Chapter 13 #4
He brushed past Enki and backed out into the alleyway, casting dark glances at Rin and Qara as he passed them.
“I need to move shop,” Enki complained to Qara as she shut the door behind her. Inside was a small, crowded room filled with the bitter smell of medicinal herbs. “This is no condition to store materials in. I need somewhere dry.”
“Move closer to the division barracks and you’ll have a thousand soldiers on your doorstep demanding a quick fix,” said Qara.
“Hm. You think Altan would let me move into the back closet?”
“I think Altan likes having his closet to himself.”
“You’re probably right. Who’s this?” Enki examined Rin from head to toe, as if looking for signs of injury. His voice was truly lovely, rich and velvety. Simply listening to him made Rin feel sleepy. “What’s ailing you?”
“She’s the Speerly, Enki.”
“Oh! I’d forgotten.” Enki rubbed the back of his shaved head. “How did you slip through Mugen’s fingers?”
“I don’t know,” said Rin. “I only just found out myself.”
Enki nodded slowly, still studying Rin as if she were a particularly fascinating specimen. He wore a carefully neutral expression that gave nothing away. “But of course. You had no idea.”
“She’ll need equipment,” said Qara.
“Sure, no problem.” Enki disappeared into a closet built into the back of the room. They listened to him bustling around for a moment, and then he reappeared with a tray of dried plants. “Any of these work for you?”
Rin had never seen so many different kinds of psychedelics in one place. There were more drug varieties here than in Jiang’s entire garden. Jiang would have been delighted.
She brushed her fingers along the opium pods, the shriveled mushrooms, and the muddy white powders.
“What difference does it make?” she asked.
“It’s really a matter of preference,” said Enki.
“These drugs will all get you nice and tripped up, but the key is to find a mixture that lets you summon the gods without getting so stoned that you can’t wield your weapon.
The stronger hallucinogens will shoot you right up to the Pantheon, but you’ll lose all perception of the material world.
Fat lot of good summoning a god will do you if you can’t see an arrow right in front of your face.
The weaker drugs require a bit more focus to get in the right mind state, but they leave you with more of your bodily faculties.
If you’ve had meditation training, then I’d stick with more moderate strains if you can. ”
Rin didn’t think that a siege was a great time to experiment, so she decided to settle for the familiar. She found the poppy seed variety that she had stolen from Jiang’s garden among Enki’s collection. She reached out to grab a handful, but Enki pulled the tray back out of her reach.
“No you don’t.” Enki brought a scale out from under the counter and began measuring precise amounts into little pouches.
“You come to me for doses, which I will document. The amount you receive is calibrated to your body weight. You’re not big; you definitely won’t need as much as the others.
Use it sparingly, and only when ordered.
A shaman who’s addicted is better off dead. ”
Rin hadn’t considered that. “Does that happen often?”
“In this line of work?” Enki said. “It’s almost inevitable.”
The Militia’s food rations made the Academy canteen look like a veritable restaurant in comparison. Rin stood in line for half an hour and received a measly bowl of rice gruel. She swirled her spoon around the gray, watery soup, and several uncooked lumps drifted up to the surface.
She looked around the mess hall for black uniforms, and found a few of her contingent clustered at one long table at the end of the hall. They sat far away from the other soldiers. The two tables closest to them were empty.
“This is our Speerly,” Qara announced when Rin sat down.
The Cike looked up at Rin with a mixture of apprehension and wary interest. Qara, Ramsa, and Enki sat with a man she didn’t recognize, all four of them garbed in pitch-black uniforms without any insignia or armband.
Rin was struck by how young they all were.
None looked older than Enki, and even he didn’t look like he’d seen a full four zodiac cycles.
Most appeared to be in their late twenties. Ramsa barely looked fifteen.
It was no surprise that they had no problem with a commander of Altan’s age, or that they were called the Bizarre Children. Rin wondered if they were recruited young, or if they simply died before they had the chance to grow older.
“Welcome to the freak squad,” said the man next to her. “I’m Baji.”
Baji was a thickly built mercenary type with a loud booming voice.
Despite his considerable girth he was somewhat handsome, in a coarse, dark sort of way.
He looked like one of the Fangs’ opium smugglers.
Strapped to his back was a huge nine-pointed rake.
It looked amazingly heavy. Rin wondered at the strength it took to wield it.
“Admiring this?” Baji patted the rake. The pointed ends were crusted over with something suspiciously brown. “Nine prongs. One of a kind. You won’t find its make anywhere else.”
