A Veil of Spears Read online

  For a long while Anila was silent. Higher on Tauriyat, the bells of the dawning sun began to ring. “Our future doesn’t have to be lost.”

  She was right. Of course she was right. “I had a vision,” he blurted, picking at his fingernails. He couldn’t seem to look at her.

  He felt more than saw Anila shift in her seat. “What?”

  “It’s what I’ve been doing for Sukru. He found diseased adichara in the blooming fields and asked me to accompany him, to try to learn more.” He lifted his head and found her staring at him in wonder, silent, as if she didn’t want to break the spell. He answered her unspoken question. “I found something. Something big, I think, though I don’t yet understand it.”

  “What?” she asked again.

  “I felt the disease within those trees, but I felt their history as well. I saw them being born at Tulathan’s touch. I saw Nalamae come to them and then fight with Goezhen for her life. Most disconcerting, though, was their very nature.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The adichara are not separate, Anila. I felt the roots connecting, coming together like the tributaries of a vast river system. They’re all one being, and they meet below the city.” Fingers still picking at his nail, he shot a glance through the window toward the Sun Palace. “I suspect that’s where we’re going today. They want to see it with their own eyes.”

  Anila’s eyes went distant. “The adichara . . .”

  “Yes.” The coach rattled as they passed over the short bridge leading to the Sun Palace. The sun was blocked as they entered through the barbican. “What is it, Anila?”

  She shook her head.

  “What did Sukru tell you?”

  “Only that I was to come and observe.”

  “Yes, but to what purpose?”

  Before Anila could explain, the coach rattled to a stop and the footman arrived at the door. The Kings disembarked first, and then Anila, Davud, Zahndr, and several Silver Spears. They went into the palace and down seven levels deep before arriving at a sculpted archway. A natural cavern lay beyond. The Spears held lanterns, lighting their way, but it was Sukru who guided them, telling the Spears which way to turn.

  Ever downward they went, moving closer, Davud was sure, to the cavern he’d seen in his vision. Sure enough, nearly an hour into their journey through the underbelly of Sharakhai, they came to a tunnel choked with thin tendrils. The roots of the adichara trees and the tunnel led to the massive cavern Davud had seen in his vision.

  All who’d come, even the Kings, stared in wonder. The vast space. The roots. The narrowing braid at the top of the cavern. And the glowing crystal beneath it. They walked carefully over the spongy surface of the roots, occasionally hearing the patter of softly glowing liquid dropping onto the crystal.

  King Cahil began walking around the cavern, taking it in step by step while Sukru stared intently at the crystal, his face mere inches from it. King Husamettín spoke in low tones to Zahndr while sending dark glances toward the crystal, Davud, and Anila.

  King Kiral turned to Davud. “You saw this in the blooming fields?” He had a deep voice, resonant, but it sounded deadened in this place, as if it were the last place in the world and everything else had gone.

  “I did, my Lord King.”

  “Do you know its purpose?”

  “I do not,” Davud replied. “Only that the roots of all of the adichara end up here.”

  Behind Kiral, Sukru held his fingers flat and pressed them near the crystal. He was careful not to touch the surface, however. There was something about it. Davud could feel it, even several paces away. It was cold, the sort that chilled one’s very soul.

  “You’ll try your spell again,” Sukru said without even looking at Davud. He pointed to a spot a few paces away. “Prepare yourself.”

  “Of course, my Lord King,” Davud replied.

  “You.” Sukru snapped his fingers at his guardsman, Zahndr. “Give him what he needs.”

  The Kings stepped away and they chatted softly with one another. Davud knelt on the roots, and Zahndr sat cross-legged before him. Zahndr had always struck him as a brave sort, a man accustomed to battle, but the muscles along his neck were tight and his eyes focused squarely on Davud’s, as if he feared to look anywhere else.

  “I won’t take much,” Davud said softly.

  “You’ll take all you need!” Sukru cut in. “He is willing to die for Sharakhai. And you,” he snapped at Anila. “Watch. Learn.”

