The Heart of Dkanat
The other side of learning is the side of the law.
The killing of one’s fellow man, wrote one magistrate, more than two millennia ago, is the worst of crimes. No man has the right to take another back to the cycle; to do so is to take the power of the Circle for oneself. For he who commits this crime, it is often said that he must lose his life as well, excepting in circumstances whereby he prevented his own demise or the demise of others at the other man’s hands, or whereby it can be clearly shown that he was not of himself in this moment. And yet in this proportionate taking he is sent back to the cycle to begin anew; instead, let him spend his life in penance, and be as a slave to those whom he has most wronged by his actions.
These are ancient words. Modern laws are clearer, and less fanciful: a man who has committed such a crime may not walk free for a long time. If it is believed he will do so again, he may never walk free.
Nkemi looks at him, standing opposite across the kitchen from her, thin freckle-spotted hand resting on the counter. There is a faint gleam of moisture in dark eyes, beneath slender pale eyelashes.
Nkemi tried to think of how she would charge him. The law cannot touch what is not believed; the law cannot punish that which cannot be contained. Lifetimes, he said; she thinks again of her grandfather’s words.
Nkemi is no magistrate. Her breath is coming a little unevenly; she finds the steadiness of it once more. She is only a prefect; here in the desert, just now, she does not feel even that. She is a child of Dkanat; she is a daughter who loves her mother and father. She is a woman who has brought something terrible into the midst of all of these.
She does not wish he had not spoken; if there is within her a wish that he had spoken earlier, it is herself she blames, and not him. Her head aches; all the long hours of the day drag at her, and she knows not what to make of any of them, nor how to sit in judgment. This is not mine, she wishes to beg, and yet there is no other to take this burden from her.
Nkemi nods her understanding, in the end; she does not dare to speak. Perhaps she has had no right to ask such a question. She knows she does not know what to make of the answer. All the same he has offered it to her, and with all her skills and practice, she thinks he speaks truth.
“I do not now see,” Nkemi says, looking at him, “any need to make this known.” Her face tightens; she looks away from him, finally, towards the dark streets and the lights upon it. She thinks of Jeela, of ghosts, of fear. She breathes in, deeply, and out again.
Nkemi inclines her head; she looks up once more, and meets his gaze. “When I made my offer, it was understood between us that I should be your guide to this place and back to Thul Ka afterwards. I do not believe that I am relieved of this promise by what we have spoken of here; I intend to honor it.”