A Desert Torn Asunder Page 8

  “That may be, but—” Fezek’s cloudy eyes took in the pool, the ragged trees. “We both know you only tolerated my presence because of Anila.”

  For a moment, Ramahd was taken aback. While it was true he hadn’t exactly enjoyed Fezek’s presence at first, he’d taken a shine to the old playwright after a time. “You helped us immensely,” he repeated. “And you saved us more than once. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”

  Fezek’s smile slowly returned, then brightened. It was difficult to imagine a more stomach-churning sight. “And now here we are, together again at the end of things.”

  Ramahd paused. “Then end of what, Fezek?”

  Fezek struck a theatrical pose. “Why, it all, of course. I hope to capture it. Give it just the right notes.”

  Ramahd stared at the book in Fezek’s hand, suddenly optimistic. “Everything you’ve told me, did you write it all down?”

  “Of course!”

  “Would you be willing to share it with my king?”

  Fezek seemed suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t know that it’s ready for wide consumption, but . . . I suppose I can share it.”

  Ramahd made for the streets he and Cicio had left earlier, but Fezek paused. His gaze swung to the pool, at which point his eyes lit up, as if he’d just remembered something. “Wait, there’s one more thing!” Handing his journal to Cicio, he began walking into the stinking pool with no preamble whatsoever—ridiculous hat, frilly clothes, and all. He was soon lost, fully submerged. His hat floated on the water’s surface, twirling in circles like a foundering ship.

  Ramahd looked to Cicio, who made a disgusted face and shrugged, as if there were no accounting for the addled decisions of a half-dead ghul.

  A short while later, the surface of the black water parted and up rose Fezek again. Bits of black detritus covered his skin and clothes. And by the gods, how he stank. Yet he was smiling, for he’d returned with a prize. In his hands he held a red beaded necklace, which he held out to Ramahd. “For you.”

  It was Meryam’s necklace, the one she’d been given by her sister, Yasmine, when they were young. It had great significance to Meryam. That she’d sacrificed it at the pool, and that it had somehow broken the pool’s glasslike surface, was significant, which made the necklace itself important.

  Ramahd hardly knew what to say. “Thank you,” he finally managed.

  Fezek’s smile was the sort of thing that made children cry. “Is it time to see the King now?”

  Ramahd motioned to Fezek’s state. “Not like this it isn’t.”

  Fezek stared down at himself. “Oh my.”

  “Come on, Fezek.” Ramahd led him toward Mazandir. “It’s time for a bath. Several, perhaps. We’ll find you new clothes after burning these, and then we’ll go and speak to King Hektor.”

  Fezek smiled as he took his journal back from Cicio. “It really is going to be a grand tale, isn’t it?”

  “I certainly hope so,” Ramahd said.

  Chapter 8

  On reaching Sharakhai, still on horseback, Esmeray squeezed Davud’s hand, sent a withering glance toward Juvaan, then guided her akhala away, west along the Corona. Davud continued with Juvaan and his contingent of mounted soldiers south along the Trough.

  The traffic along Sharakhai’s busiest thoroughfare grew congested as they passed through the old walls. Their progress had soon slowed to a crawl, forcing the soldiers at the front to spur their horses on to forge a path through the crowd. The streets in this part of the city were a hive of activity, even more so than in years past. Queen Alansal, fearing the people might be turned into wights and attack her soldiers, had ordered the land that fell within the boundaries of the vault to be cleared. Her soldiers had emptied every building, block by block, and set up a cordon outside the vault to prevent reentry.

  Ahead, the vault itself loomed. The massive, glittering dome enveloped not only Tauriyat but a swath of land beyond it besides. The neighborhoods it encompassed were some of the oldest and most densely populated in Sharakhai. The displacement of tens of thousands had placed no small amount of strain on the rest of the city.

  The air cooled as they approached the shimmering curtain. Juvaan’s soldiers drew coats from their saddlebags and pulled them on. Juvaan did the same, then handed a flame-orange khalat to Davud, who had worn only a loose thawb on his journey to the blooming fields.

