Chapter Eighteen Running Fast #2
She said quietly, “You’re trying to hide that your benefactor is the Eza.
I fear becoming entangled in something dangerous.
” Who else could stake a claim in another man’s business so easily and have enough clout over Master Dothilos to drag him into this?
Unease settled over her, her grip on the ledgers slackening.
She was already loosely connected to the Eza through the conquessorial bloodsport; tightening the bind seemed foolish.
The match-master’s eyes widened. With a small smile, he said, in careful, clipped words, “My, aren’t you clever?
Yes, as long as I’m under the aegis of the Eza, I must grant any favor he demands.
He knows I’m a man with many connections in both highborn and lowborn worlds, and he frequently requires me to find the right person for whatever odd jobs he throws my way.
But if you help me resolve this issue quickly, the Eza needn’t know of your involvement at all, and I’ll remain in his good books.
Otherwise—well, I fear what might happen if I fail him.
I think you know how merciless the Eza can be.
” He glanced nervously down at himself, and Lythlet recalled the elaborate lacework of scars on his torso.
Tendrils of guilt gripped her heart, tightening. She did owe the match-master much gratitude; the happiness of recent times wouldn’t have been possible without him. “It’s not in my constitution to abandon those I’m indebted to, Master Dothilos. I’ll see what I can do.”
He breathed out in relief. “Thank you so much. I’m glad to have someone like you on my side.”
She nodded. “If the ringmaster’s hidden his books too well, what should I do?”
Master Dothilos smiled dryly. “You have a violent reputation now, Golden Thorn. Use it boldly, use it freely. Cause a ruckus, if you want. Bring your spear along if you wish to add weight to your threat. It may spook him to see you in full conquessorial regalia.”
Her eyes widened. “You want me to threaten the ringmaster?” She breathed out. “I suppose that could be done. Desil and I will work something out, and I’ll report back to you with our findings.”
The match-master looked confused. “Desil?”
“If it comes down to threatening the ringmaster, I think a former brawling champion would have a role to play.”
“He’s far too soft-hearted for this matter,” the match-master said skeptically. “Allow me to find you someone better suited for the job—I know plenty of fellows with the muscle required for this business. They’re well-acquainted with the Eza and won’t hesitate the way Desil likely would.”
He raised a fair point. Desil would be aghast at the notion of threatening another, of wielding his strength in a way that violated any one of his Twelve Prayers.
Yet the logic of his proposal battled her loyalty. She thought of how in their interview with Master Dothilos, Desil hadn’t hesitated for even a heartbeat to sign up jointly with her. “I’ve always done everything with Desil. Somehow I feel guilty pairing up with someone else,” she admitted.
“Don’t. Just because you’re friends does not mean you owe him your everlasting loyalty to the point of making insensible decisions.
The boy may be twice your size, but he has half your wit.
It hasn’t escaped my notice, nor the spectators’, that you’re the one directing Desil in the arena.
Even if he lands the killing blow, we see how you whisper in his ear beforehand.
For all the years he’s been by your side, have you reaped any great reward from his companionship?
This is the same boy who trapped you in a fool’s debt for years. ”
“He gave me love in times when I needed it.”
“You are young, and you’ve yet to learn the cheapness of love,” he chastised.
“For his naivety, you spent years in debt, your future robbed from you until you joined my arena. I worry about you yoking yourself to someone so intellectually inept and utterly unambitious compared to you. He may be a fellow slumdog, but he has been privileged in ways you never were: fair of face in a world of vanity, well-loved from young and constantly told so by a father and mother who were whole of mind, and blessed with a natural strength to keep him safe in a city filled with petty violence. Yet by having all these blessings, he was robbed of the chance to learn spite, to practice doubt, to be fueled by the thickest oil of them all: sheer, undying lust for revenge. You have this. You have many to prove wrong, and the Twelve Divine know there’s no better motivation for success than a love-starved childhood. ”
“I think you can stop now,” she said as politely as she could. Hearing him dismantle Desil so thoroughly brought her to the cusp of anger, though she found herself incapable of poking holes in his argument, much to her dismay.
Master Dothilos laughed shortly. “Forgive me,” he said, clearly not meaning it.
