A Desert Torn Asunder Page 3

  “Have you managed to catch Nalamae’s scent?” Bakhi asked, echoing Tulathan’s own thoughts.

  “Alas,” Rhia replied, “our sister remains elusive.”

  Rhia’s gifts had led their grand plan to the very brink of fruition, but even foresight had its limits, and Nalamae had learned how to foil Rhia’s visions. She’d learned the trick of rebirth as well. Time and again, just when they thought they were rid of her, she would return in a new form. And while the rest of them had to take the utmost care when meddling in the affairs of mortals, Nalamae, who’d resigned herself to remaining in this world, never to see the elders again, had no such limitations and was using that to her advantage.

  The end game had come. Nalamae was no longer content to hide. She had become the hunter, they the hunted. If they grew careless now, all would be for naught.

  “She will not have remained idle,” Thaash said in his throaty voice. “We need to know what she’s discovered, what she has planned.”

  Rhia turned toward him, her eyes regaining their focus. “Nalamae is but part of the challenge that faces us.”

  “Perhaps,” Thaash replied, “but she’s the most dangerous part.”

  Rhia gave a knowing smile, the sort that infuriated Thaash, who too often found solutions to his problems on the edge of a blade. “Danger comes in many forms, brother. Would you have me find her, only to lose our path to the farther fields?”

  Thaash’s expression turned stormy, but he said no more. He wanted revenge for the deaths of Yerinde and Goezhen, but he wouldn’t trade that for his place in the next world. If any of them meddled too much in the affairs of mortals, it would bind them to this world and prevent their passage to the farther fields. But Rhia was special among them, her gift of foresight crucial to their plans—if she used that gift too heavily, or too often, she might lose the objectivity she needed to see clearly. It could leave all four of them stranded in the world of mortals forever.

  “We’re here for King Ihsan,” reminded Rhia.

  Tulathan waved to the nearby bay. “The Mirean queen, Alansal, has learned of his destination. Her water dancers saw it. She knows he’s on a journey to reclaim the Blue Journals, and she wants the prize for herself.” The journals King Ihsan meant to retrieve were filled with prophetic visions penned by King Yusam before his death. “The question before us now is, do we allow it?”

  After four hundred years, they’d reached uncharted territory. The asirim had culled tributes from Sharakhai. Those tributes had been given to the adichara trees, which had fed on their blood. In turn, the trees had slowly fed the crystal in the cavern below Sharakhai. They’d been certain that when the crystal shattered, a rift between worlds would be created, allowing them to step through to the farther fields. And their plan had nearly worked. The crystal had shattered, and a gateway had opened, but not far enough. They couldn’t step through. Not yet.

  Everything now rode on the move they’d come together to discuss: allow Ihsan to take the journals and it may lead to all they hoped for. But the danger was just as great that, if they let him live, he would find a way to close the gateway for good.

  They turned to Rhia. Worry creases marked her brow; her lips were pinched into a stark line. Though she’d guided them unerringly thus far, of late she’d been plagued by indecision, making it clear her prescience was uncertain at best, the way ahead filled with fog.

  Thaash snapped his fingers before her eyes.

  When Rhia blinked, the confidence she’d displayed moments ago was gone, making clear it had been vain optimism all along.

  “Do we allow King Ihsan to continue?” Tulathan repeated.

  “I cannot say,” Rhia said in a tremulous voice.

  Thaash’s look darkened further. “Has your power been stripped from you, then? Has the loss of your brother and sister undone you?”

  Rhia looked suddenly vulnerable and mortal, a being who sensed her end was near. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “I consider it a good sign, not ill,” Bakhi said.

  All turned to him, disbelieving.

  “Our fate now intertwines with Ashael’s,” Bakhi went on. “The very fact that our sister can no longer see our future is an indication that we’re following the right path”—he waved to the desert, to the trio of sandships—“that what we do here today will lead us to the farther shore.”

  They all knew their decision to put Queen Meryam on the hunt for Ashael, the fallen elder, was a dangerous one, but there had been no choice. Had they done nothing, Nalamae would have succeeded—the gateway would have closed and they would be forced to begin anew, or resign themselves to this world until the end of days. But give Queen Meryam Ashael’s scent and they might yet make it. Ashael might be vile-hearted, but he wanted the same thing they did: a path to the farther fields, the consequences to the world they left behind be damned.

