Anathi and the Sunspear crashed into the basin with the weight of two boulders, pushing half the milkwater out of it. Asanda put a forearm over her eyes as milkwater splashed onto the ceiling. Her brothers and Anket poured more buckets into the basin as Anathi wrestled to keep the Sunspear emerged. They struggled silently, the men poured with their mouths pressed in flat lines, and Third Hill was a tomb in its quiet observance.
In the brief moment between Khaya lifting the bucket and dumping it, Asanda set about peeling away the noises in her mind. First, there was Dumani's scream, the kind that came only when death was pushing its way into the flesh. Her fingertips felt oddly cold, then wet. When Dumani faded, she peeled away the inexplicable sound of Anathi's existence that had stuck with her after entering her body. That cold wetness was at her knuckles now, then her wrists. Anket poured another bucket. Lastly, she peeled away at a sound that was somewhere between viscerally recognisable and unimaginable. It was closer to the vibration of a storm felt through a window pane, and it was humming at the base of her skull. At the third attempt, she gave up. Now aware of it, there was only one way she would ever be rid of that noise.
A bucket fell from her hand, and she took a step back as the Sunspear kicked the basin hard enough to shift it half a foot. Its face emerged briefly, expressionless, before Anathi pushed a forearm against its mouth and began drowning it again. As its face sunk, a bright tendril of blood trailed in the milkwater, thin as candle smoke before the thrashing turned it to a pale pink blemish on the surface.
"The people in the yard," Khaya said, panting, with his elbows against his knees. "What happened to them?"
"They're controlled," Anket said. "The Sunspear holds all their minds; we need not fear them just yet."
Khaya massaged the back of his head. "What do you mean controlled?"
"How does a war spirit acquire an army?" Ndoda's gaze was hooked to the pink blot in the water. "Are they a threat?"
"Nothing yet," Anket said. "The Sunspear's cut is on the cheek, non-fatal, and the person who wrought it is dead. The spirit hasn't been awakened enough to exert any control. Once the wound is sealed, the Sunspear will sleep again."
"It doesn't make sense," Ndoda said. "This long underwater should have blanched the cut."
"Fireglass."
Ndoda's jaw flexed. "Shit. She'll bleed for half the day."
"Milkwater might seal it in a few minutes," Khaya said.
The Sunspear's thrashing became more violent, then the water stilled.
Anket looked at Asanda. "Though Anathi isn't exactly trying to seal the wound is she?"
Why build a pool twenty-feet deep?
"That's enough," Ndoda said, shaking Anathi's shoulder. "She needs to brea--"
Laughter, deep enough to shake the windows in the room behind them.
Anathi exploded out of the water. As her body fell, a hand shot through the basin to catch her by the throat. The Sunspear rose and threw her right at Khaya. He barely rolled out of the way as Anathi hit the wall behind him and collapsed. Large chips of brick fell onto her, dusting her clay side.
"Back!" Ndoda yelled as he dragged a stumbling Khaya back.
Asanda backed away until her shoulders pressed against the door of her room. The Sunspear craned its neck to stare at her.
Blood, it said.
Anathi swallowed. You do not kill blood.
The Sunspear stepped onto the lip of the basin and tipped it over, a thin stream of blood arcing down its cheek as milkwater spread across the corridor. Yes, what threatens my blood must die. Above that there is only one law.
Ice poured down Asanda's back. The cuffs.
Leopard-quick, the Sunspear charged at her. A black blur crashed into it and sent it crashing into the door frame, hard enough to rip the wood from the brick. Asanda spotted Anathi through a mist of dust and splinters, wrestling once again.
"Hold her," Asanda said. She was about to sprint into the room before iron glinted in her periphery.
"No!" Anket stopped Ndoda in his tracks and ripped the knife out of his hand.
"We need to cut her tendons," Ndoda said. "She's too dangerous on her feet."
"If you cut her skin, you become the next target. She'll kill you."
