\hypertarget{peregrine-iii}{%
\section{Peregrine III}\label{peregrine-iii}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Pilgrim of grey;}

\emph{Fleet-foot, dusk-clad, the wanderer,}

\emph{His stride rebellion and stirring ember}

\emph{In his grasp the light of a morning star}

\emph{Tattered his throne, tattered his war.''}

-- Extract from the `Anthem of Smoke', widely considered the founding
epic of the Dominion of Levant
\end{quote}

Tariq's sole remaining brother had not aged well.

Bakri had boasted a warrior's build in his youth, and made good use of
it to bring glory to their shared blood. Decades had passed since then,
however, and what had once been hard muscle turned to fat and aching
bones. Though the Grey Pilgrim was thirty eight years old, he knew
himself to look in his early thirties. Bakri was two years younger, but
at a glance would have seemed eldest among them. The thick beard of his
brother was usually combed and oiled, but being confined to his quarters
had apparently robbed the man of the desire for such sophistication. The
dark hair was hoarse and wild, Bakri's eyes the red of one who had not
slept a full night in too long. Tariq did not wait for an invitation to
sit after the door was closed behind him, instead leaning against the
doorframe as he watched his brother pour himself wine from a bronze
carafe.

``Brother,'' Bakri greeted him. ``Finally you make time for me. Should I
be kneeling in thanks?''

Tariq did not reply. He stood there, in silence, and wondered what it
was about thrones that made men go mad.

``Am I to beg for my life, \emph{Pilgrim}?'' Bakri snarled. ``Is this
your justice I've heard so much of?''

The Ophanim were silent. Had been, since Tariq had first entertained the
thought of using his gifts in anger. For that silence he thought less of
them. He might have been changed by his Bestowal, but blood still ran
through his vein. There were things beyond the purview of mercy. Still,
the loss of the whispers was keenly felt. Without their guidance, he
felt half-blind. They had known much, and shared freely. Now all he had
to call on was his eyes and his wits.

``Just get it over with, Tariq,'' his brother tiredly said. ``You need
someone to hang for this and you've chosen me. What point is there in
making game of it first?''

``You did not act,'' the Grey Pilgrim finally said, ``like an innocent
man.''

``And that is enough to make me guilty?'' Bakri mocked.

No, Tariq admitted to himself. It was not. Confining Yasa's husband and
isolating their nephew was the blatant premise to a grab for the
Tattered Throne, but it was no proof that Bakri had a hand in their
sister's death. All it was testimony to was ambition and poor character.

``You always did love her best,'' his brother bitterly said, drinking
deep of his wine.

He wiped a trickle away from his chin.

``And she you,'' Bakri continued. ``There was never any room for anyone
else.''

``I loved her best,'' Tariq said softly, ``because she was the best of
us.''

``Mother was a fucking vulture of a woman,'' his brother smiled thinly.
``But at least she never played favourites in her disregard. You two,
though? You threw us the scraps of what you held for each other and
expected your feet licked for it. I didn't kill her, Tariq. But I will
not weep for a woman I shared only blood with.''

It was a stranger he was looking at, the Pilgrim understood. A man he
barely knew. A few childhood memories were no compass to the roiling sea
of bitterness and frustration that stood before him. For the first time
in many years, he felt adrift. Unable to tell truth from lie, black from
white. He could not see into the soul of men: like everyone else he was
groping blindly in the dark, hoping he would not stumble into a chasm.

``Our nephew, Bakri,'' he said. ``Caged and left to fade. Yasa's son.
Does even that really mean so little to you?''

The other man sneered.

``You sanctimonious prick,'' he said. ``You traipse around the world
following stories, and now you've gone and convinced yourself that's the
truth of Creation. Like there's never been killing within the Blood.
Like a bit of red in the veins means we really owe each other all the
oaths we break. Look around you, Pilgrim.''

Bakri opened his arms, jeering.

``Did you really think \emph{meaning well} was enough?'' he said. ``That
it stopped being a throne because the first man to hold it was a hero?
This isn't one of your pretty adventures, it doesn't end with everyone
smiling and coming home. Sometimes it ends with a Seljun being a little
\emph{too} good and getting an arrow in the fucking throat for it. We
don't all get to leave when we feel like it, Tariq. Some of us have to
live where the Heavens don't look too closely.''