Because no smithy would create a weapon so outlandish, Rin thought. And because farmers have no use for lethally sharp rakes. “Seems impractical.”
“That’s what I said,” Ramsa butted in. “What are you, a potato farmer?”
Baji directed his spoon at the boy. “Shut your mouth or I swear to heaven I will put nine perfectly spaced holes in the side of your head.”
Rin lifted a spoonful of rice gruel to her mouth and tried not to picture what Baji had just described. Her eyes landed on a barrel placed right behind Baji’s seat. The water inside was oddly clouded, and the surface erupted in occasional ripples, as if a fish were swimming around inside.
“What’s that in the barrel?” she asked.
“That’s the Friar.” Baji twisted around in his seat and rapped his knuckles against the wooden rim. “Hey, Aratsha! Come say hello to the Speerly!”
For a second the barrel did nothing. Rin wondered whether Baji was entirely in his right mind. She had heard rumors that Cike operatives were crazy, that they had been sent to the Night Castle when they lost their sanity.
Then the water began rising out of the barrel, as if falling in reverse, and solidified into a shape that looked vaguely like a man. Two bulbous orbs that might have been eyes widened as they swiveled in Rin’s direction. Something that looked vaguely like a mouth moved. “Oh! You cut your hair.”
Rin was too busy gaping to respond.
Baji made an impatient noise. “No, you dolt, this is the new one. From Sinegard,” he emphasized.
“Oh, really?” The water blob made a gesture that seemed like a bow. Vibrations rippled through his entire form when he spoke. “Well, you should have said so. Careful, you’ll catch a moth in your mouth.”
Rin’s jaw shut with a click. “What happened to you?” she finally managed.
“What are you talking about?” The watery figure sounded alarmed. He dipped his head, as if examining his torso.
“No, I mean—” Rin stammered. “What—why do you—”
“Aratsha prefers to spend his time in this guise if he can help it,” Baji interjected. “You don’t want to see his human form. Very grisly.”
“Like you’re such a visual delight.” Aratsha snorted.
“Sometimes we let him out into the river when we need a drinking source poisoned,” Baji said.
“I am quite handy with poisons,” Aratsha acknowledged.
“Are you? I thought you just fouled things up with your general presence.”
“Don’t be rude, Baji. You’re the one who can’t be bothered to clean his weapon.”
Baji dipped his rake threateningly over the barrel. “Shall I clean it off in you? What part of you is this, anyway? Your leg? Your—”
Aratsha yelped and collapsed back into the barrel. Within seconds the water was very still. It could have been a barrel of rainwater.
“He’s a weird one,” Baji said cheerfully, turning back to Rin. “He’s an initiate of a minor river god. Far more committed to his religion than the rest of us.”
“Which god do you summon?”
“The god of pigs.”
“What?”
“I summon the fighting spirit of a very angry boar. Come off it. Not all gods are as glorious as yours, sweetheart. I picked the first one I saw. The masters were disappointed.”
The masters? Had Baji gone to Sinegard? Rin remembered Jiang had told her there had been Lore students before her, students who had gone mad, but they were supposed to be in mental asylums or Baghra. They were too unstable, they had been locked up for their own good. “So that means—”
“It means I smash things very well, sweetheart.” Baji drained his bowl, tilted his head back, and belched. His expression made it clear he didn’t want to discuss it further.
“Will you slide down?” A very slight young man with a whispery goatee walked over to their table with a heaping bowl of lotus root and slid into the seat on the other side of Rin.
“Unegen can turn into a fox,” Baji said by way of introduction.
“Turn into—?”
“My god lets me shift shapes,” Unegen said. “And yours lets you spit fire. Not a big deal.” He spooned a heap of steamed lotus into his mouth, swallowed, grimaced, and then belched. “I don’t think the cook’s even trying anymore. How are we low on salt? We’re next to an ocean.”
“You can’t just pour seawater on food,” interjected Ramsa. “There’s a sanitation process.”
“How hard can it be? We’re soldiers, not barbarians.” Unegen leaned down the table, tapping to get Qara’s attention. “Where’s your other half?”
Qara looked irritated. “Out.”
“Well, when’s he back?”
“When he’s back,” Qara said testily. “Chaghan comes and goes on his own schedule. You know that.”
“As long as his schedule accommodates the fact that we’re, you know, fighting a war,” said Baji. “He could at least hurry.”
Qara snorted. “You two don’t even like Chaghan. What do you want him back for?”