House of Blades Read online

  “Do you ever get to rest?”

  “You learn to sleep with one eye open. After a few years here, you’ll react to danger even if you’re fast asleep in the heart of an enemy Territory. Assuming you live that long, of course.”

  “That sounds great. Really. But I told you before, I don’t have a few years. I don’t even have one year. I might be able to spare a few weeks, but after that—”

  “After that?” Kai cut in. “You, a single amateur swordsman, run off to challenge an Overlord of Damasca?”

  Simon clutched his bleeding hand to his chest. He didn’t respond. There wasn’t much he could say.

  “Don’t worry, little mouse. I told you, didn’t I? Time is on our side. How long has it been, do you think, since you entered this house?”

  “I don’t know. An hour or two?”

  “Less than half of one.”

  Kai must have noticed Simon’s look of disbelief, because he smiled and said, “That’s time back in our world, of course. Time flows differently in each Territory. A day inside some is two outside; fortunately, Valinhall is the reverse. I will have the time I need to teach you.”

  It finally struck Simon what he was asking for. How much of his life had he signed away for this project?

  “Oh,” Simon said. “I see.”

  Kai’s eyes were still hidden, but his face softened into something resembling sympathy. “Last chance, Simon. I can take you back.”

  It would be easier, certainly. But any other Traveler he found to teach him would be the same; it would take years. If he left, it would be better to give up, to leave everything to Alin and the Travelers from Enosh.

  “No. I’m ready.” Simon stood as tall as he could and let his firm resolve sound in his voice.

  “In that case, let’s begin.” Kai faced Simon squarely, and Simon tensed his body as he prepared to defend himself. “Today,” Kai continued, “we will begin with...lunch.”

  At that, Kai turned to one of the doors Simon hadn’t tried. It bore the image of a flowering tree.

  “You must be hungry,” Kai said. A breeze flowed through the door, and it smelled sweet and clean. “After you.”

  Kai could say what he wanted about the whole Territory being inside one house, but this door opened onto a beautiful meadow. The entire room was carpeted in grass, except for a cool, clear stream that cut the field in two. The sky above was a cloudless blue, the sun shone directly overhead, and Simon could probably fit his entire village just into what he could see of the field. A small herd of what looked like oxen ran in the distance, and there were a few different kinds of bushes scattered through the grass, just a little too regular to seem natural. The field was dominated by an enormous tree, the size of an ancient oak, whose limbs were heavy with a dozen different kinds of brightly colored fruits. Different fruits, all on one tree.

  “I thought you said we couldn’t go outside the House,” Simon said.

  “We’re not outside,” Kai responded. “Technically.” He raised a hand and pointed into the distance, beyond the tree. “What do you see there?”

  Simon squinted until he saw something black on the horizon, a rectangular silhouette against the bright blue of the sky. “Is that an outhouse?”

  “Not quite. It’s a door, leading deeper into the House. We call this room the garden, and it provides most of our food and water while we stay here.”

  “We?” Simon asked. “Where are the other Valinhall Travelers?”

  Kai walked past him instead of answering, and Simon saw that he held Azura casually against one shoulder. Why was he bringing his sword with him to eat?

  Kai was obviously focused on something at the base of the tree, and when Simon looked closer he saw what seemed to be a man wrapped in straps of leather.

  Simon followed Kai, and as they closed the distance he saw that the man was wrapped in mismatched pieces of leather so that not a patch of skin showed. He was criss-crossed with belts, straps, buckles, and scavenged bits of leather armor. His head was covered in a leather cap, his mouth hidden by a half-mask of dark leather. Most bizarre of all, blades jutted out from his leather sleeves, as though he had lost his hands and had swords grafted onto the stumps.

  All in all, he was a disturbing sight.

  Two tiny folds of leather over his face flapped up like eyelids, revealing two gleaming yellow gemstones in the place of his eyes. Actual cut gems, where his eyes should be.

  Simon began to suspect that this man wasn’t human.

  A slit opened across the man’s face, like the mouth of a leather sack. It took Simon a moment to realize the man was yawning.

