When Jackals Storm the Walls Read online

  Cahil dropped some coins onto the table and was just heading for the front door when he noticed Ihsan. His eyes widened in surprise and he scanned the crowd anew, perhaps wondering if a storm of Silver Spears were about to sweep into the parlor and attack, or a hand of Blade Maidens in black battle dresses.

  When neither materialized, Cahil grabbed Ihsan by the ruff of his thawb and dragged him into the dark passageway after Husamettín. Cahil passed several doors, dragging Ihsan along with him until they reached the end of the hall. There he shoved Ihsan through the doorway and threw him onto one of the nearby beds.

  He loomed over Ihsan, his knife held up, plain for Ihsan to see. “If I think you’re about to use your power on me, I’ll slit your throat, understand?”

  Ihsan’s reply was to open his mouth, thereby revealing the ruin Surrahdi the Mad King had made of it. Cahil stared and smiled as if he were picturing himself doing the cutting. Then he sobered, the momentary fantasy dissolved.

  “Why the fuck are you here, Ihsan?”

  Ihsan made several hand signs, the sort the Blade Maidens used. For the same reason as you, he said to Cahil through the signs, to find Zeheb, our lost King.

  He’d never bothered much with the non-verbal language before his self-imposed exile, but Nayyan had included a detailed dictionary of them, a resource that included illustrations and a wider vocabulary than the one the Maidens were typically taught. He’d mastered the entire book in the months since leaving Sharakhai.

  As the meaning of Ihsan’s words sunk in, Cahil’s demeanor went dark. “And you think to help us?”

  Why else? Ihsan signed.

  “No.” Cahil coughed. His free hand went to his chest. “No, yours is the last sort of help we need.”

  You’re wrong. Without my help, you will fail.

  Cahil gave a scoffing laugh, but there was doubt in his eyes.

  Yusam saw it, Ihsan went on. He wrote about it in his journals.

  Cahil blinked. He’d gone completely still, as if working through the implications of Ihsan’s words. The hand against his chest pressed harder while his cheeks and forehead turned a splotchy red. He blinked and shook his head like a drunk trying to wake himself, then fell to one knee. The only thing keeping him from collapsing to the floor was a hand against the edge of the opposite bed. By the gods who breathe, he looked like he was going to perish on the spot.

  Ihsan helped him onto the bed, then poured a glass of water from a nearby pitcher and held it out. Cahil glanced at it, then focused on the ceiling, as if the dusty slats were the only things keeping him alive. After a moment, however, he accepted the glass, took several sips, then set the glass on the bedside table with a healthy clack.

  Ihsan sat on the opposite bed, elbows on his knees, and waited for the spell to pass.

  Breathing steadily, Cahil’s eyes flicked Ihsan’s way. “If we fail it’s likely because you arrived”—he waved along his body—“and caused this.”

  Ihsan echoed Cahil’s motion. I hardly think I’m responsible for your condition, whatever it is. When Cahil’s face went dark, Ihsan went on. It was Meryam, wasn’t it? There was a vision, a woman in red stabbing you in the heart.

  Cahil’s face screwed up in annoyance. “That was always the problem with Yusam. He got things wrong as often as he got them right. It was your bloody Nayyan who nearly killed me, and with a crossbow bolt, not a knife.”

  Nayyan, Ihsan mused. She hadn’t shared that when she’d told him the story of the confrontation between Cahil and the lesser Kings who’d deposed their elders. It’s still rather close, don’t you think?

  For a time, Cahil simply breathed. “You said we’d fail without you. What did the vision show?”

  Just then the door flew open and Yndris rushed in. Her torn dress was filthy with amber dust, and now the veil of her turban was down. More importantly, she held a naked shamshir in one hand, an ebon blade, which she appeared all-too-ready to use.

  The old Cahil, the one in Sharakhai with all the power he could handle, might have allowed his daughter to lop off Ihsan’s head, as she clearly wanted to. This Cahil, however, the broken one, forestalled her with a simple lift of his hand. Yndris didn’t seem pleased but stayed her sword anyway while, behind her, Husamettín watched their odd exchange with his piercing, hawklike gaze.