  Davud accepted it gratefully and pulled it on. “Thank you.”

  As they passed into the vault proper, Davud’s stomach lurched. He felt as if he were suddenly falling, and grabbed the saddle horn to steady himself. The feeling settled into an undeniable pull toward the gateway itself, which was hidden away in a cavern beneath the mountain.

  The cold grew steadily as they passed through the temple district. The temples themselves had long lines of people waiting before the entrances. Knowing there would be riots if people weren’t allowed to pray, Queen Alansal had authorized a controlled flow of people to visit the temples each day.

  By the time they’d entered the House of Kings, ridden up the winding King’s Road, and reached Eventide’s courtyard, Davud was chilled to the bone.

  “How can the queen maintain a residence here?” he asked Juvaan as the horses came to a halt.

  “We have a custom in Mirea. You may be unfamiliar with it, coming from the desert. It’s called building a fire.” He winked at Davud. “Mulled wine helps too.”

  “I know, but this is a cold that seeps to the bone.”

  “True.” He waved Davud toward the stairs. “But we’re used to the cold in Tsitsian.”

  “She could live outside the vault,” Davud countered as they took to the stairs and entered the palace.

  “And leave Eventide unoccupied? No. Cold or not, all must recognize that the House of Kings and the city beyond are now Mirea’s.”

  Davud held his tongue. Taking a massive city like Sharakhai and keeping it were two vastly different things. He hoped to have no small say in the matter before all was said and done, but that was a battle for another day.

  Strangely, as they headed deeper into the palace, a sound like pattering rain filled the air and as they reached the large hall that had once served as King Kiral’s audience chamber, Davud stared in wonder. He remembered the vaulted ceiling, the walls of stout granite, and the floor of veined marble. More curiously, a large bamboo pipe issued forth from a hole in the far wall. The lone pipe had been split, then split again, forming a bamboo grid that hung from the ceiling by twine and covered all but the dais and throne to Davud’s left. Holes had been drilled in the pipes so that the water being fed through the main pipe could rain down. The runoff collected in a channel in the floor and drained away through a small service door.

  The falling water was strange enough. Stranger still were the women dancing beneath it. There were eleven of them, all dressed in green silk with teal accents, a cobalt scarf wrapped around the arms of each. The women were drenched, but they hardly seemed to notice. Indeed, they seemed to revel in it. As they spun like dervishes, water flew in hypnotic arcs. The water caught the sunlight slashing down through the windows set high into the far wall, making it look like they were scattering jewels with every turn.

  There’s a dance Queen Alansal wishes you to see, Juvaan had said.

  Davud could hardly take his eyes from it, and only eventually became aware that someone else had entered the room. He turned and saw Queen Alansal herself stepping down the dais stairs. She wore a dress of pearl silk. Patterns of dragonflies and reeds were rendered in fine scarlet thread. A bolt of russet silk wrapped her small waist. Her hair, done up high, was held in place with two steel pins as long as her forearms. She looked no more than fifty, but she had an ancient quality about her.

  It’s her eyes, Davud decided. They’re hungry and knowing.

  She skirted the edge of the room, avoiding most of the spray. “Wel
come,” she said to Davud, then waved a dismissal at Juvaan.

  Juvaan bowed and left. The sentries closed the doors behind him.

  Davud motioned to the dancing women. “I must admit, none of the accounts I’ve read about your water dancers do them justice.”

  “Yes, they are a wonder.” Her accent was more pronounced than Juvaan’s, her pace of speaking slower, but her command of Sharakhan was formidable.

  With a polite wave, she guided Davud toward the dais. One of the dancers spun dreamily toward them, close enough that her movements flung cold water over them both. As the dancer spun away they reached the dais, and Alansal sat upon her throne.

  “Do you know what my water dancers do?”

  “They see the future.”

  Alansal smiled a humoring smile. “In the end, yes. Glimpses of it, in any case. But the visions the water grants them are complex and difficult to interpret. There are eleven dancers because none alone can interpret them. It takes many working together to understand what the future holds, and even then mistakes are not uncommon.”