For a moment, he thought of killing his brother. It would be easy as
making a fist. Light would lash out, burn through the man's throat, and
that would be the end of it. But that was anger, that was blood. It was
the same ugliness in Bakri's voice, only with greater power behind it.
\emph{Please}, Tariq thought, closing his eyes. \emph{Help me.}
Sometimes, all you could do to beat back the night was light a candle.
\emph{Please}, he prayed, \emph{help me see. That I might do more than
add suffering to suffering, injustice to injustice, grief to grief.} He
prayed, and was answered.

The Grey Pilgrim opened his eyes and knew it was his gift to
\textbf{Behold} the truth of was what hiddem.

He saw in his sole remaining sibling fear and rage, and ambition like
poison. Grief, too, however slight. But deep beneath it all he saw
guilt. A hand offered and taken.

``Tell me,'' Tariq said, voice like stone and steel. ``\emph{Tell me who
you sold our sister to, Bakri}.''

After that he saw fear, mostly.

It did not stay his hand.

---

When the lords and ladies of the Dominion came to Levante for his
sister's funeral games, the city felt as if a shroud had fallen over it.
Until the first of them had arrived he had spent his hours with Izil,
keeping the fragile flame remaining in his nephew from dying out, but
when the greats of Levant arrived Tariq was forced to leave the boy's
side. There would be an election in the Majilis, when the games came to
a close, and there was only one result he would brook. Yasa's son would
be the Holy Seljun, his father holding regency until the boy came of
age. Yet for all that none denied him audience, and instead made great
pageantry of receiving him, the answers he received were evasive. These
people, he thought, had professed loyalty to Yasa. Followed her with
eagerness, with pride. And together with her they had served Levant
well. And yet now the loyalty had waned, replaced by guarded eyes and
cautious tongues. What had been granted to the mother would not be
inherited by the son.

``They're afraid, Tariq,'' Sintra told him.

That much he had known. He could not fail to see it, now that his eyes
had been opened by Above. He had stolen a moment with his lover in a
tucked away corner of the old city, where none would see them. Much as
he would have preferred to speak only between Tariq and Sintra, they
were not only that. The Grey Pilgrim and the Lady of Alava need speak as
well.

``Bakri died at my hand,'' Tariq acknowledged.

``Died?'' Sintra murmured. ``There were only cinders left. That is more
than death. And for all that, fear is not what the act earned you. You
passed judgement as the Grey Pilgrim, and none would deny your right to
end a traitor. It is those that clasped hands with Bakri that still
tongues.''

``I am the only man alive to have heard his confession,'' the Pilgrim
flatly stated.

``We're not fools, Tariq,'' Sintra sighed. ``Your brother might have
greased a few palms in the harbour, but it was not one of ours who
loosed the arrow. There are only two who could have given the order, and
neither is to be trifled with.''

``Procer,'' he said. ``Ashur.''

He turned to look upon the love of his life as the silence lingered, and
what he beheld filled him with pride. There was iron in this daughter of
the Champion's Blood. Fear as well, but it did not bend her spine as it
did so many others he has spoken to.

``Which was it?'' Sintra quietly asked.

That was the question, he knew, plaguing the thoughts of every person of
influence in Levant. Was it their protectors in the Thalassocracy that
had seen a Dominion resurgent, less eager to take instructions from
committees on an island across the water, and acted to smother the
insolence before it could grow further? Or was it the covetous packs of
royalty past the Red Snake Wall who had struck the blow, wary of a
Levant that would not retreat at the mere hint of the First Prince's
displeasure? Neither were enemies anyone could truly afford.

``The Prince of Orense,'' Tariq finally told her. ``Bakri believed it
was with the tacit permission of the First Prince himself.''

Sintra let out a sharp breath.

``Prince Alejandro Trastanes,'' she murmured. ``Do they plan to
invade?''

