日夜兼程
Rì yè jiān chéng
To travel day and night.
To travel without rest.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The room we were given was indeed fine, with wide, true glass windows overlooking the market square below. There was a kang to one side, as well as a large, curtained bed which Zakhar collapsed onto with a sigh.

"Ahhhh comfort," he said.

The rest of the room was decorated to similar quality, large elegant vases in one corner, and beautiful hand painted scenes hung on scrolls on the wall. Upon closer inspection, some of the scenes portrayed were more than a little erotic, and I wondered if The Golden Goose didn't perhaps double as Tuluye's brothel as well.

I made my way to the window, fingers tracing over the clear, cool glass. It was free of the tiny bubbles and opaque swirls that blurred most commonly made glass and must have been bought and brought to Tuluye from a town where glass was manufactured to a high quality.

Among the clear glass, slices and slivers of colored glass had been inlaid. The colored glass did not make any particular picture, and seemed to have been placed randomly, but I appreciated the effect nonetheless.

I watched the stage in the market below through a square of green. "What play is it?" Zakhar asked.

I watched a moment. "I don't know. Some nonsense about one of Zhu's many wives."

"Zhu? You mean The Red Duke?"

I looked to him, stretched out on the bed, arms crossed behind his head. "Of course? Who else?"

Zakhar laughed. "Most people don't call the gods by their names, Ao."

I could not resist a smile. "You just did."

Zakhar's smile mirrored mine. "I did, didn't I?"

A knock came at the door, and a servant appeared with our supper on a tray. She set it on the table beside the wide window, then curtsied herself out.

"What is it?" Zakhar asked, peering over my shoulder.

I lifted the lid off the large tureen. "Stew."

Zakhar groaned. We had been eating stewed game and whatever else we could get our hands on for the past two weeks. "What I wouldn't give for something my teeth can chew."

But despite Zakhar's misgivings, the stew was delicious, as well as the soft, freshly warm bread that came with it.

There was even a dessert, a sweet creamy bean curd with sugared berries in a small bowl.

I started to eagerly reach toward it, then saw Zakhar do the same.

"You can have it. I do not really care for sweets," I lied.

Zakhar winked. "Sure you don't." He took the bowl and spooned the dessert into his mouth. "You sh'ound like Kageyama," he said round a mouthful of bean curd. I snorted.

"Look out for them, yeah?" Zakhar added, dipping his spoon into the yellow pudding once more.

My eyes found his. "You will look out for them yourself, when we return to the valley. You can resume your old position."

"Hmm," Zakhar said around his spoon.

We sat back in our chairs, stomachs full, watching the play across the square.

"There was a play the night we all met in Nan'ye as well," I said, not sure why I was reminiscing. "I was watching from the roof of the granary building when I saw you all."

"Really?" Zakhar asked. "And then you followed us to the inn? Why?"

"I was bored."

Zakhar laughed, and we sunk into silence, watching the play.

I leaned forward and unlatched the window, swinging it open. Cold night air, and all the hustle and bustle of the lively market below came to us.

Over it all we could hear the lines of the actors, spoken loudly so they carried across the market.

"I have a thousand lives, and I will love you in every one of them," the man playing the Red Duke boomed in his deep baritone. Hah. Zhu wishes he had a voice like that.

"My lord, I have just one life, but I will love you till the end of it," the actress playing the Red Duke's wife cried, throwing herself on her mock-husband's chest.

Idiocy.

But perhaps it would provide a distraction. "Do you want to go out and watch?" I asked Zakhar.

"Why? The view from here is fine," he replied, his voice as deep as the actor's.

I glanced at Zakhar. He wasn't looking at the stage. He was looking at me.

A lamp sat between us on the table, but the light outside, from the burning lamps of the stage, was brighter. It shone through the glass, throwing patches of red and green and blue across Zakhar's face.

His eyes were bluest of all though, and it seemed the color had deepened. It was strange, the look in his eyes as he watched me. It wasn't longing, or lust, or the other emotions men usually had when they looked at me.