  Frenetic earlier, the dance had eased into a more restrained pace. Each of the women had been moving with her own unique rhythm when Davud had entered. Now they were moving in sync, the water being thrown in consistent, geometric patterns as they wove around one another.

  Alansal tipped her head toward them with a satisfied smile. “When they’ve taken in enough and find they must confer with one another, they move as one.”

  Indeed, mere moments later the dancers formed a circle and came to a halt. Each held their final pose while staring at a dancer opposite. After a long breath, they relaxed, bowed to one another, and stepped away from the falling water. At the foot of the dais, they knelt before their queen.

  “They saw me in their visions, didn’t they?” Davud asked.

  Alansal nodded. “They did.”

  “And what did the visions show?”

  “You may rise,” Alansal said to the dancers.

  As one, they did. Servants rushed in with towels and began drying the women’s clothes and hair.

  “In fact,” Alansal said, still staring at her dancers, “there were many visions of you, any one of which might foretell a real event or not. If I told you of them, it could taint the process and the conclusions they draw from it. I’m asking you as your queen to speak to them and answer their questions.”

  Davud found her presumption annoying. “Toward what end?”

  Alansal turned her piercing gaze on him. “To stave off what I’m ever more convinced is going to be a slaughter.”

  Davud was already cold, but at this a terrible shiver ran up his spine. “A slaughter of whom?”

  “I’ve already said too much.” She waved to the dancers who, to Davud’s embarrassment, were undressing so the servants could dry their skin. “I leave the rest to them.”

  Davud chose his next words carefully. “I’ve made several requests to visit the cavern, to study the gateway. Have you been made aware of them?”

  “I have.”

  “Then I propose we make an agreement, for our mutual benefit. I’ll talk to your water dancers if you’ll grant me access to the cavern. I’ll share all I know, and all I learn, with you. About the vault, the adichara, the asirim.”

  “I’ll consider your request”—Alansal’s smile was condescending—“but only after a show of good faith.”

  He considered calling her bluff. He was certain she wanted to know about the gateway as much as he did. But in the end he was simply too curious to learn how he fit into the water dancers’ visions.

  “Very well,” he said.

  Alansal nodded. “Very well.”

  She left the room, and the water dancers surrounded him on the dais. A box inlaid with mother of pearl in the design of a peacock was passed among them. The box contained a white powder, and each dancer took a pinch of it, held it to her nose, and inhaled sharply. Their pupils dilated, and their faces took on dreamy expressions.

  “What does it do?” Davud asked.

  The young dancer who answered him had eyes so yellow they reminded Davud of dandelions. “It’s called zhenyang. It means truth. It grants”—her eyes roamed the ceiling as she searched for the right word—“clarity.”

  The dancers began peppering him with questions. Most spoke Sharakhan well; those who didn’t received help from the others. They wove around each other as they spoke. They traded places, one stepping forward while another stepped back. It was a complex ritual and felt related to what they’d performed beneath the falling water.

  They asked him of his upbringing in Roseridge, about his family and his friends. They asked him of the collegia and his travels since. For a long while they focused on his abduction by the blood mage, Hamzakiir, and Davud’s subsequent awakening to the red ways. They asked of Çeda and her quest to bring down the Sharakhani Kings. Given their questions, they seemed to know quite a bit of the story already, much more than he would have guessed.

  “Did your dance show you all of this?” Davud asked them after a time.

  Chow-Shian, with the dandelion eyes, laughed, then continued to rain questions down on him.

  They asked if he knew Nalamae. If he’d ever spoken to the other gods. If he’d ever tasted their blood, which seemed a very strange thing to ask. It grew stranger still when they spoke of demons, the warped creations of Goezhen or those left over from the passage of the elder gods. Had he seen any of them? Had he interacted with them? Had any ever preyed on him? Had he killed one?

  Then came one of the oddest exchanges. Chow-Shian stood directly in front of him, so close he could feel her body heat. She stared deep into his eyes and said, “Have you ever watched someone die?”