``No,'' he replied just as quietly. ``It was a petty thing, Sintra. That
is, perhaps, the most absurd part of it. We have silver veins of our
own, now, and no longer rely on his for coinage. His treasury thinned as
a result. Worse, he foresaw that the Ashurans would rather use our
silver than his for their own mints.''

Bakri was to declare those very veins as having run out, after a few
years, and quietly the old sales would have resumed. The Levantine
silver would have gone to the treasury of the Seljun instead of the
mints in Levant and Ashur. A stupid, petty waste. And for that Yasa had
died.

``There are some who'll say electing Izil to the Tattered Throne would
be sending a message,'' his lover said. ``That we will not desist.''

``That we will not bow to fear,'' Tariq mused. ``I can see how this
would not be popular, as so many of us wish to do so.''

``They've never been shy about sending knives south,'' Sintra darkly
said. ``They know Ashur will only stir against invasion. And that's
always been the unspoken guarantee from Salia hasn't it? Do not be a
threat, and you will not be troubled. We became a threat. Trouble found
us.''

``It doesn't matter,'' Tariq said. ``When the games end, Izil will stand
before the Majilis as candidate for the Tattered Throne.''

``You don't have the votes,'' his lover told him. ``One of Bakri's
children will be raised, it is almost a certainty.''

``You misunderstand,'' he said. ``They are bowing, Sintra, to fear.''

``And?'' she frowned.

``When Izil stands, I will stand with him,'' the Grey Pilgrim said.

He met her eyes, and smiled thinly.

``Alejandro Trastanes is very far away. \emph{I am here}.''

Nine days later, Izil Isbili was unanimously elected the Holy Seljun of
Levant. His uncle stood in silence behind the seven-year-old boy as the
votes were cast into the large brass cup, but for once the pale stones
meaning support made no sound as they fell.

The cup, after all, was already filled with the ashes of Bakri Isbili.

The following dawn, Tariq began marching north.

---

Orense was prosperous.

The principality as well, he had seen while treading the roads and
fields, but the capital of the principality stood above the rest in that
regard. Traders from all over southern Calernia could be found haggling
in the streets in a smattering of tongues, be it the fluid tradertalk of
the Free Cities or the elegant Ceseo of the southern Dominion. Colourful
cloths and elegant furs, ripe fruit and vivid painted slates: the
markets of Orense were a thriving throng, a centre of commerce. And
among them, all was traded for the silver of Prince Alejandro Trastanes'
mines. It was the fortune of the Trastanes line to own these, it was
said, but also that of it subjects. The city would not attract so many
if not for the remarkable purity and quantity of its ore. Tariq had not
known it was possible to hate the bounty of the earth before then, but
he had learned. Pieces of metal glinting in the sun could take a life
months of riding away, even if they were not spent for the purpose. All
they needed to do was \emph{exist} and men would do horrors for the
purpose of owning them, or keeping them, or even ensuring other did not
have them.

He had spent most his life shielding people little different than these
from the wickedness of the world. Divested himself of the right to be
bound to his lover in the eyes of any but each other, of having a home
for more than a summer's length and even of half the name he had been
born to. And yet, blind to anything but the coins that saw the wheels of
their existence keep turning, they had killed his sister. Tariq could
not hate them for that. No, he could. He would not allow himself to. He
had made sacrifices, but not with the expectation of reward. That
exceptions would be made for him and those he loved. If a good act was
done only at the condition of recompense, then it was not that -- it was
a mere transaction made with the Heavens. Yet it would have been
dishonest to say it did not infuriate him, deep down, that Yasa had died
and it was not so much as a ripple in the sea that was Creation. All
were as specks of dust, in the eyes of Above. All were as the entire
world, in the eyes of Above. The Lanterns had long taught this and Tariq
knew more of the truths of the Heavens than most, but never before had
he been forced to look that particular truth in the eye.