  “Take all you need,” Zahndr echoed, holding his knife out.

  Embarrassed over speaking loudly enough for the King to hear, Davud took the knife, doing his best to ignore Anila. “Very well.” He used the point of the knife to pierce Zahndr’s wrist. With the blood that welled, he drew the same sigils he’d used in the desert, first on his left palm, then on his right.

  As he touched Zahndr’s blood once more, ready to lift it to his tongue, he felt his mouth go suddenly dry. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood up. He felt as though something or someone was standing at his back, ready to touch him. When he flinched and turned he saw only the Kings and the Silver Spears standing in a meandering line, but the troubled looks on their faces, even the Kings’, only heightened the sense that something was very, very wrong.

  He and Zahndr both stood. Davud felt a growing desire to flee, but he stifled the urge as he felt a soft breeze pick up and circulate through the cavern. Motes of dust flew about, scintillant in the crystal’s soft glow. As one, the Kings and Spears turned toward a tunnel on the cavern’s far side. Davud felt it as well, a presence nearing, powerful as the Great Shangazi. It was vast and deep, but it felt strange, as if it didn’t belong below the earth but soaring through the sky like one of Thaash’s great eagles, or roaming the towering mountains that ringed the desert like Bakhi’s fabled ram.

  In ones and twos, moths with iridescent red wings exited the tunnel. More came, and then more, until a stream of them spilled into the cavern, circling in the same direction as the glowing dust. In their wake strode a woman. She was tall, like the first men and women. She towered above even Kiral and Husamettín. Her lustrous black hair was held in place with an ebony comb carved to look like the spread wings of an amberlark. Her olive skin glistened.

  Hot tears slid down Davud’s cheeks. Emotions welled up from deep inside him, growing with every step she took and swirling in a way that somehow mirrored the cloud of moths. Her face was so comely, so serene, he felt inadequate to look upon her. Clusters of the crimson moths adorned her frame, their wings beating like hearts. As she moved, some lifted into the air, momentarily exposing a breast, her thighs, her stomach, her sex. Fine blue sandals adorned her feet, the moths lifting and landing with every footfall.

  She was a goddess, Davud was sure—not Tulathan, nor Rhia, for it was said their skin glowed silver and golden, but Yerinde, goddess of love, goddess of ambition, who had stolen Tulathan from the sky until she’d been rescued by Rhia.

  As she approached, the Kings knelt. As did the Silver Spears and Zahndr. Davud, however, forgot himself. He stared openly until Anila stepped beside him, tugged on his wrist, and knelt before the goddess. Even then, Davud only took one knee. He couldn’t take his eyes from her. He knew it to be blasphemous, knew she could strike him down for the affront, but he could no more take his eyes from her than he could rip his heart from his chest.

  She stared at him, drinking in his form as if he were a curiosity, an orchid growing in the desert. Her eyes were violet. They shone brightly in the light of the nearby crystal, deep and knowing, as if they’d witnessed the making of the world. He felt naked before her, defenseless, not in body but in mind. He was a babe before a demon.

  At last she turned her gaze on the Kings, and Davud felt a release inside him, an unshackling. Her lips were sealed, but Davud heard her command resonate within his mind.

  Rise.<
br />
  As one, the Kings stood, while all others remained on bended knee.

  Yerinde motioned to the crystal. Moths fluttered and returned to her. Thou hast come to see what the adichara hath wrought?

  It was Kiral who answered. “We have come, Lady of Love, because the adichara have shown signs of weakness. As have the asirim.”

  Are the asirim not bound to the adichara? Does their death not breathe sickness upon bough and branch?

  Kiral paused.

  Davud dared look up. “It may be as you say.”

  Dost thou doubt my word?

  “Never. But we had reason to believe that this”—he motioned to the glowing crystal—“was the cause, not the asirim.”

  What reason?

  “This young man was granted visions of the roots leading here. We thought . . .” Even the mighty King Kiral seemed cowed by Yerinde’s presence. “We had need to know the truth.”

