not disagree."

It was easier to avoid the subject. "Stop quoting people," Saviar demanded irritably. "I got enough of that from Mama, Calistin, and Grandpapa."

The distraction worked. Subikahn asked incredulously, "Kedrin's quoting Colbey now, too?"

"Not Colbey." Saviar wished he had not raised the point. It did not matter. "Ever since the Sage let him read those old history scrolls, the ones about the Great War, he's taken to quoting that… that famous Western general with the long, weird name."

"General Santagithi?"

"Yes, that's the one." Saviar studied the brother he had called a moron. "How in coldest, darkest Hel did you know that?"

Subikahn smiled. "My papa makes me read everything. In just about every language." He sighed. "At least the ones I've managed to master. I don't know how he does it. I'm surprised he doesn't talk to animals, too."

"He does, Subikahn. To Imorelda. I've heard him."

"Well, yes; but she's different. People often talk to their pets. It's not like he's out in the stable braying or wallowing in the sty." Subikahn's eyes narrowed suddenly. "And you can distract me until horses neigh in the Common tongue, but I'm still not setting foot in the Eastlands."

"But-!"

"No."

"Subi-"

"No. Nothing you can say will change my mind."

"Not even that I have no choice but to go. That we might never see one another again if-"