Zakhar's smile was content, and in his eyes the emotion I saw was more like... like...

"Why do you look at me like that?" I asked him, confused.

"Like what?"

"Like you are... grateful."

"Because I am."

"Why?"

"I just am," Zakhar said. Then he elaborated. "Out of all possibilities, fate brought you to me. Or me to you. How could I not be grateful?"

"I do not believe in fate," I replied quickly.

"I didn't used to either. But do you really think it was coincidence we met that night in Nan'ye? There are a million villages and towns in the Empire, and 50 million souls, and yet I found the one I had sworn to hunt, but never find."

I swallowed. I wanted to tell Zakhar there was no such thing as fate. No such thing as gods. If there were, he would not be dying now, and I would not be powerless to stop it.

Zakhar read my thoughts from my face. "Thank you, Ao."

I bit my lip and turned to the window. "I have done nothing for you Zakhar."

"You have."

I bit my lip harder. So hard I thought it would bleed. I wanted it to.

Before me, the colored glass of the window started to blur together, colors swirling with the clear, the players on the stage below becoming indistinguishable from one another.

I will not cry.

There was the sound of the flame guttering as Zakhar turned down the lamp. It extinguished in a soft hiss.

The floor creaked as Zakhar stood, then came to kneel before me.

He took both my hands in his. "May I?"

I said nothing, keeping my face averted, the reds and greens and blues of the window becoming a kaleidoscope of color.

I will not cry before him.

Zakhar kissed both my hands, reverently, pressing my palms slowly to his lips, before lowering them. "May I?" he asked again.

The only reply was the cried lines of the actors and the market outside our window.

I bit my lip harder, till at last I tasted blood.

Zakhar did not ask again. He lay one hand to my cheek, then brought his mouth to mine.

Warmth flooded from his lips, even as it spilled down my cheeks. I sank a hand into his shirt, grabbing at the fabric as if drowning.

Zakhar broke away, and pulled me to him.

"Ao" he said, hand stroking down my hair. "Ao, oh Ao. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to hurt you. I should never have tried for more. I'm sorry, I'm-"

I didn't want to hear his apologies, so I kissed him instead, pushing my mouth against his, as hard as I could. I wondered if he could taste the blood from my bitten lip. If he could taste my sorrow.

As easily as if I was a child, Zakhar scooped me up from my chair and then sat down on it, me on his lap, without breaking our kiss. He held me against him, his fingers wrapped tight around my arm, as though he would not let go.

When we at last broke apart, I quickly lay my head on his shoulder, so he could not see my face. I knew my tears would only bring more apologies from him, and I did not want to hear them.

Zakhar sensed my need for silence and said nothing, just carefully tucked my hair behind my ear. Outside the players cried their lines mournfully, the play having reached some crescendo of drama and tragedy.

"I saw you first, that night in Nan'ye, you know. You stand out," I said, by his ear.

"I saw you first. Before Sanli or Kageyama. On the stair," Zakhar replied proudly.

"You thought I was a boy."

"Nah. I knew you were too pretty to be a boy."

"Liar."

*~*~*~*~*~*

That night as I lay beside Zakhar in the large, comfortable bed I dreamed, and in the dream I was not in the barren plains of the north. I was in my oceans, in the south again.

It was a sunny day, and I was in the shallows of a white sanded island. Around me the coral rose, many colored, filled with fish of even more varied and brighter colors.

They flicked away as I came close, my scales sliding a mere fragment from the razor sharp reef. It would not matter even if it touched. My scales were harder than the coral was sharp, and I would win.

I whirled, and looped, liking the way the fragmented sunlight slid through the crystal clear water and over my scales as I swam. Like a snake through grass, but more graceful, I slid, the water parting around my perfectly made body as easily as air parts before a bird. Easier.

It was bliss, sliding like this, gliding, flying through the water. Pure bliss.