  Ihsan could see several thin scars on Husamettín’s forehead. Were Ihsan to lift the dark head cloth, he had no doubt he’d find a scar, the mark of a traitor, rendered in the old tongue.

  “Zeheb?” Cahil asked.

  “Gone,” Husamettín replied, “along with his Kundhuni caretakers and all seven of their ships.” His gaze swung to Ihsan. “They were unnerved by a wanderer entering the caravanserai on a golden akhala.”

  Cahil’s head rolled toward Ihsan. “You caused them to flee.” He stared deeper into Ihsan’s eyes. “You knew it would happen!”

  Ihsan thought of lying, but what would be the point? I had to secure my services somehow, didn’t I?

  Cahil’s face went purple. Yndris drew back her sword, looking as if she was ready to take Ihsan’s life no matter what her father said, but she held back when Cahil, with great effort, lifted himself off the bed. “Enough, Yndris,” he said with clear reluctance. “Ihsan’s with us now.”

  Chapter 3

  YOUNG PRINCESS MERYAM smiled and laughed as she traipsed across Santrión’s perfect green lawn after her sister, Yasmine, who was headed toward the palace’s vast hedge maze. Behind them loomed the broad wings of the palace, the angular chapel beyond, and the height of Redhawk Tower with its banners flapping lazily in the breeze. The banners were emblazoned with Qaimir’s royal seal, a wave crashing against stone.

  The day was bright, with perfect white clouds flung across a deep blue sky. Near the palace, preparations for Meryam’s twelfth birthday celebration were underway. A pavilion had been erected. Floral wreaths hung from the palace’s many sconces and the statues in the rock garden. Many had been left in place after Yasmine’s celebration the day before, a thing that might have annoyed Meryam years ago. In the past, the celebration of their birthdays had always been combined into one grand affair. There was no denying the celebrations were festive, but Meryam always felt like an afterthought, due in no small part to Yasmine herself, who lorded the fact that her actual birthday came one day before Meryam’s.

  “It’s my birthday, you know,” Yasmine would tell Meryam every year. “They just tell you it’s yours too so you won’t be upset.”

  “No,” Meryam would say. “I get presents too.”

  “Well of course you do,” Yasmine would reply easily. “They could hardly give you nothing. But look at what gifts we receive, and you’ll see your birthday is just tacked on like the sorry postscript of a beautiful letter they’ve written to me.”

  “You take that back!”

  But Yasmine never would, and then Meryam did compare their presents. No matter how grand the gifts she received were, the gifts they chose for Yasmine always seemed grander. One year Meryam had fawned over Yasmine’s latest, a wolfhound pup. Yasmine hardly seemed to care about it, but oh, whenever Meryam wanted to pet it, she would scoop it up and coo and refuse to let Meryam so much as touch it. Only when Meryam was in tears would Yasmine allow her to pet the pup, even then controlling the proceedings, as if each rub of the hound’s coat was the loan of a gold coin and she was the most miserly moneylender in all the kingdom.

  “I’ve a surprise for you,” Yasmine had told her months before. “I’ve convinced Mummy to let you have your own birthday this year.”

  Meryam had sneered, but the longer Yasmine stared back with those pretty green eyes of hers, the more Meryam’s certainty that it was a cruel joke began to crack. “You haven’t.”

  “I have. I said you ought to have one birthday of your own before you’re married off to some stupid lord and have babies with birthdays of their own to
celebrate.”

  Yasmine had said it to rankle, but Meryam didn’t care. She was to have her very own birthday! Visions of a day filled with wonders sprouted, becoming ever more grand in her mind. She was imagining a bevy of wolfhound pups to call her own when she wondered, “When will it be?”

  Yasmine replied, as if it were of no consequence. “The day after mine, of course.”

  Meryam’s face had fallen. “The day after?”

  “Well, when else would you expect it to be?”

  Of course she was right, but Meryam was crestfallen. She hated the idea of her birthday being attached to Yasmine’s. Mighty Alu, better it was delayed by a month than have it the day after, but what was there to do?