  Truth. Dimples formed in Yerinde’s cheeks as she smiled. A word with many meanings.

  Her gaze slid past Kiral to rest on Davud. She approached him. The moths flying about her frame filled the air with a soft fluttering sound that perfectly matched the feelings inside Davud’s stomach. She smelled of vetiver and sweetgrass.

  Visions, she said.

  “Yes,” Davud replied.

  Wouldst thou give them to me?

  Davud swallowed, clearing his mouth of spit. “If you will it.”

  Yerinde’s smile widened, revealing perfect teeth. Oh, but I do. And with that she touched a finger to his forehead. With that touch came an excitement and a fear and a love so deep Davud’s heart could hardly contain it. He relived the visions, from Tulathan giving life to the blooming fields, to Nalamae kneeling before them, to Goezhen and the black laughers attacking her as she tried to flee.

  Nalamae, came Yerinde’s voice. She who meddles in the will of the Kings of the desert, the will of the gods.

  “Yes,” Davud said.

  “Yes,” Kiral echoed a moment later, and Yerinde turned to him.

  A plague has she been on thy rule.

  “Yes,” Kiral said again, though with less conviction than a moment before.

  She approached Kiral and the other three Kings, looking at each of them in turn as she had Davud, as if deciding which one to devour. Thy wish is for thy reign to continue? For the adichara to thrive? For the asirim to remain thy loyal servants?

  Kiral glanced to Sukru on his left, Cahil on his right. “We do, my Lady Goddess.”

  Then bring me her head.

  The Kings seemed shocked.

  “Her head?” Kiral said.

  The head of she who has wronged thee.

  “Nalamae?”

  Yerinde smiled.

  Kiral swallowed. A man so powerful, now cowed, unsure of himself. “Of course, my Lady.” He pulled himself taller, then worked his jaw before speaking again. “So it shall be.”

  Yerinde looked to Sukru, who nodded, then Cahil, who nodded as well. And finally Husamettín, who took much longer but in the end fell in line with his brother Kings.

  Very well, Yerinde said, then turned and strode away. She paused near the crystal, regarding it as if admiring her own handiwork. Whether she was pleased or not Davud couldn’t say. She left the cavern, more and more flowing red moths trailing in her wake until they too were gone, and the Kings and Spears and Davud and Anila were alone once more.

  For long moments no one said a word. Cahil stared at the tunnel where Yerinde had walked. Sukru looked at the crystal as if his curiosity had been piqued and he desperately wished to examine it further. King Kiral saw, however, and shook his head. “You will cease your investigations into the adichara immediately.”

  Sukru’s pinched face looked crestfallen. His mouth worked, as if he were trying to find the right words to convince Kiral otherwise, but before he could, Kiral turned and strode back the way they’d come, leaving the rest to follow or risk his wrath.

  Sukru glared at Davud as if he’d been the one to deny him his prize. “You heard your King,” he snapped, then followed Kiral from the cavern.

  Soon they were walking back through the tunnels, up toward the Sun Palace, the weight of their bargain, to kill a god, resting heavily on all their shoulders.

  Chapter 28

  DEEP IN THE DESERT, in a tower made of stone, a boy named Brama lies naked on a cold slab of rock. A bloody kenshar rests on his stomach, its obscene weight rising and falling with every breath. Marking the skin along his ribs are wounds that no longer bleed openly, but they weep. A normal man’s wounds might become infected, but not Brama’s, for his mistress will not allow him to die. Not so easily as this.

  His entire body wants to coil like sunburned leather when he hears her approach. Her hooves clap against the stone stairs. Her forked tail whips and slaps against the spiraling stairwell in rhythms that speak of chaos and pain. As her tall form ducks through the archway on the far side of the room, Brama cringes but does not move; his mistress has forbidden it. She comes closer, her smiling face revealed. Her ebony skin, her crown of thorns, her sweeping ram’s horns, all ruddy in the light from the banked coals of the brazier in the corner.