But then, suddenly, it wasn't. There in my beautiful ocean, my paradise in the tropics, sadness overtook me, no matter how fast I swam. It was incongruous with this time in my life. I had never known agony like this back then. The only pain had been the twinge of hunger in my stomach when I failed to seize the prey I had set upon.

Pain. Sadness. Longing. Loss.

Why was I feeling this now, in this pure place?

Pain. Loneliness. Agony. Anger.

I woke, the salty wet of the ocean on my cheeks. Grey morning sunlight streamed through the glass windows, setting the colored glass alight like the bright fish of my dreams.

"What were you dreaming of?" Zakhar asked beside me. He was naked save for the cord about his neck where the ring I had given him hung like a charm. With his broad chest bare, the horrible black lines stood out, stark on his pale flesh.

"The sea," I replied simply.

I traced a finger over the inked lines on his chest. Hei's accursed ink. My fingers followed the strange, cloudy-thin lines that ran from his heart, almost as if the ink were being diluted by water across his skin.

"It does that, when the magic tied to the ink gets weaker," Zakhar explained. "Eventually, all the ink disappears, and then, well. Back where I was when the Black Lord found me."

"How much longer?"

"A month. Maybe two. The ink is unpredictable."

My heart clenched. It would take us at least another month to reach the Northern Territories, and another two besides to reach the Moving City. And there was no telling if Hei would be there when we arrived. Or if the city itself would be there. There was a reason it was called the Moving City.

It is not enough time. Nowhere near enough time.

I turned my face to Zakhar's chest. I wanted to curse him. To blame him, for not telling me sooner. But it seemed cruel to blame a dying man for his own demise.

And I knew with who the real fault lay.

"Please don't blame yourself, Ao," Zakhar said, wrapping an arm around me. "I already made my decision not to go back long before I met you. Meeting you just gave it meaning."

"I will not give up."

Zakhar chuckled. "I wouldn't expect you to."

"We will continue north. Do not fight me on this."

"I won't. But Ao, I do not want to become a monster."

"I know. If it comes to that, I still ha-have Kageyama's poison."

A pained silence settled over us. Outside we could hear the voices of the market sellers setting up, calls and shouts, the rumble of carts. A maid's voice came from outside in the hall, calling to another.

I knew we needed to rise soon from our warm bed. To keep riding north. This time of year Hei would have just started out with his riders. There was the possibility we would meet him even before reaching the Moving City.

Even if we found Hei, I did not know what I could offer him in exchange for Zakhar's life. But I would figure something out. Anything. If there was even a chance, I would take it.

"I think this is the first time we've slept in a bed," Zakhar said, breaking the silence.

"It is, isn't it?"

*~*~*~*~*~*

After Tuluye we turned north, into the mountains.

The weather of the plains had been turning toward spring as we traveled. But in the mountains, it still remained winter. Our breath and the horses clouded the air in front of us as we climbed, making our way along narrow tracks along ravines that sank away into mist.

I was glad there was no chance of a mad daquan waiting to ambush us.

There was still snow here, not just beneath the trees, but along the tracks too. The horses required rugs, and we built fires each night for warmth and to keep away animals.

We slept together in Zakhar's small tent each night. Zakahr would tell me stories of his childhood, spent running and fetching around the mercenary camp. I learned that on the rare occasions he had time for himself, he had liked to go to the lake near the mercenary camp. He would skip flat stones, and watch the sky on the water ripple, or to chase the white winter geese that flew over the plains, and collect their feathers for fletching for his arrows.

"That's how you are such a good archer," I said."You have been practicing and making your own arrows since you were a child."

"Aye," Zakhar said grinning. "The commander always encouraged it. A good archer has double uses in a mercenary camp." His grin faded. "You can hunt men and animals."

Zakhar only spoke of his time as a child. He rarely spoke of after, when he had become a fighting member of the mercenary company, and then a soldier for the Black Lord.

"How did you meet Sanli and Kageyama?" I asked one night, as we lay down for sleep.

Zakhar chuckled. "I was drunk, and tried to pick a fight with Kageyama."