  All throughout Yasmine’s celebration the day before, Meryam had sulked. Yasmine’s cruel proclamation from years ago had never felt truer: Meryam’s celebration was the sorry postscript to Yasmine’s. But when the morning of her birthday arrived at last, all such thoughts vanished. Yasmine’s celebration was behind them, and hers had begun.

  Father woke her early and led her down to the stables for her first present, a brand-new saddle for her horse. And when she returned to the palace Mother unveiled a new dress she’d had made for Meryam, especially for the day. Yasmine pretended to be happy for her but spent breakfast detailing every extravagance from the day before, knowing that each small comparison in Meryam’s mind would tarnish her day just a little bit more. Yasmine made much of the necklace she wore, a gift from their father, the King, and made by a renowned artist. Each of the ceramic beads was hand-painted, each a small work of art. Unlike most of the other things she’d so far mentioned, Yasmine seemed genuinely impressed by it. “See the red? The artist’s blood was mixed with the pigment. It’s meant to protect me when I’m queen.”

  The comment only served to remind Meryam of their brother, Indio, who had died two months earlier after succumbing to an infection that had confounded physics and blood magi alike. And because of something so stupid: two of the most powerful houses in Qaimir were warring, and Indio, who’d always fancied himself a leader of men but had never been very good at it, had hoped to defuse the situation. He invited the eldest sons of the warring houses to best him in a game of pin finger with a dirty old knife. Indio had gone first, promptly cut the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, and in his embarrassment hidden the infection until it was too late.

  Yasmine, knowing she’d misstepped, took the necklace off and put it around Meryam’s neck, but only until her frown had vanished and she could take it off again, calm in the knowledge that she’d replaced Meryam’s sadness with jealousy over the necklace.

  “Does it really protect you?” Meryam asked as they reached the hedge maze at the far end of the lawn.

  “Well, of course it does. There’s blood mixed with the paint.”

  But having blood mixed in with the paint didn’t mean anything at all. “She was a mage, then, the artist?”

  “Undoubtedly,” Yasmine said, though she did so with a tilt of her head and a twitch of her shoulders, which was her way of admitting she had no idea whether the artist was a blood mage or not. “Now count. And don’t be scared. You won’t get lost in the maze. And there certainly won’t be any ghuls lurking around the corners waiting for you.”

  Yasmine made claws of her hands and pawed at Meryam’s new dress, her eyes spread so wide it was grotesque. When Meryam laughed and shied away, Yasmine stifled a smile and ducked into the maze.

  As her sprinting footsteps crunched over gravel, Meryam did as she’d been told. She counted while, near the palace, the royal servants busied themselves around the pavilion like a host of riled ants. Meryam’s smile was wide as the seas. Mighty Alu but it was going to be a grand day.

  Her count complete, Meryam crept into the maze, moving on tiptoes so she might better hear Yasmine’s movements. She did hear them, but they were distant, and then they went silent. Yasmine might have stopped moving, but Meryam doubted it. Lately she’d taken to making lots of noise, then removing her shoes and creeping around the maze in her stockings to trick Meryam, who knew the maze well and had grown better and better at anticipating Yasmine’s moves.

  Listening carefully, Meryam found she was right. She heard the careful patter of feet a few rows over. She took off her own shoes, ignoring the prickle of the gravel against the soles of her feet as she took silent, exaggerated strides toward the opening to the next row.

  Yasmine’s dress rustled as her movements quickened. Crouching low, Meryam caught a glimpse of her legs, then ran giggling down the row to catch up. She heard a squeal as Yasmine, knowing Meryam was near, sprinted away.

  By the time Meryam reached the next row, she caught only the barest glimpse of Yasmine’s dress as she turned a corner. Meryam was running hard toward the turn, imagining her victory, when she heard a small grunt, a gasp of surprise or pain. Then rustling, sounds of a struggle.

  Meryam dropped her shoes and ran.