  “Let Ihsan have the journals,” Rhia said into the still, hot air. Her tone was buoyant—overly so, it seemed to Tulathan, as if she were trying to convince herself.

  “We must be certain, sister,” Tulathan said.

  Rhia said nothing. What could she say? They all knew it was a calculated guess.

  “Who will do it?” Bakhi asked.

  “I’ve meddled enough,” Tulathan said immediately.

  “As have I,” Bakhi added.

  When they looked to Rhia, she blanched. “I must remain on the outside of events, to better view the threads of fate.”

  And so they turned to Thaash, who, of them all, had taken the lightest hand in the manipulation of mortals. Leaving everything he could to the others was a gambit, a way to ensure his place in the farther fields. His silence spoke of guilt over his own inaction, as did his siblings’ flat stares.

  He turned and looked at the bay where the Kundhuni fleet was anchored. His severe expression turned grim. “So be it,” he said, and headed down the slope toward the bay, unslinging his shield from his back as he went.

  Bakhi, clearly pleased, re-formed his wavering thread and stepped through it.

  Rhia dissolved to dust.

  Tulathan regarded the Sharakhani galleons, then disappeared in a twinkling of sunlight.

  Chapter 2

  On the deck of the royal galleon, the oddly named Miscreant, King Ihsan held a spyglass to one eye and scanned the line of jagged hills in the distance. “There!” he called to the captain. “The one shaped like a chipped falcon’s beak.”

  “Aye!” Nearby, the ship’s captain, Inevra, a cantankerous woman with decades of experience sailing the sandy seas, was sighting through a spyglass of her own. “Two points larboard!” she bellowed.

  “Two points larboard!” came the helmsman’s reply.

  As the Miscreant adjusted course, Ihsan turned and swung the spyglass along the horizon behind them. Ten days ago, mere hours after leaving Sharakhai, they’d been ambushed by a small fleet of Kundhuni junks. They’d managed a narrow escape, but the incident served as a reminder of how dangerous Sharakhai and the desert around it had become. The Kundhuni warlords had once fought on Sharakhai’s side, but Queen Alansal had gained their loyalty through simple bribery—not only were they given a share of the stolen riches from the House of Kings after Alansal’s swift, decisive invasion, the warlords had been allowed to ransack whole sections of the city’s west end for days to take what they wanted in coin, valuables, and lives.

  With King Hektor of Qaimir preparing to retreat to his homeland, Sharakhai’s royal navy had been forced to fight alone against the combined might of Mirea, Malasan, and Kundhun. They had strength yet, but their numbers were slowly being gnawed away. It was only a matter of time before Sharakhai’s enemies caught the royal fleet and destroyed it once and for all. When that day came, the city would truly be lost.

  For several days after their initial attack, the Kundhuni junks had given chase. Ihsan had been forced to orde
r his ships to sail in random directions to hide their true destination; the detour had lengthened their journey, but he couldn’t afford for the Kundhuni to guess where they were going.

  Then, three days ago, their pursuers had disappeared.

  “They’ve returned to Sharakhai,” growled Captain Inevra the following morning.

  Ihsan had shrugged. Perhaps they had. Or perhaps the junks were still in the desert, biding their time until Ihsan returned to the city. Either way, it made him nervous. The danger increased by the day. It felt as if any small mistake would doom not only him and Nayyan, but Sharakhai and the desert as well.

  “Please tell me we’re close,” called a husky, feminine voice.

  He turned to find Nayyan, a Queen of Sharakhai and Ihsan’s lover these past many years. She strode across the foredeck toward him, cradling their baby girl, Ransaneh, in her arms. The bolt of blue linen wrapped around their child was stained with spit-up. The image clashed mightily with the ebon blade hanging from Nayyan’s belt, a sword she’d once wielded as a Blade Maiden.