"Oh my. You must have been very drunk."

"I was. Broke up the tavern we were in pretty badly. Kageyama thrashed me of course, and the tavern master dragged me into the road to spend the night. When Kageyama and Sanli left the next morning, I was still there. I yawned and told them good morning, and apologized for the night before. Then Kageyama offered me a job."

"What an interesting way to get a job."

Zakhar laughed. "I guess Kageyama figured I was strong enough. It was only later that we realized we were both looking for the same thing," Zakhar smiled at me, love and humor in his eyes. "If that isn't fate, I don't know what is."

I smiled weakly back.

Sometimes Zakhar would ask me about my own past. I would answer his questions to an extent, but never completely.

"When are you going to tell me your story, Ao?" Zakhar's breath tickled at my ear one night.

I rolled over. "Perhaps tomorrow night. I am very old, as you know, and it is a long story. For now let us sleep."

Zakhar's warm lips found the back of my neck. "We could sleep. Or we could..."

I let his suggestion become a reality.

*~*~*~*~*~*

One night, a fortnight or so after entering the mountains, we made camp near a small waterfall.

The fall was most likely no more than a small trickle usually, but now it was swollen with snowmelt, and fell down onto the rocks beneath it in a babbling rush.

Looking around, I realized some of the landscape looked familiar. The face of a mountain here, the crooked pines of another peak over there, this was...

"We are close to the cabin," Zakhar confirmed. "Less than half a day's ride, probably. Let's stop there on our way."

I nodded. There was nothing there now, I knew. Captain Duan and his men had burnt it to the ground. But for some reason, the thought of seeing the place where we had spent such happy times gave me joy.

Zakhar and I ate the fat quail he had shot, roasted over a roaring fire, and then retired to sleep in his tent.

Later that night, I woke. Zakhar was sitting up beside me, arms wrapped tightly around his chest, shoulders rigid.

"Zakhar, what's wron-"

"Don't touch me!" Zakhar's deep bark startled me. "Don't come close."

He rose and left the tent.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The next day we broke camp in silence.

I hurriedly mounted In'yii, leading my spare horse behind me. I kneed In'yii's sides to set off, continuing on the same track we had left to camp the night before.

I did not wait for Zakhar to finish packing up behind me.

He caught up though. I heard Dunya's hooves plodding behind me. I kept my eyes straight, as if by ignoring him I could keep him from speaking.

"Ao..." he began.

I did not reply, or turn my head.

The track was wider here, and Zakhar rode Dunya alongside In'yii, catching my reigns.

"Ao..." he started. He did not say anymore, just drew off his glove.

The ink there was fading, the lines and ranks inked onto the back of his knuckles melting away like it was being washed from his hands.

"You said it yourself, the ink is unpredictable," I stubbornly kept my head turned forward, kicking In'yii on along the trail even as Zakhar tried to pull her to a stop.

"Ao, you promised you would not let me become a monster."

"I promised nothing. We will continue north. I am not going to stop until-"

But I did not get to finish, for at that moment something lanced through my left shoulder with enough force to jolt me from the saddle.

"Ao!"

Zakhar's cry turned to one of rage as a second crossbow bolt, for that was what had hit me, swished through the air and through my left hand, spearing it to the ground.

"Arrgh!" Pain.

Laughter rang out. "Hahaha, that's what you get for shooting me in the leg, you little bastard."

I only had a moment to look and see the three headhunters sat on their horses behind us on the path, surrounded by about ten other men. Then Zakhar dove from Dunya's saddle, tugged my hand loose, and carried me off the road and into the forest.

He sprinted, me in his arms, hurdling fallen trees and ducking around those still standing.

Finally he threw himself behind a large outcropping of rock, tucking me into a small nook he found there.

"Wait here Ao. I'll take care of them and be right back."

I clutched my shoulder, dizzy with pain and shock. "No, Zakhar, wait, there are too many!"

I reached out to grab him, but he was already gone.

*~*~*~*~*~*