  A vision flashed through his mind’s eye: Anila standing within a cavern before the blindingly bright crystal, then collapsing against the brittle roots of the adichara as she gave up her life and passed beyond the veil. Brama doing the same a moment later.

  “Yes, I’ve watched someone die.”

  “Did you let it happen?”

  Davud’s head jerked back involuntarily. He’d never thought of it that way, but when it was stated so bluntly, he had to consider it. His first instinct was to lie—of course he hadn’t let Anila die, nor Brama—but it felt important, somehow, that he not hide the truth. It felt as though to do so would harm not only their interpretation of their visions, but would rob him of the truth as well.

  “In a way, I did. They sacrificed themselves that the rest of us might live, and I did not stop them.”

  Chow-Shian’s dandelion eyes blinked several times, then the whites of her eyes turned red. Tears gathered, crept down along her round cheeks.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  But she didn’t respond, and another took her place with questions of her own.

  He spent well over two hours answering their questions, and when they were done, Juvaan came and escorted him from the room.

  Davud thought Juvaan might be leading him to Alansal, but it quickly became clear he was leading him back toward the entrance. “Your queen said we’d speak of the cavern, the gateway.” His voice contained a good deal more desperation than he’d meant to convey.

  They passed through the arched entry doors, but Juvaan stopped short of the stairs. On the fine gravel circle below, a stable girl dressed in winter clothes stood holding the reins of Davud’s akhala. “I’m afraid the queen is indisposed at the moment.”

  “Queen Alansal and I had an agreement.”

  “An agreement she hasn’t broken. She’s only chosen to discuss it at another time.”

  “This is important, Juvaan, to both our countries.”

  For the first time since meeting him, Juvaan seemed cross. “Unless I’m very much mistaken”—he spun on his heels and began walking away—“those two are now one in the same.”

>   Chapter 9

  Deep in the desert, Çeda, Emre, Sümeya, and Frail Lemi anchored their skiff as Tulathan and Rhia stared down from a sable sky. Far ahead, a massive fleet of ships had gathered below the Taloran Mountains.

  “Bloody gods,” Çeda said, “the size of it.”

  “It’s as big as the Malasani fleet,” Frail Lemi said.

  “Bigger,” Emre replied. “King Emir’s fleet numbered three hundred when they fell on Sharakhai. That”—he pointed to the ships—“is at least four.”

  “More like five,” Sümeya said.

  Frail Lemi nodded sagely. “More like five.”

  As the sound of drums, rebabs, and doudouks drifted to their position, they took in the spectacle. To say it was impressive would be an understatement. All thirteen tribes had gathered. A weeklong celebration had begun to mark the occasion. Pavilions had been pitched. Thousands of men, women, and children milled over the sand, sharing food and drink and conversation. In the coming days, common affairs would be discussed. Plans would be made.

  It was hard to overstate how momentous an event it was. That every tribe had agreed to band together represented nothing less than a foundational shift of power in the desert. Çeda was immensely proud, not only of Macide for having started the effort, but of Emre for helping to orchestrate it. He had gained no small amount of respect from several of the shaikhs in the process, which was precisely why he was about to infiltrate the gathering. Someone needed to get a sense of where the shaikhs stood. They also needed to lay the groundwork for Çeda’s arrival, which meant garnering support for all that Çeda meant to do in the coming days.

  Emre caught Frail Lemi’s eye. “Best we get moving.”

  Frail Lemi fell into step alongside Emre as they headed toward the ships, then turned and began walking backwards. “Don’t worry,” he said to Çeda. “I’ll keep our boy safe.”

  They were headed to gather news, but also support for a tribunal so Hamid could be tried for his crimes. Of the seven shaikhs that would need to agree, Emre felt certain he could secure four that very night. The rest would prove more difficult, which was why his secondary goal was to enlist the help of Aríz, the charismatic young shaikh Emre and Frail Lemi had grown quite close to. Çeda was worried the effort would fail in the end, but she had to admit, with Aríz on their side they stood a good chance.