"Khaya," Asanda said, "the cuffs on the roof."
And like that, her brother was off.
She ducked under the ruin of the doorway. "Ndoda, come. I need you here."
Not entirely true, but she needed him out of the way, for his own good. Anathi clubbed the Sunspear with her forearm, and their grapple spilt into the room as Ndoda leapt over them.
"Where's the rune-eye?" he asked.
Asanda opened a secret compartment under her desk. "We won't need it."
"It's the only other way to weaken the Sunspear. Look at them, Asi."
He pointed at the bricks torn from the wall, at the cedar boards that splintered under the demon's weight each time Anathi threw it to the floor.
Asanda unclenched her jaw. "Get in the pool."
"What?"
"The Sunspear won't chase you in."
"So what then, I must hide away while--"
"Idiot!" She slammed her hands on the table, once, twice. "The Sunspear's cut was made with the fireglass spear. A spear that, by ancestral law, belongs to the king-in-waiting. You."
The warmth clearly left Ndoda's face.
Asanda ripped off a small iron box adhered to the underside of the desk. "Dumani made the cut, and he is dead. Anathi made a challenge, so for now, the Sunspear is distracted. As soon as that challenge is done..."
"No." Ndoda was shaking his head. "Ma would never try to kill me."
The Sunspear grabbed Anathi's head and threw her halfway across the room. With fluid speed, it rolled onto its feet and tackled her before she could land, ramming a shoulder into the Bound's clay chest. When it rose, there was an indent there. It stomped at the place Anathi's head had been a moment ago and snapped a thick floorboard clean through.
"No, Ma would never," Asanda said. "But where is she, little brother?"
"I--" He opened his mouth, shut it again. His eyes were on the Sunspear, glassy with fear.
"Get in the water. There is no cowardice in a wise decision."
He walked to the edge of the pool and knelt there for what felt like ages. With a slow, subtle grace, he slid into the water and waded to the middle of the pool, his back to the room. Anathi's shoulders twitched downwards. One problem solved.
Khaya slid down the ladder and lay the handcuffs on the table. "We won't be able to get them on with those two scrambling like that."
"I know."
"Can't Anathi just absorb the Sunspear's limbs again?"
"It's not as simple as it looks. It's like asking can't I push my fist through your body and my spirit through yours at the same time, twice, in a matter of minutes. And she barely held it the last time."
"Her."
Asanda half stared at her brother, half stared into herself for a solution. "What?"
"Held her. That's still Ma in there. That's why I'll do it."
He picked up the cuffs and Asanda slapped them out of his hand. At the same time, Anathi rammed the Sunspear into the wall with enough force to make the ceiling rattle. Somewhere in the garden above, a clay flowerpot shattered on the floor.
"Don't be daft," Khaya said. "If you can hold Ma's spirit with the rune-eye, the Sunspear will be weak enough for Anathi to pin her. Then I'll cuff her."
"I can't use the rune-eye." Asanda ran a hand through the bristles on her scalp.
"Burning hair is just a means to control it, a bridge--"
"Don't explain things I already--"
Khaya gripped her shoulders and squeezed. "The point is, you can still pull Ma's spirit out and hold it." His brow lowered. "Can't you?"
Asanda stared at him as her hand fell from her shorn scalp. No, she very well could, but were not just made to move things over gorges.
"Khaya," she said softly. "A bridge is made to be crossed both ways, to take and to return."
The grip of his hands weakened.
"I can take Ma's spirit, but, even when my hair grows back..."
"You'd never be able to return it?"
Asanda shook her head.
"So what now?"
She opened the iron box. There was a single tile in it, a totem of ambassadorial passage inscribed with the name of the traveller, and the signature of the ruler who sanctioned passage.
Tutor Anket of the Gold Ring.
Ambassadorial allowance through the Easterlands to Port Mapu, passage on The Tern to Illiri.