  Nayyan still had cuts along her hands and a bandage along her wrist and forearm, evidence of the battle against a fierce qirin warrior who’d fought with the Kundhuni. The famed qirin warriors were the elite of the Mirean forces, akin to the Blade Maidens of Sharakhai in both stature and renown. That several had been assigned to the Kundhuni ships made it clear their mission was of the utmost importance to Queen Alansal.

  Ihsan took Ransaneh from Nayyan. “We’re nearly there.” He smiled at Ransaneh’s bright eyes, one of which was hazel, the other brown. “We’ll reach the place where I buried the Blue Journals before sundown.”

  Nayyan, one hand held up against the lowering sun, peered beyond the haze of dust blowing across the dunes. “I hope this is worth it.”

  Ihsan said nothing. They both knew the chances of this gambit paying off were slim. After the terrible battle in the cavern below the Sun Palace, the crystal that had been fed by the adichara roots for centuries had been shattered, creating a gateway between worlds. The gateway was the prize the desert gods had schemed for hundreds of years to attain. It was meant to allow the desert gods to pass to the farther fields, but it hadn’t worked. Or not completely. Through the valiant efforts of Anila and Brama, coupled with the bone of Raamajit the Exalted, the gateway’s opening had been stalled, preventing the gods from passing through. The race was now on. Ihsan, Nayyan, and their not-inconsiderable sum of allies needed to find a way to close the gateway before the desert gods found a way to open it wide.

  Ihsan had read the Blue Journals from cover to cover dozens of times and recalled nothing that mentioned a gateway, nor did he recall a vision or a note from King Yusam, their former seer, that might help them decide what to do about it. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t something there.

  Please let there be, Ihsan prayed as he gazed at the distant hill. Everything depends on it.

  “I still think we should have tried Yusam’s mere first,” Nayyan said.

  “It was too risky.” Ihsan shifted Ransaneh onto his hip. “It still is. With Alansal in Eventide, and her army occupying the other palaces, how long could we have remained to use it? One night? Perhaps two? We’d likely gain nothing in that time, and put ourselves”—he tugged on Ransaneh’s tiny ear—“and our daughter at risk.”

  It was at times like these, while holding the babe, that Ihsan felt their peril most keenly. Sharakhai, indeed the desert itself, was living on the razor’s edge. Many said there was no telling what would happen were the gateway to fully open, but Ihsan knew better. The very journals they were sailing to retrieve detailed that event clearly: Sharakhai destroyed, the desert around it laid to waste.

  “Let’s just get in and out,” Nayyan said while scanning the hills ahead. “I don’t like the looks of this place.”

  Ihsan rocked Ransaneh gently. She burped and smiled while blinking her mismatched eyes. “We will.”

  It was nearing nightfall by the time they reached the right place and Ihsan bid three Silver Spears to dig with shovels. After the recent autumn rains, the nearby mountain laurel, the tree Ihsan had chosen as a marker, was blooming. Its clusters of bell-shaped flowers filled the air with a scent like violets laced with anise.

  As the sun kissed the hills to the west, the Silver Spears suddenly stopped.

  “Here, my Lord King,” Captain Inevra called.

  They had the two small chests up a moment later. Ihsan, inexplicably nervous, fearful that he’d find them empty, opened the first. The Blue Journals were inside, wrapped in oiled canvas, just as he’d left them before going to find Husamettín and Cahil in Çalabin, a caravanserai only a few days’ ride away. He opened the second chest and found the others, safe and sound.

  “Have them brought to the ships,” he said to Inevra.

  “Right away, Your Excellence.”

  Four Silver Spears had just begun hauling them away when Yndris, daughter of Cahil the Confessor and a warden of the Blade Maidens, called worriedly from a nearby rise, “My Lord King?” She had a spyglass held to one eye and was using it to peer at something beyond the ridge.

  “Yes?”

  “You should see this.”

  Ihsan climbed the hill with Nayyan at his side. When he reached Yndris, he saw a sandy bay at the base of the slope. It was accessible from the desert via a narrow channel that wormed its way between two lumpy hills. Within the bay was a fleet of ten Kundhuni junks.

  Nayyan’s footsteps crunched as she came to stand beside him. “They’re the same ships?”

  “Yes,” Ihsan said.