  “And here we are again,” she says in a voice as deep as a vale. She trails her ebony claws across his fresh wounds, eliciting a wince. “Though I wonder, have you learned your lesson?”

  He swallows, ignoring the pain of that simple movement, ignoring the fact that he should be incensed that it does cause him pain. “I have, mistress.”

  She paces around the slab, her rust-colored eyes never leaving his. “We shall see. Sit up. Take the knife.”

  He feels a release. His limbs are his own once more. As is his will. He can obey or disobey as he chooses. He could run from the room. He could try, as he has many other times, to fling himself from the nearby window. But he knows the ways of his mistress’s mind. How he prayed in the early days that Bakhi would come for him. How he wished the god of final sunsets would show mercy and usher him to the farther fields. He’d run for that window in the past, to meet Bakhi and to pass beyond these shores, but each time Rümayesh stopped him, forced him to crash into the walls, to batter his body until he’d collapsed from the pain.

  Months passed before he attempted it again. Only a week ago, he’d tried, thinking he’d finally caught her off her guard. He learned that he hadn’t only after she’d allowed him his leap. Through the window he’d flown, joyous, triumphant, his arms spread like the wings of a swan as he rushed toward courtyard below and his own demise. When his body met the flagstones, he was not granted the mercy of blacking out. He felt every moment of it—each broken bone, each tear in his flesh. Moments later, in a swirl of sand and sighing wind, Rümayesh joined him. He stared up at her, feeling the warmth of his blood as it leaked from a dozen wounds, praying he’d soon be freed.

  She had watched with mirth in her eyes, content in the knowledge that he’d not escape her this way. As the painful reality of it dawned on him, his body began to mend. His bones realigned themselves loudly, with intense pain. His joints popped into place. His skin moved in strange and sudden increments, creating a maddening itch all over his body as if a host of scarabs had been sewn up inside him. Tears mingled with the blood on the stone beneath him. Leave me be, he pleaded. Leave me be.

  All the while Rümayesh stared, her inhuman eyes brimming with satisfaction.

  As she had so many times before—and in so many different ways—she’d tricked him. She’d crafted the illusion that if he could reach the window, he’d be allowed to die. And when the illusion had been made perfect, she let him leap, knowing full well he would remain by her side for as long as she wished.

  Lying on the slab, he wonders why she enjoys it so. Had her cruelty been passed to her by her maker, Goezhen? Was it an inseparable part of the alchemy used in her making? Or is it simple fascin
ation, a way for her to measure the stuff of mortals, who to a creature such as her were little different than the rattlewings that infest the oases?

  “Do you disobey?” Rümayesh asks him.

  “No,” he replies immediately. “Never.”

  As he takes the knife from his belly and rises, his mind scratches at the question that’s been hounding him since he fell into her hands: What will it take for me to die? He wants it so, but the very thought of angering her makes his soul quake.

  Rümayesh stares deeply into his eyes, saying nothing.

  He swallows, wanting to remain silent, knowing that he mustn’t. “What is your desire, my mistress?”

  “Why, whatever it is you desire, Brama.” And then she waits, savoring the disquiet in his mind, his growing fear of the torture to come. This is the game. She wants enough of his pain to be sated, but asks him to choose how much. Give too little and she’d take the rest and more. Give too much and he’ll have tortured himself for nothing.

  This is what she enjoys the most, not merely the pain itself, but the indecision, the weighing up of misery to square a ledger he knows nothing—and can know nothing—about. It is a cup from which she drinks deeply, like a lord of Goldenhill on the finest araq.

  If I could turn the tables . . . If I could stand where you stand now . . .

  The moment the treacherous thoughts come, he smothers them. Were she to hear them . . .

  “Tell me, Brama,” she coos, “what is your desire?”

  To die. To leave the desert behind. To walk amongst the green grasses of the farther fields.

  But he cannot say such things. Voicing them would anger her. Worse, however, would be to give in to the temptation. That is what she desires most: to give him hope of being free that she might take it from him.

  Tears slip down his cheeks. “I wish to make you happy.”