“I get carried away sometimes. I just want you to keep in mind the most important thing: momentum. In all those storybooks you read, I suppose friendship was some powerful, unifying bond between characters, but most friendships don’t amount to that in reality.
Some friendships are, in fact, hindrances rather than help, and in this business with the ringmaster, I fear Desil with his piety and soft-hearted nature will simply slow you down.
Perhaps he was good to you as a child, saving you from schoolyard bullies and petty menaces.
But in the real world with grown-up terrors and grown-up problems, he has yet to prove his value.
It may be time for you to consider how much stronger you may be alone, away from him, and graduate onto more beneficial connections. ”
“His friendship has been an anchor in a drifting ocean throughout the years,” she argued.
“An anchor,” said Master Dothilos wryly, “is precisely what kills momentum.”
· · ·
“S OMETHING ’ S BOTHERING YOU ,” Desil said by way of greeting as Lythlet crossed the threshold into The Steam Dragon, a large wooden mallet resting on his shoulder.
“ Woof ,” Schwala agreed, nuzzling his forehead into her hand and whining until she started scratching him.
“Busy day,” she said, not quite lying. The inn she minded the books at had been hectic, new receipts in need of logging being shoved before her face all day long, as visitors from other city-states took advantage of the long summer days to come and holiday in the Diamond City.
But in truth, work paled in comparison to the ceaseless cogitation she’d engaged in for days now, thoughts spiraling in circles as she mulled over the task Master Dothilos had assigned to her.
He had left open his offer to introduce a partner to her, and she’d yet to decide if she was taking him up on it.
Desil hefted the mallet on his shoulder, leading her to an empty table.
“I’m afraid I’ve to help Madame Millidin pound out some rice cakes, so I can’t keep you company.
But here, take your mind off things with this.
” From a drawer, he withdrew Shunvi’s gift to them, the thick bilingual storybook, and plopped it in front of her.
“I’d been wondering where this had gone.”
“I’ve been reading it during my breaks. A much easier read than the bestiary, I can tell you that.” He laughed sheepishly. “If only I weren’t too slow-witted to memorize that the way you have.”
“You’re not slow-witted,” she said firmly.
“Don’t bother,” he dismissed. “I get every beast confused with another, and I certainly can’t recite all the nitty-gritty details on them the way you can.”
“You just need to know how to prioritize your efforts,” Lythlet said.
“The arena can hold neither water nor airborne beasts, so don’t bother with those pages.
I used to only study creatures native to our region, since it seemed unlikely Master Dothilos would fork out extra for an exotic breed from far away on early-rounders.
But now that we’ve reached the midpoint, he’s likely willing to draw more from his coffers in the name of a good show, so I’ve been expanding my study to the beasts plaguing the east and south, as well as those from the Ora Islands. ”
“The fact you can strategize like this shows why you’re a better conquessor than me,” he said. “Without you whispering in my ear during our matches, I’d have been wiped out a long time ago.”
It troubled her to hear him repeat Master Dothilos’s criticisms.
“That’s not true,” she began.
But he interrupted her, smoothing out his apron. “I need to head back to the kitchens now before the madame scolds me for disappearing. I’ll get someone to bring you some tea.”
A teapot came within minutes, delivered by another teahouse worker.
She poured a cup for herself, breathing in the steam—ulaberry tea, sweet and blood-red with petals floating atop it, the most fragrant of the summer berries.
Schwala laid himself flat on his back by her feet, subtly demanding she rub his white tummy.
Five Classic Oraanu Legends sat in front of her, a dainty green bookmark tucked in between the pages Desil had left off.
She flipped through the Vasté pages, smiling fondly at the first legend, that of Atena, daughter of lowborn farmers who earned first the trust then the fealty of the Four Dragons of the Heavenly Mountains.
Atena’s ingenuity with trigger traps had always inspired Lythlet to imagine wild inventions of her own, spending lonely childhood days scraping together oddball contraptions out of anything she could find.
She read the story aloud to Schwala in bits and pieces, then reached the second legend, the one Shunvi had so earnestly recommended, its title emblazoned in beautiful cursive script across the top of one page.