  “Bloody Maker, that was a good sleep. How long has it been since I seen you, eh? Could be years. That’s my time, I suppose, not yours. You spend too much time at the grave, I’d say.”

  Kai bowed towards the leather man. “It has been too long, Chaka. I’d like you to meet my student.”

  Chaka cast a quick glance in Simon’s direction. Simon felt that he should say something, but nothing appropriate came to mind, so he stayed silent.

  “He’s a real charmer, isn’t he?” Chaka said. Simon winced; he should have spoken up after all.

  “He’s not here to learn conversation skills,” Kai responded.

  Chaka snorted, a sound like a leather strap flapping in the wind. “Not from you, right? You lot were all about six hairs short of the bughouse. Speakin’ of that, no one’s taken a student here before. What’s that about?”

  Kai angled Azura in front of him. “We’re here for lunch, Chaka. Will you let us pass?”

  “You know better than that, Kai.” Chaka stood, his movements more graceful than Simon would have thought, and crossed his bladed arms in some kind of salute. “You got to earn it, same as always. I don’t expect you’ll have much trouble, but I can’t speak for the boy there. He has a soft look about him.”

  And what was Simon supposed to say to that?

  Kai and Chaka bowed to each other, and then they moved at once. Blades flashed, and the room rang with the sound of steel on steel, but Simon could barely follow the fight.

  Kai hardly moved his feet at all, whipping his long sword in great arcs faster than seemed possible for such a heavy length of metal. Chaka dashed and leaped everywhere, his sword-arms blurring, but Azura was always there just in time to deflect a direct hit.

  “It’s about time,” Simon muttered. His heart lifted. This was what he was here for, what he wanted. He had, after all, come to the right place.

  The two fighters stopped moving at the same time, facing each other in almost the exact places they had started. A slice of leather drifted to the ground.

  “Sweet Maker, you’re good. I think you’re better now than you were as a boy, and I don’t say that often. Good on ya, Kai.”

  Azura vanished, and Kai bowed to Chaka once again. “You honor me,” he said.

  “Bleedin’ right, I do,” Chaka said. Then he sighed and turned to face Simon. “All right, let’s see what you got.”

  “Wait. Me?”

  “You gotta fight if you want to eat, kid. Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick.” Chaka crossed his arms and bowed over the blades, like he had done with Kai.

  Simon glanced down at his bleeding hand. “I can’t hold a sword like this.”

  “Then stand there and die,” Chaka said. His voice was oddly cheery. Simon opened his mouth to protest, but Chaka leaped forward until he was standing inches from Simon’s face.

  “Ready or not,” Chaka said, “here I am.” He thrust his right blade forward, and Simon snatched up his own sword in his left hand and knocked Chaka’s away. The impact rang up his arm, and almost caused him to drop the weapon.

  Chaka’s left arm swung in and Simon stumbled backwards, flailing around with his sword and trying to put a little distance between them.

  “Grip that sword, you bleedin’ moron. You lose hold of it, you’re dead.”

  Simon tightened his
grip. He tried a swing at Chaka’s head, but the other man caught it casually on one arm. A leather lip twisted into a sneer. “That’s not a glass unicorn, princess. Swing it like you mean it.”

  Chaka raised a boot and kicked. Simon twisted and caught it on his hip, but staggered back a few feet. He moved forward and swung his sword again, but once again Chaka swept it aside with no more effort than Simon would use to dust a shelf. Simon managed to block another strike, but he couldn’t keep his balance; he lurched a few feet to his left and almost fell over.

  A sword pressed into Simon’s neck, and he fell very still. “Pathetic,” Chaka said. “Bleedin’ disgusting. I oughta bleed you right here and save me some time.”

  Kai’s sing-song voice interrupted. “He’s mine, not yours, so keep your hands off.”

  Chaka snorted, but he removed his blade and turned his back to Simon. “I won’t kill him, but I’m not passing him either. No food or water for you till you can stand on your own feet.”

