Zachary Jernigan - No Return

“I’d prefer not to form that habit.”

“Preference has nothing to do with it. You treat people like they have your best interest in mind, and nine times out of ten you get stabbed.” She forced a smile. “Look, I appreciate that you don’t like looking at people as suspects, but goodwill only extends so far.”

He breathed deeply, visibly suppressing the urge to defend himself, to contradict her words. In the end, he simply nodded.

The act of restraint impressed Berun. Talking about Julit Umeda, the encounter with the Baleshuuk and their slave—the events had changed Vedas in a way the constructed man did not yet understand. The end result, however, was clear: Berun’s automatic hostility toward Vedas had dissolved, replaced by a genuine affection for the man’s unyielding awkwardness, and Churls no longer carried herself as if she expected a battle.

They pressed on through the hard, folded land. The farther they traveled from the Steps, the harsher the territory became. Winds blew westward through the valleys constantly, striking the hardscrabble earth and whistling through Berun as though he were a dried sponge. The components of his body rasped together shrilly. When he examined his innermost spheres and found them to be caked with layers of dirt, he began cycling them through his body constantly in order to keep clean. When they found water, he washed too.

Anything unrooted to the ground was carried into the dust-streaked sky. It became quite cold, far colder than Casta. Churls suffered the worst. She took a woolen jacket from her pack, removed her skirt, and pulled on tight brown leathers that hugged her hips and buttocks. Vedas took to falling behind so that he could watch her walk. The man fought to hide his attraction, but his eyes gave him away.

For her part, Churls showed no sign of noticing the attention. Doubtlessly, she did. She was, Berun knew, the subtler of the two by far.

The minor drama amused Berun.

He needed amusing. They all did. The Apusht was taking its toll, physically and emotionally.

By the third night, the wind had become more than a nuisance—it had become a frightening adversary. It hid their enemies behind sheets of dust. At times it seemed capable of carrying them into the sky. Around small, smokeless campfires, Vedas and Churls rarely spoke of their goal. They talked as if it had been abandoned. Berun marveled at the human propensity for gloom, which he suspected had infected him as well.

Increasingly, he sensed the presence of his father. Ortur Omali’s spirit stalked him across the land, spying, influencing him in ways he could not yet comprehend. The memory of standing over Vedas’s sleeping form with Churls’s blade in his fist haunted him, causing him to wonder if he would be able to resist Omali’s direct command. Though he longed to convince his father of the Black Suit’s goodness, he did not desire another confrontation, another demonstration.

Best to avoid it for as long as possible, he reasoned, and muster what strength he could. Every day while his companions slept, he strived to keep his mind from drifting and becoming vulnerable to his father’s will. It grew noticeably easier to focus the longer he maintained his manlike form. The more he reigned in his urge to transform, the more rooted he was to the world. As a result, he no longer built structures with his body or split himself in two.

Like a flesh and blood man, he longed for release. The temptation to give in was strong, but he resisted, found ways to distract himself.

The most effective distraction had long since become an obsession. While tracking the travelers’ progress across the highest Step on the map he kept superimposed over his vision, he had made a discovery. By concentrating upon a region it would expand and focus, lending him a bird’s eye view of the landscape.

During the daylit hours, he found his attention drawn away from the local surroundings to the limits of the known world—to the ocean and its myriad islands. The continent of Knoori held many interesting sights, surely, but he longed to see places unknown to man. In an effort to comprehend the true scope of the world he had only dimly beheld in vision, he pushed at the boundaries of his map. The progress here proved slow, but the effort satisfied him, like a fight well fought but ultimately called a tie.

Beyond the satisfaction exploring the map provided him, four times now he had been able to spot groups of men whose path they would soon cross. It was difficult to locate such individuals under the cover of night, but his skills improved day by day.

Though he could not fathom why, he endeavored to keep his newfound ability a secret. He lied to his companions. I saw a scout. I heard them approaching.

Churls was not fooled. For four days she had listened to his explanations without comment, and then: “Tell me what you’re seeing right now, Berun.”

Caught off guard, he shrugged as though her question confused him.

She smirked. “I’m not an idiot, and you’re an awful liar. You couldn’t have seen the Tomen raiders yesterday from our position, and this wind makes hearing anything softer than an earthquake impossible. Out with it.”

He glowered, searching the darkness at her back. Vedas would return from relieving himself at any moment.

“Berun,” she said. “Why keep it a secret?”

“I don’t know. What was I supposed to do, allow us to stumble into them?”

“It wasn’t just that. I can tell when you’re distracted.”

His gaze shifted to her face. He examined her features, which had long since ceased to appear typical to him. No, he could not tell if they were beautiful, but such distinctions hardly concerned a constructed man. Of their own accord, the corners of his mouth turned upwards, and a new feeling arose within him, deeper than affection. He had been called out on a lie, and not because the thing had been ripped from his mind, but because another being knew him intimately enough to recognize it.

‡

He did not think overlong about why the thought of telling Vedas filled him with apprehension, for the truth spoke plainly: his father would not have the information in the Black Suit’s hands.

Admitting this fact consciously only increased the agitation within Berun. For two days, he waged a silent war of wills against an invisible opponent—a master mage who contorted Berun’s mind so thoroughly that it seemed he fought himself. Churls said nothing, but her concern for him was obvious. She kept close by, as though protective of a child.

They set up camp a mere fifteen miles from Bitsan, a small city on the southeastern shore of Lake Ten. He dug a shallow pit for the fire, feeling as though his entire body were close to shuddering apart. As strong as the urge was to remain silent, an equal force compelled him to assert himself. The balance could not last. The slightest tug in either direction would send him careening headlong down a new path.

Ever closer to enslavement, or toward self-determination.

“Vedas...” he said, and the scales tipped. The words flowed from him, accompanied by a sense of release he had not experienced since the night he had held Churls’s sword above Vedas’s sleeping form. He sat straighter as the great burden of secrecy lifted from his shoulders.

There, he thought when he had finished. I’ve told him, Father, and the world hasn’t collapsed.

A deep frown cut furrows alongside Vedas’s mouth. He kneaded the flesh of his inner thighs. “How far ahead can you see?” he asked. “Can you see Danoor?”

Aglow with his victory, Berun did not fight the temptation to brag. “I can see the Eleven Sentinels crumbling into the sea north of Grass Min. I have spent hours watching the cloth markets at Levaés. As we speak, sunlight is crossing the first of the Aroonan Mesas. I see all of Knos Min, Vedas. Of course I can see Danoor.”