#20 - Hand Émérite

Ahrimaz could feel when they dried him off, hair and all, wrapped him in a robe or a sheet, and he knew it was Pelahir who carried him.  He knew.

They spoke to each other in Imaryan, guessing that he would not know the language and for some reason Ahri was completely unsurprised that Pel knew it. Every name he called the Cylak he knew was a lie.  Trying to make the muck he was throwing at him, at them, all off their world, stick.  Trying to make it reality.  Trying to make it evil and wrong, for if they were evil then he could safely revile them.  The other way around, if they were good, was damnation for him.

Pel eased him through another doorway and set him down on what felt like a stack of mats, but more resilient than any training mats Ahri knew.  It echoed like a big space.  The salle. But it was different, noisy with the roar of water.  It would be hard to command anything here with that racket bouncing off the walls. Ahri made his heavy eyelids rise and he stared around at the oddest training facility he’d ever seen.

It looked as though the river actually ran through one end of the hall and the water foamed and rushed along its channel, with ropes suspended above.  On the other side was a cliff wall with thousands of hand and footholds and ledges.  Limyé was just descending from a rope to one of the ledges, where he would be safer, should Ahrimaz attempt his life.  He had to laugh, to himself.  He felt weak as a baby bird and would find it difficult to sit up.

One of his guards drew a gate across the end wall where the river entered and reduced the flow till it was quiet... still tricky to cross, but no longer foaming over the stones they had set in its bed.

He managed to sit up, finally, prying himself up to sitting with his arms, shaking.  Father would have beaten him for showing such weakness.  One reason that he always drove anyone away when he was sick.  I smashed so many vases and cups and hand mirrors, flinging them at Kinourae. 

He was unrestrained, save for the winding sheet that he finally saw was wrapped around him. He shrugged at its resemblance to a shroud.  After all, hadn’t he just tried to snap his own neck? Had he not just tried to drown himself?

Drowning would be the perfect way to go.  Like a witch.  And these people just kept saying things like ‘God Flame makes you sick’ and ‘you naturally call water’.  He supposed he recognized somewhere deep inside that he was by nature a witch, called to the Demon Wife… the Goddess they most often called Lyrian instead of to the God Aeono.  Probably why the most honourable monster father had punished him so hard.

Pel stood, in cotton trousers, shirtless, speaking to a ma…wo… person in a cream coloured robe, girded up, who leaned on a staff, listening intently.  It was as hard to tell the person’s gender as it was to tell which sex a truth-teller, an Aporrheitos, was because they had either shaved or lost all their hair.

The guard at the door, Oriké, opened the door and let two older people in, their hair both in gold and white braids falling down their backs. The woman had two braids looped over her wrist while the man had his in a single elaborate eight-strand confection falling down his back.  They spoke to Oriké and then turned to Pel.

Ahrimaz couldn’t stop staring at these people.  The Innéans were letting other people know that he was not their Hand of the People?  His heart thundered in his chest and he couldn’t breathe.  He knew… he knew those two.  But he didn’t.  He couldn’t.  Of course he hadn’t asked.  He’d just assumed.

They, with Pel, turned toward him and Ahrimaz froze.  If my brother isn’t dead. If my brothers are not dead. If Pel is unmaimed and loved instead of hated… why did I assume?  Why did I not think? He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t, he didn’t dare. He managed to straighten as far as his knees and kowtow to the older man approaching him. His muscles were turning to water, he barely managed to keep from voiding his bladder, feeling a heated drop or two on his thigh.

“Émérite," he whispered. “Father of the other man."