Allowed by Queen Nomvula of the Spears.
Suddenly, Anket was over her shoulder. "Is that my letter of release?"
A tingling crawled across Asanda's scalp as pressure built in her spine -- the precursor for a debilitating headache. Her shoulders slumped. Pain too consuming to brace for. She would deal with it when it came.
"Yes. I asked Ma to sign it a little while ago, so you could go home."
"Child, I am home."
"No, Anket." Asanda braced a hand on the table as the pain cracked across her back. A tear rolled off her nose and splashed on her thumb. "You are a means of control."
"Asanda." Something shifted in his counternance, something deep and old and dormant. It made only a subtle change on his face, from concern for her to concern for self. "Please don't."
"It will not hurt you. You can't be hurt."
"You need me."
"I do, Anket." She let her head fall onto his chest and gave herself three breaths to weep. "Truly, I do."
He sigh against her cheek. "But your mother needs you more, doesn't she?"
Asanda wept into her fourth breath, her fifth, her sixth. She was shuddering now, and not even Anket's warm hand against the back of her head could comfort a sorrow so deep.
"Oh, brilliant child. For your depth of life, they will sing songs of you in the future." Anket pushed her away, tenderly. Decisively.
The pain was in the left side of Asanda's face, heavier and heavier. It dripped down her left side like molten lead and made her left knee buckle. Khaya caught her just before her chin clipped the edge of the desk and dragged her to her feet, but the world was leaning to one side, and Anathi and the Sunspear were toppling over, over, over.
Anket came into the centre of her vision, and the world straightened. He stood on the other side of the desk, facing the Sunspear, his crooked spine as straight as it could go. There was a bronze dagger in his hand, and the corner of the ambassadorial tile in his other fist.
"Demon."
The Sunspear froze, Anathi pinned under it. Its spirit was a tempest swelling in the room, and the curiosity it held for Anket was little more than a mote at the edge of a storm. Then Anket held up the tile, and when the Sunspear realised what it was, its entire conciousness packed down onto Anket, almost crushing him.
He coughed and tried to straighten a little more, but invisible hands had pushed him to a crouch. "This is your final day of terror."
Oh? The Sunspear's voice was like hands torquing the muscles in ones heart. Anathi felt a glimpse of the pain that one word ran through Anket, but her own was unbearable.
"Here before you is a protector of--"
I know what you are, guardian. The Sunspear stood, its heel pinning Anathi's neck. I want your name.
Anket wiped the sweat from his brow. "Anket of the Gold Ring. I am not afraid to give it to you, though your legend says you wipe an enemy from memory as well as the field."
The ripple in the air was as close as Asanda had ever come to feeling a spirit smile.
"What's going on?" Khaya said. "The Sunspear. What's she doing?"
"Don't move," Asanda said, her breaths matching the sharp, short spasms arcing through her spine. "Clamp your teeth so you don't bite your tongue."
Anket did not charge, he was too old for that. He walked up to the Sunspear the only way Asanda knew him capable, with great appreciation for each step, as though it were some secret joy to know each movement of his body. He was halfway to the Sunspear, the three-quarters, then he stood nose to nose with it. For a moment, they regarded each other. Then he lay the flat of his knife against her bleeding cheek, and smiled.
"And what a story it will be, to say I looked into those eyes."
The Sunspear's footing shifted for better balance, but by the time it planted its heel, Anket's knife was in its grip, then it was in Anket's gut, then the tip was twisting viciously through the back of his robes. For all his grace in life, he slumped to the floor with very little of it left. His head bounced against the floorboards, and at the same time, the pain left the side of Asanda's head.
She gasped as her spirit flooded to both halves of her body, her mind, her bones. The half that had lain so empty all these years drank it in far too swiftly. She was a shell, and the egg within her was hardening, pushing against its casing until it made tiny cracks. She screamed, she ripped herself from Khaya and the meagre, earthly limits of her body.
And finally, she burst.