Beneath the Twisted Trees Page 9

  “Dilara,” he replied, taking a long sip.

  Ibrahim’s eyes slid to the table sweep, a young boy who placed the empty cups and saucers onto a tray. When he’d walked back inside the tea house, Ibrahim said, “Would you like to know the most important lesson I’ve learned since Eva passed?”

  “Please.”

  “Be satisfied with what you have. Give thanks for it, because one day, perhaps sooner than you’d like, it will all be gone. Whatever happened while you were being held by King Sukru, you’re free of him now. Leave the Kings be, Davud. Find a nice, quiet place in the city. Or leave for a caravanserai, at least for a year or two.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” He sat back and flicked his long fingers eastward, toward Malasan. “I promise you, after the war, the Kings will have forgotten all about you.”

  “Ibrahim, I need to find her.”

  “Need to find them, you mean.”

  Ibrahim knew. He was referring to the Enclave, a group of wizards who hid among the populace of Sharakhai, who’d long ago banded together for mutual protection against the Kings’ aggressions. They were precisely who Davud needed to find. Still, he left Ibrahim’s comment unacknowledged.

  “You’re still with the woman you escaped with? Anael?”

  “Anila. And no. She died three weeks ago.”

  Whatever words of advice Ibrahim had been about to impart died on his lips. “I’m sorry to hear we share in our sorrows. What happened?”

  Anila wasn’t dead, but he couldn’t have Ibrahim, or anyone else for that matter, knowing so. The more who thought she’d succumbed to her nature as a necromancer, the better.

  “She was wounded badly in Ishmantep. It was her desire for revenge that had kept her alive in the House of Kings, but when we escaped . . .” Davud shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t enough.”

  Ibrahim nodded as if he understood. “Your time in Ishmantep was terrible, I’m certain. As was your time in the palaces.” He leaned in as his gaze swept over the other patrons and the street beyond. “But now you’re free. There’s no need to go meddling with people who would just as soon swallow you whole.”

  “It isn’t so much that I want to,” Davud said evenly. “I need to. If I don’t, they’ll find me, and I can’t have that. I won’t.”

  The sound of clopping hooves rose up on a nearby street. Dozens of horses were galloping through the city, likely a squad of Silver Spears or several hands of Blade Maidens. Davud sat up straighter, ready to run if need be, but thankfully the sounds began to recede.

  Ibrahim set down his cup. “Would you like to know what I think?”

  “I would.”

  “I may have heard rumor of a man speaking to the storytellers of this city. If the rumors are true, he’s spoken to at least seven, and each time he’s asked after the Enclave. Sometimes using the name Dilara. Other times Esmeray. Or Esrin. Those three magi are said to live in or near the Shallows.” Ibrahim’s gaze circled the sky for a moment. “Near this very tea house, in fact. But it’s curious . . .”

  “What’s curious?”

  “The likelihood of the storytellers having direct contact with any of those people is slim, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Davud replied easily. “Storytellers know quite a few people.”

  “They also tell tales.”

  “And?”

  “I think you’re using them. I think you’re trying to spread the word, so that the Enclave comes to you.”

  Davud smiled. “As I said, I need to find them.”

  Ibrahim leaned so far back in his chair Davud thought he might tip over, then linked his fingers over his stomach. “The Enclave demand loyalty from those who join their ranks. They enforce it through blood. They’re hardly better than the gangs of thieves who run the Shallows.”

  Hardly better than the Kings, either, Davud thought, but what am I to do? “Are you telling me you have no way of reaching Dilara?”

  “None.”

  “Could you ask around?”

  “I could, Davud, but I won’t. I didn’t live to see my wife led to the farther fields in her old age by taking risks like that.”

  The other storytellers had been reticent as well, but a few of them, Davud was certain, would ask around, perhaps even spin his tale in the oud parlors over a glass of araq. Ibrahim was an exception, though. He knew Davud. Knew his family as well. He was trying to be protective, but if he knew how much trouble Davud was already in, he’d see that the Enclave was by far the lesser of the two dangers. It’s certain King Sukru hasn’t given up, Davud thought. He’s still chasing me, and if I’m not careful, I’ll land myself back in his clutches. He refused to share it with Ibrahim, though. The chances of the Kings somehow learning of it and coming for Ibrahim were simply too high. They still had their Kings of Whispers, after all.

  Davud stood, leaving more than enough coins to pay for their tea. “I’m sorry about Eva. I really did love her cookies.”