  Chaka walked back to the base of the fruit tree and sat cross-legged on the grass, jeweled eyes locked on Simon.

  Kai had plucked a juicy blue fruit, like a blueberry the size of his fist, and was munching on it. Every once in a while he would scoop a bowlful of water from the stream with a wooden bowl and wash down a bite of fruit. He licked his fingers clean with every evidence of enjoyment.

  For the first time, Simon really felt like stabbing the man.

  His throat burned with thirst, and the only thing he had eaten in over three days was a handful of berries. He tried one last tactic. “How am I supposed to get better if I don’t have the strength to move?”

  “Are you hungry?” Kai said soothingly. “Here, have some of mine. There, that’s good, isn’t it?”

  Simon stepped forward for a moment before he realized Kai was talking to one of his dolls. He mimed feeding her a piece of fruit, and washed the juice off with a “drink” of water.

  Chaka raised a sword in warning. “Take another step there, kid, and I’ll be feeding you your own legs.”

  In the end, Simon went without food again.

  ***

  Kai accompanied Simon back to the monster-infested pool, where Simon was able to dip his injured hand and heal his wounds without attracting the creatures.

  “They only attack,” Kai explained, “when you stay long enough and then try to leave. The pool can reverse any kind of injury or illness, even age, to one degree or another. It’s the reason why my hair has aged, though my body remains the excellent example of prime manhood that you see before you. But the longer you stay in the pool, the more dangerous it gets.”

  “You could have told me that before I went in,” Simon said.

  “That’s true, isn’t it? How interesting.”

  Before they left, Simon managed to sneak a drink of the bathwater. It tasted like soap.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  SHARP LESSONS

  Alin trembled with effort, both hands extended to push against the air as if he were trying to shove over an invisible wagon. He had originally worried about looking ridiculous in front of the crowd—practically every Traveler in Enosh had wanted to come witness his training—but now the strain on his mind left him little room to worry about anything.

  Between his outstretched palms, a few gold lights spun in a wide circle. He could dimly sense something beyond, like a fire’s heat sensed through the fabric of a tent, but he couldn’t quite pierce through.

  Grandmaster Naraka cackled with laughter. “Almost there,” she said. The Grandmaster had been in charge of teaching Alin since he had first arrived in Enosh, and she was easily the oldest woman he had ever seen. Over one hundred, if the rumors could be believed, and showing every year of it. She was wrinkled, shriveled, and hunched, like a hag out of a children’s tales. And he suspected she was blind; he couldn’t prove it, but she always wore thick lenses over her eyes, colored a dark red. She called them her “glasses,” but they didn’t look to be made out of any glass that Alin had ever seen.

  “Concentrate!” Grandmaster Naraka barked, all traces of laughter gone from her voice.

  Alin focused, reaching his mind out to the warm power he could feel like a tiny sun, burning just out of reach. If only he could stretch, he felt like he could brush the edge...just a little more...

  Every other time he had tried to open a Gate to Elysia, it had fallen apart at this point. The golden lights would drift off, he would fall over in exhaustion, and his Territory would remain as distant as ever.

  This time, Alin threw all of his focus into one final push against the invisible barrier.

  The spinning sparks of light flared and sliced through the world, leaving a shining gold-lined oval doorway hanging in midair. Wind that smelled like flowers, grass, and rain drifted through, clearing out the stuffy air in the hall where Alin stood. And beyond the Gate itself, clearly visible as Alin stared, rested Elysia.

  It was a city.

  A grassy plain waited close to the Gate, spotted with flowers of white and gold. The field stretched perhaps two hundred paces before it ran against city walls, but like none that Alin had ever seen. The walls of Myria village had been essentially sharpened sticks, bound together by ropes. The walls of Enosh were rough-cut sandstone mortared with clay. But the walls of Elysia...

  A vast, curving expanse of pale white stone and pure gold, carved with swirling shapes and patterns that reminded Alin of a rushing river. The wall was broken only by two huge gates, each an intricate work of gold, silver, and a rainbow of precious jewels the size of Alin’s head.