  “Look closely.” Yndris handed the spyglass to Ihsan.

  As he used it, his skin began to prickle. Lying on the ships’ decks and over the sand were dozens of warriors. None moved. Blood stained the sand around them.

  He handed the spyglass to Nayyan.

  “They’re all dead,” she said after a moment.

  A terrible feeling bloomed in the pit of Ihsan’s stomach. His instinct was to leave, to take the ships and return to the sand immediately. Instead, he headed down the slope toward the bay. He had to know what had happened.

  “If it please my Lord King,” Yndris called, “I’ll take my sister Maidens and scout the area.”

  Ihsan denied her with a wave of his hand. After handing Ransaneh over to her wet nurse, they headed down to the ships and found dozens of Kundhuni warriors, ships’ crews, and Mirean soldiers, all dead. The powerful qirin lay slain within the ships’ holds. The place felt like a boneyard, a place that should be left untouched lest they anger Bakhi, the god of death.

  Except Bakhi is now my enemy. I have no choice but to anger him should we hope to save Sharakhai.

  “Here,” Nayyan called from beyond one of the nearby junks. He saw her pointing to a patch of sand. A sign was drawn there: circle with a line running vertically through it. It was a shield and sword, the sign of Thaash, god of war and vengeance.

  “A warning?” Yndris asked.

  “Perhaps,” Ihsan replied, not wanting to reveal his suspicions yet. “Come,” he said. “It’s time we sail.”

  They set the junks ablaze, then returned to their galleons. As they set sail, the smoke column rose, looking rather like a line cut through the circle of the sun’s final fading.

  When Nayyan was alone with Ihsan in their cabin, she said, “It wasn’t a warning, was it?”

  “No.” They lay in the bunk with Ransaneh between them. Ihsan paged through a journal, the very first journal King Yusam had penned, but he was hardly able to pay attention to what he was reading. He was too troubled by the implications of what he’d just witnessed.

  “The gods wanted us to retrieve the journals,” Nayyan went on. “Thaash slew the Kundhuni to ensure we did.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “What is there to do? We go on
. We remain wary.” He lifted the blue, cloth-bound journal. “We read.”

  “But what if we’re doing exactly what they want us to do?”

  Ihsan wished he had an answer, but he didn’t, so he kept reading. Beside him, Nayyan took up another journal.

  Chapter 3

  Çeda gripped the Red Bride’s forestay to steady herself on deck. Her other hand rested on the pommel of River’s Daughter, a shamshir forged of ebon steel. The stiff wind tugged at her turban, made the skirt of her wheat-colored battle dress flap. The yacht’s lateen sails were full and rounded. The day was bright and beautiful, the wind pleasantly warm.

  It reminded Çeda of a similar day, what felt like a lifetime ago. She’d been sailing with her mother, Ahya, toward a salt flat, a pilgrimage to witness the great flocks of Blazing Blues that congregated there in spring. Back then, the skis of their skiff had hissed over the sand, just as the Red Bride’s were now.

  “It’s a good day to be alive,” Ahya had said in a rare moment of bliss.

  Çeda had been confused at first, even wary—her mother simply didn’t share those sorts of emotions. Eventually, though, she’d relaxed and shared in her mother’s joy. She’d stood on the thwart and gripped the mast, reveling in the wind as it flowed through her unbound hair.

  Her mother had actually laughed.

  Çeda smiled wistfully at the memory but sobered as she cast her gaze over the amber dunes. Sailing the Great Shangazi had become dangerous, now more than ever. She and the others aboard her two ships had to remain wary of white sails, of dark hulls, along the horizon.

  Sailing in the Red Bride’s wake was Storm’s Eye, a schooner that carried the bulk of warriors accompanying Çeda toward the mountains. All told they were a respectable force—eighty swords and shields in all, including the Shieldwives, the fierce desert swordswomen Çeda had trained herself. Even so, Çeda worried they wouldn’t be enough. The task she’d set for herself and the others was formidable. They sailed east to bring the traitorous Hamid, their childhood friend, to justice and regain control of the thirteenth tribe. The number of warriors at Hamid’s command would dwarf their own, but it couldn’t be helped. They had to try.