For days he walked the streets of Orense, taking the measure of the
people and through them their ruler. Prince Alejandro was well-liked, he
learned. The man leant the weight of his name and influence to the
charitable enterprises of the House of Light, and after a string of
sicknesses had ordered the sewers beneath the capital fully cleaned out
for the first time in many years -- at his own expense, without raising
taxes to fill his coffers afterwards. He paid his watchmen and soldiers
well, better than his mother had, and always on time. The prince
favoured the merchants of his land above others, but did not do so
egregiously and did not use the livelihood of others as means in his
disagreements with other royalty. Some said that he spent too much time
in Salia, at the court of the First Prince, but others argued that
Orense had benefited from his influence there. There were less
flattering rumours, of paramours entertained even though he was wed and
duels fought for frivolous purposes, but these were old and looked upon
with a forgiving eye.

Tariq was not certain what he had truly expected. Few men presented
themselves as devils, even when keeping covenant with their kind, and it
was said Arlesites were more attached than most to their repute. It
still filled him with dismay, that priests from the House of Light could
sing the praises of a man who had ordered murder. The people could be
fooled, and often were. Yet he had believed, in some way, that those
wielding the light of the Heavens would not be so easily taken in. It
took him days, forcing himself not to act before having fully seen what
there was to see, before he admitted to himself that perhaps the people
of Orense had not been fooled at all. That the prince \emph{did} behave
well towards them. That the priests did not condemn the man because they
had not been given reason to. It was a strange thing, coming to the
understanding that a man could be both wicked and kind. That one did not
chase away the other and claim the whole of the person. Strange and
displeasing.

After twelve days, Tariq had assuaged his conscience and he set out once
more. For a man of his talents, it was merely tedious to slip into the
towering palace that belonged to the Trastanes. Even without the
guidance of the Ophanim neither soldiers nor watchmen caught sight of
him moving under cover of night, and the sorceries pervading the grounds
were no true bar. The nature of the wards was sister to miracles, in
some arcane way, and there were few even among the Bestowed who
understood miracles as Tariq did. Whispers opened cracks to creep
through, Light blooming and fading as he passed through gardens and
climbed a tall trellis. From there he reached a balcony, a brush of
fingers unmaking the locks and allowing him to enter unseen the private
study of the Prince of Orense. Tariq closed the doors behind him, and
settled in a fashionable sofa to wait until the man arrived. Servants
came first, to put the study in order and leave a tray of fragrant tea
and assorted spice cookies, but he moved where they were not looking and
so they did no see him.

The Grey Pilgrim was sipping at a perfectly-brewed cup of Thalassinian
black leaf when the man who ordered the murder of his sister entered the
study. He waited in silence until the prince sat at his beautiful
redwood desk and reached for a cup that was not there. Calmly, he set
down the tea.

``Alejandro Trastanes,'' Tariq said. ``There will be no point to
shouting.''

His advice was ignored, unsurprisingly. The Prince of Orense was still
in good shape, for a man his age, though Tariq ruefully admitted to
himself that the royal was likely younger than himself. The healer was
no longer so young as to be able to casually pass such a judgement. Once
shouting proved fruitless, the man drew a thin blade.

``You will not find me easy meat, assassin,'' Prince Alejandro snarled
in Tolesian,

``Not assassin,'' Tariq calmly corrected in the same. ``Pilgrim.''

From the beginning he had beheld what lay at the heart of the man, fear
and pride and anger, but not he saw the second of the first of these
begin devouring the others. The tipping point, he thought, was when
Alejandro Trastanes realized he was alone in a room with a Bestowed
whose sister he'd recently had murdered. The man was not without
bravery, but few among even the most crazed of villains would care to
try odds such as those. And this was no villain, no champion of Below.
Only a man, with all the evil banality of that stature.

``You know not what trouble you borrow, Levantine,'' the prince said.

How mundane it was now, to see through bluster. Neither tone nor
posturing could hide the cold fear spreading through the soul of the
man. Tariq wondered if he should enjoy the sight of that, for he found
he did not. Even Yasa's death was not enough to whet his appetite for
cruelty, it seemed. He almost wished that it had been. It would make the
accusations Bakri had laid at his feet echo slightly less.

``Sit down,'' Tariq said.

``And then?'' the prince asked.

Hope, the slightest bit of it.

``We will have a conversation,'' the Grey Pilgrim said. ``And when it
ends, I will kill you.''
