Mickey Reichert - Flight of the Renshai

But as Saviar dashed into the clearing, he found Subikahn leaning casually against a tree. "What took you so long?"

Saviar laughed, catching Subikahn into an embrace and practically dancing with joy. "How'd you know I'd come looking for you?" He added quickly, "And don't remind me we shared a womb. That didn't give me any mind-reading powers."

"I didn't know. I hoped."

"And it paid off." Saviar released his twin, spreading his arms wide. "Here I am."

"Lucky me." Subikahn slung a light pack over his shoulder and headed into the brush. "My reward: I get to travel with a man who refers to me as 'idiot.' "

Saviar followed his brother. "Not anymore. I reserve that name for our idiot brother."

"I take it his interest in your health was… less than sincere?"

"Just a ruse to allow him to escape without his… um… shadow." Saviar could not understand how the same brush that glided soundlessly around Subikahn crunched and rattled beneath his own feet.

"Poor Treysind."

"Lucky Treysind, if you ask me. At least now he has a chance to join some normal family in the West. To survive longer than Calistin's next battle."

Subikahn wove through a ring of trees. "Where do you think he went?"

Although they had been talking about Treysind, Saviar knew Subikahn meant Calistin. "Straight North, I'm sure. To even the score."

Subikahn made a thoughtful noise. "And us? Where are we going?"

Saviar snorted. "I'm following you. Please don't tell me you're following me. I'm not fond of circles." He clambered over a deadfall. Whatever else Subikahn decided, he hoped it included dinner and sleep.

"I'm going to investigate. I believe I can find enough evidence to prove the Northmen cheated, get the decision reversed, and win back our homeland." Subikahn corrected, "Homelands. Both of them."

Saviar heaved a sigh, but listened. Right or wrong, foolish dream or possibility, it was not a bad idea. "There's one thing I forgot to tell you while I was calling you an idiot and you were calling me an obnoxious, lumbering bastard-for which only one of us has apologized, by the way."

"Which one?"

"Me. I promised not to call you an idiot anymore."

"And yet, you've managed to sneak it into the conversation three times. And that's not actually an apology."

"Fine. I'm sorry I called you an idiot."

"And I'm sorry I called you 'lumbering.' "

The implication did not escape Saviar. "Hey!"

Subikahn laughed. The sound seemed strange; yet, somehow, it shattered the suffocating mantle of grief, outrage, and irritation that had hung over Saviar since the Northmen had challenged the Renshai. Nothing had changed; and yet he had.

"What did you forget to tell me?" Subikahn stopped pushing through brush to regard his brother. "Before we got sidetracked by name-calling?"

Saviar flushed, feeling foolish. At the time, it had seemed inappropriate, his father's desperate attempt to use his status to save his sons from the fate of their comrades. Now, it might well save their lives. "We're not actually banished."

Subikahn's eyes seemed to bulge from his face. "What?"

"Papa negotiated some sort of deal because we're only half-Renshai and our only living relatives, our fathers, are not…"

"… Renshai." Subikahn finished. "So, I'm only really exiled from the East."

"Yes."

"And you called me an idiot for not going with you there."

"I apologized."

Subikahn whirled back the way he had been going, though he did not take another step. "So we don't need to blither around in secret."

Thialnir's words remained strong in Saviar's mind. "Well, I'm not sure it's wise to investigate openly. I really don't feel like explaining our situation to every passerby who wants to report us, and I'm sure the agreement at least implied a certain amount of discretion on the part of us and my father."

"So, we shouldn't go around slaughtering in the name of the Renshai."

"That's really not funny." An idea wound its way into Saviar's mind, and he spoke it aloud before he could consider it fully, "While we're investigating, maybe we could do… good deeds?"

Subikahn cocked his head. "Good deeds? You mean, like Knights of Erythane."

It was not exactly what Saviar had in mind. "All right. Like knights."

"Help people with broken equipment or injured animals?"

"Yes."

"Fight off brigands and bandits?"

"Sure."

"Rescue damsels in distress?"

Saviar smiled. "My personal favorite."

"Just out of the kindness of our big, fluffy hearts."

"Well," Saviar admitted. "I do actually have a motive." He looked directly at his twin, hoping Subikahn would understand and not think him crazy. "We wait until the populace loves us. Only then, we reveal that we're Renshai."

"Why?"

"Because." Finally forced to consider, Saviar hesitated. "Because it will make us feel good, and it will force people to reevaluate their knee-jerk hatred for all things Renshai."

Apparently, Subikahn actually considered the proposal, and his answer became more important to Saviar than he ever would have guessed.

Please think it through. Please don't be facetious. The silence that followed was the longest of Saviar's life.

"That's actually not a bad idea…" Subikahn could not help adding, "… for an obnoxious, but not lumbering, bastard."

He said it with such a broad grin, with such obvious love, that Saviar found it impossible to take offense. For the first time in months, Saviar felt happy, complete, and also tired and hungry. "I need to eat," he announced. "And sleep."

Subikahn dropped to the ground. "I thought you'd never ask."

The dungeon corridors stank of mold, urine, and long unwashed flesh so rank it became physically painful to Tae's nose. Keyed to the location of every prisoner, he slunk through the confines unseen, except for the guards, who followed orders to ignore him. Finally, he came to the proper wall that would allow him to listen without being seen and waited for the group of guards and interpreters to step into place.

Soon, they arrived, a motley contingent of massive, uniformed Bearnides with weapons, accompanied by a thin, sandy-haired Erythanian, a portly balding Westerner, and an elderly woman who walked with a cane. As they stepped into place in front of the cell of the captured pirate, Tae gestured to them to proceed.

"We brought some visitors," one of the guards explained in a booming voice. He spoke slowly and distinctly. "We're just trying to find out if you need anything." He waved at the woman, who stepped forward next.

Leaning on the cane, she spoke in careful Northern, the singsong syllables emerging graveled by age. "Can you understand me? Please acknowledge if you can. We only want to make your stay more pleasant."

Tae could not see the prisoner's reaction, but he heard a shuffle of movement and no reply.

The thin man spoke next, his voice as reedy as his figure. "Can you understand me?" He used one of the many Western tongues; all so similar to Tae that he thought of them as simple dialects of the same language. "Can you understand me?" he said in another.

When he reached his fifth, the prisoner finally responded with a few words of his own. Tae focused firmly on the sounds, tone, and timbre. It had to contain frustration, perhaps contempt; it would help to see the gestures that accompanied the words. Despite most beliefs otherwise, there were no unfailingly universal gestures; but emotion was still readable in the force and boldness of them. Tae found facial cues far more reliable and cursed his need to remain hidden, even though he had insisted upon it.