GENERAL LAUTURO AND THE NINETY-NINTH NIGHT OF DARKNESS
in which the esteemed general conceives of his twenty-third principle:
A battle fought with deception is a battle won before a single drop of blood spills. Cast shadows where nobody stands, and your enemies will quail before you.
And so it was that in the autumn of 191, Emperor Edavo XIII, the Chosen of the Crescent Moon, commanded General Lauturo to rage into a war that could leave neither side unharmed.
But secretly unto himself, the general thought there was another way, a way that would spare his soldiers from needless death.
On the eve of his army’s departure, he held a great feast for all, and secretly seeped into each of their goblets the essence of the yurarani herb.
His soldiers raised their goblets to him over and over, proclaiming their ceaseless loyalty to him, unwittingly surrendering themselves to a deep, undisturbed slumber for a moon and a sun, their heads drooping lower one by one.
But when General Lauturo left the feasting tent for his horse, a blade pressed into his back.
“May the moon bleed upon you tonight for your betrayal, Lauturo,” cursed his assailant in the night. “What madness has befallen you, my brother? Did you set them to slumber so that you may flee? The Five-Masked Devil terrorizes our empire, and you choose to aid his efforts?”
For it was Lieutenant Jinvi, sworn brother of General Lauturo since his first full moon.
“Jinvi,” the general said heavily. “Of all nights you would choose temperance, it had to be tonight.”
“Explain yourself!” the lieutenant demanded, sword pressing deeper into his sworn brother’s robes. “Why leave without a word, sneaking into this corpse-night as a thief runs from the master of a house?”
“Jinvi, Jinvi, friend before mountains and stars, brother beyond mortal bonds, you need not doubt me tonight. I have sent our soldiers to a harmless sleep. A corpse-night it is, but the Matron guides my path, and she has shown me the moonlit way to the Five-Masked Devil. Watch for the high noon, for return I shall with the devil’s skull clutched in my fist.”
“But why go you alone, Lauturo? Let us follow you there—let me follow you there. Command me to fight by your side to the ends of this world, and I will obey every time.”
“Brother Jinvi, truly no man possesses greater loyalty than you. Yet there are battles that must be fought with silent haste in the dark of night, and thus I choose a road that admits only one. Two visions did the Matron unveil to me as I prayed at the moon-temple. In one, I ride alone to the Five-Masked Devil, and without word of my approach reaching the Devil’s ear, I end his terror.
In the other, I am aided by another, and we become thwarted by the Devil’s forces.
So it is that if you come with me, you will die with me.
Says the Matron unto us: if you want to run fast, you must run alone.
Jinvi, despair not! I will return, and we shall feast in victory. ”
Lieutenant Jinvi bowed his head and knelt to the general. “Two oaths I make unto you: that I shall await your return, and that I shall avenge the lack of it. May the Matron render the second unneeded, Lauturo. Ride swiftly, and return once more the pride of our people.”
The tale continued for much longer, but Lythlet sat back, letting the book fall shut, Desil’s bookmark unmoved.
“ If you want to run fast, you must run alone, ” Lythlet muttered under her breath. It seemed a fortuitous whim of the divine that she would read this today of all days.
“Pardon?” said Desil, seating himself beside her, mallet-less. He didn’t lift his apron, indicating he was still on duty, but business had quietened enough for him to rest.
She tapped the book. “General Lauturo has some words of wisdom.”
“Solid story. Really enjoyed that one. When he confronts the Five-Masked Devil and realizes—”
She delivered a swift, chopping motion to his hand. “I haven’t read that far yet, so shush before you ruin it for me.”
He clamped his lips together and mimed weaving a threaded needle up and down through his lips.
He only broke his silence to say, “Naya and the two lads have asked for our help in looking after the little ones at the Homely Home again. I was thinking of going on Nichavind. You’ve time off that day, haven’t you? ”
Lythlet paused. She had thought Nichavind ideal to visit the ringmaster. She opened her mouth, about to finally tell him of Master Dothilos’s request—then halted.
If I want to run fast, I must run alone.
“I’m afraid I can’t,” she said after a moment, apologetic. “I’ve work to do that day. But give my regards to the Homely Home.”