  When she reached the turn in the maze she found Yasmine, her eyes wide as the moons, caught in the arms of a brute of a man. He stood behind Yasmine with one meaty hand clamped over her mouth while his opposite arm snaked around her waist, lifting her off the ground.

  Yasmine twisted and fought, her arms and legs swinging wildly. Her desperate screams were muffled. She gripped the man’s wrist, the tendons along her arms going harp-string tight, but the man was an ox and hardly seemed to notice. With a calm assurance that made Meryam’s blood run cold, he backed slowly into the hedge maze, taking Yasmine with him.

  Meryam jolted awake in the morning light. A dream, she told herself. Only a dream. And yet it was a long, long while before the look on Yasmine’s face faded from her mind.

  For a moment Meryam couldn’t think where she was—the arched, gold-leaf ceiling was different than what she was used to—but then she remembered. It was the faint smell of smoke that reminded her. She was in Sharakhai, in the Sun Palace, the palace she’d claimed as her own, the lingering smell of smoke evidence of the fire that had raged through the palace during the battle with Malasan five months earlier.

  The journal she’d been reading the night before, thoughts on the crystal deep beneath the city penned by King Sukru himself, lay across her stomach. Eyes itching from the dry desert air, she slid the leatherbound journal aside, propped herself onto her elbows, and stared through the nearby window, where a brilliant view of the southern reaches of Sharakhai and the desert beyond was revealed.

  From the table at her bedside, she opened a small chest and took out a vial. Uncorking it revealed a measure of softly glowing liquid. She downed the contents and felt her aches and pains and, most importantly, her fears fade away. They were amazing, the elixirs, but they were fewer and fewer in number. She replaced the empty vial and stared at the others inside the chest. Less than a dozen remained. She’d been using them to counteract the debilitating effects of the blood she needed to consume daily to maintain her control over Sharakhai. And in this respect they were working, but . . .

  You’re using them too often, Meryam. They won’t last forever.

  She knew she needed another solution. Her stock of vials was going to run out soon, and she might have the last few cases of them in all the desert. But that was a problem for another day.

  She closed the lid and ran her fingertips over the embossed surface. You’ll see me through until I have what I want.

  After dressing, she left her apartments and summoned Basilio, Qaimir’s primary ambassador in Sharakhai and Meryam’s closest advisor. He joined her at the staircase that led to the palace’s lower levels.

  “I bring news of our offer of peace to the desert tribes,” Basilio said. “Shaikh Neylana of Tribe Halarijan has sent a reply.”

  “Has she accepted?”

  “I’m afraid not, but she hasn’t declined either. She’s considering the offer, as are the two other tribes aligned with
her.”

  Rumors of an alliance forming between the desert tribes was an alarming possibility, which was precisely why Meryam had sent offers of peace to twelve of them. Despite all advice to the contrary, she’d refused to send one to the thirteenth, to their shaikh, Macide, even though he was apparently the lynchpin to the entire alliance. Macide had been the one responsible for the Bloody Passage, a slaughter in the desert that had seen the deaths of Meryam’s sister, Yasmine, and her beautiful daughter, Rehann. Instead, she’d offered much to the other tribes, more than most considered wise, so that they would band together against the thirteenth tribe, or at the very least form an alliance with her.

  “I suppose such things take time,” Meryam conceded. “And what of the cavern? Is everything prepared below?”

  “Yes, although . . .” He paused before striking the lantern. There was color in his round nose and heavy jowls, which happened when he was nervous to broach a subject.

  “Spit it out, Basilio.”

  “It’s only . . . there’s been talk among the other vizirs and viziras.”

  “About the cavern.”

  Basilio nodded. “Yes, about the cavern. It seems there’s some worry over whether we should be meddling with it.”

  “They’re afraid.”

  “They’re concerned, and with good reason.” He motioned to the dark stairwell below them. “The goddess, Yerinde herself, visited that cavern and made demands of the Kings.”

  “They’re worried she’ll return.”

  “They’re worried the rumors of the goddess’s death are true. They’re worried that the other gods will come to meddle in the affairs of the Kings once more.”

  “Do they suppose that merely stepping foot in that place will summon the gods’ attention?”