  While the wall took up most of Alin’s vision, it was spectacular enough to blind him to everything else for a moment. Then he looked up.

  Over the walls, he could just see the tops of buildings. Most were domed, in gold or copper or silver, but here and there he saw towers and spires in a thousand colors. One tower looked to be made entirely of emerald, though it was crowned in deep purple amethyst.

  And the sky behind the city, instead of a comforting blue, was a bright, rich shade of gold, like dawn somehow stretched to last all day.

  “Saints above,” somebody whispered. Alin could understand the feeling.

  Then the gathered Travelers of Enosh burst into applause. That in itself wasn’t unusual, since Alin could barely do anything within the walls of Enosh without someone cheering or clapping, but this sounded heartfelt, spontaneous. They had been treated to a vision of rare beauty, and Alin had given it to them.

  Alin felt himself grin. On an impulse, he turned and swept a bow to the assembled crowd.

  Grandmaster Naraka laughed again, and hobbled over to clap Alin on the shoulder. She had to reach up to do it. “Boy, I never thought I’d live till this day. Well done.”

  Alin stood, staring into the Elysian Gate. “Is it going to be that hard every time?” Alin asked. Tearing the Gate open had felt like carrying an ox to market on his back.

  Adjusting her red glasses, Grandmaster Naraka shook her head. “Not after the first. Now it’s just a matter of practice.”

  Reaching out a hand to the Gate, Alin stretched out the power of Elysia in his mind, intending to close it. “So I just need to close it and try again?”

  Naraka snatched his arm in one of her withered claws. “Stop!”

  Alin froze, hardly daring to think.

  “If we believe the ancient books,” Grandmaster Naraka went on, “then you may only open the Gate to Elysia once a day, and only while the sun is in the sky.”

  “Really? When other Travelers can open their Gates however many times they want to? That doesn’t seem fair.”

  Grandmaster Naraka tilted her red lenses toward him, the corners of her mouth drawn down. “Fair? Each Territory has its own rules and restrictions, and yours are much less burdensome than others. In my own Territory, Naraka, each of our summons costs us in pain. And Endross Travelers must live with the knowledge that a single mistake will destroy them utterly. Do
I need to speak to you once again of Elysia’s place and purpose?”

  “No, Grandmaster,” Alin said hurriedly. Naraka could lecture for hours, once she got the bit in her teeth. “I apologize. I only meant—”

  “We once only had the Nine Territories, Eliadel,” Naraka went on. “But Elysia is the tenth. Why? Why did we need more, when the Territories were already complete?”

  “Because—”

  “Because men are imperfect!” Naraka finished for him. “They exploit the Territories, compete between them. Elysia exists, you exist, to keep the other Territories in line.”

  “I am honored by the—”

  “As a result, you must be stronger than they! You must be more virtuous! You must have a mind and a spirit beyond corruption!”

  Alin sighed and gave up, listening to Grandmaster Naraka explain the philosophy of Elysia, how the Gate would only open once a day so that he could not enter too often and grow too powerful. In all honesty, he didn’t really care about the theory behind it, but it would just be easier to wait for Naraka to run out of wind than to stop her.

  “...so you should not complain, but rather be thankful for your privilege,” Grandmaster Naraka finished.

  “I am amazed by your wisdom,” Alin said, “as always. But since I can’t open another Gate, how do I use this one? I mean, what do I do with it?”

  Naraka froze for a moment and then coughed discreetly into one hand, as though he had asked a stupid question and she didn’t want to be the one to embarrass him by pointing it out.

  “You walk through it, Eliadel.” She spoke as if to a child.

  “Really? That’s it?”

  “Why do you think we are called Travelers? Some people believe it is because we can travel from one place to another quickly, but not all Territories are suited for such transport. So why are we all Travelers?”

  She paused long enough that Alin began trying to come up with an answer, but she spared him the need by answering her own question. “Because we must Travel through our own Territories, of course. It is the only way for us to grow.”

  Instead of replying, Alin just nodded and stepped through the Gate.