  “Me too,” Ibrahim replied with a sad, kind smile. “I’m sorry about Anila.”

  Davud left and wandered the city for a time. There was something about staying in one place that made him worry King Sukru would use his blood and come for him. He could still feel the prick of the needle as Sukru himself extracted it from his arm. How foolish he’d been to give it up, though he’d really had no choice.

  As he paced along the streets of Roseridge, he felt for the ward he’d placed around himself that morning using his blood and a combination of the sigils for search, magic, and warn. It was imperfect, he knew, but was designed to sense anyone near him who could use magic. He felt as if he were fishing, only for three very dangerous fish.

  He wandered until near nightfall and couldn’t decide if he was disappointed another day had passed without contact. Ready to head back to his room at last, he stood in line to head through the gates of the city’s outer wall, a thing that was becoming more difficult by the day as, if reports were true, the Malasani fleet crept closer to the city. There were still fifty people ahead of him when he felt a peculiar tingling at the base of his throat, like a bee had gotten trapped halfway to his stomach. The likelihood of a sting felt ever greater as the line slowed to a crawl. Some merchant woman who looked more Mirean than she did Sharakhani had been stopped while her hand-drawn cart was searched.

  Davud swiveled his blooding ring toward his palm and squeezed. He felt its bite, felt his own blood tickle along the folds of his skin. With one finger he traced a master sigil from the more basic signs for obfuscate and mortal man. As he felt the warmth of the spell taking effect, he stepped out of line and walked serenely forward.

  A bright-eyed baby girl looked up from the arms of her father and stared straight at him. An expression of discomfort passed over her face, then she began to cry. Her father shushed her, oblivious to the fact that the baby had somehow seen through Davud’s spell. Everyone else in the line was watching the merchant woman shout and point beyond the wall. “You see? There’s nothing there! I have to get home! My babies are sick!”

  Davud kept a steady pace. It wasn’t that the people in line couldn’t see him, it was that he’d fallen beneath their notice. The less power used, the better. But the tingling in his throat was growing stronger.

  As he neared the guards and the choke point beneath the gates, the woman’s cart was just being rolled away by a Silver Spear. A second soldier was leading her away by the arm. All eyes were on her, save for the guard who’d come to relieve the others and begin questioning the next in line. He stared straight at Davud, and Davud thought he’d managed to pierce the spell as well.

  But when Davud continued to walk with a steady pace beneath and beyond the looming gate, the Spear’s eyes moved back to the pair of men at the head of the line as if Davud were a captain of the guard and had every right to go where he wished. Davud breath
ed a sigh of relief and released the power of the spell.

  Forcing himself not to run, he entered the Red Crescent, the neighborhood surrounding the western harbor. Sunset was nearing as he reached a stone archway, the entrance to an old boneyard. He headed toward the back, where a fresh grave stood out from the others. The gravestone read: Here lies Fezek Fatim’ala: Poet, Playwright, Father, Friend. The tickle in Davud’s throat was now so strong he was forced to release the spell of detection lest it distract him. No sooner had he done so than the world tilted and spun around him.

  He tried to keep his balance. His arms windmilled like an inattentive child tripped by an unseen foot. But it was no use. He fell face first onto the fresh dirt. The vertigo didn’t abate. It was all he could do to roll over without throwing up. His breathing came heavy as a harvest ox.

  When a lone figure came into view beneath the archway—a woman, Davud thought, though he couldn’t be sure—his fear soared to new levels. He pierced the palm of his right hand with his blooding ring. Felt the prick on his skin. Felt hot blood flow. It was more than enough to cast a spell, but by the gods who breathe, the world was turning so quickly he couldn’t gather his thoughts.

  The feminine figure strode confidently forward and crouched beside Davud. The world began to slow, and he saw her clearly for the first time. A woman who’d seen twenty-five summers, perhaps, she had dark skin and wore a turban that gathered her many, many braids into two thick hunks that rolled down her back. On her cheeks and between her eyebrows were red tattoos, their designs like bittersweets, the bright, four-petaled flowers favored in many rites of spring. Davud didn’t need any of that to tell him who this was, though. The wild look in her eyes was enough. She was the crazed one. The zealot.

  “Esmeray,” he said, “I only wish to speak.”

  “A collegia scholar, awakened by Hamzakiir, taken by Sukru and since escaped the attention of the Kings.”

  “I only wish to speak.”

  “And little wonder, but I tell you”—she leaned forward, a blooding ring of her own on her thumb, and used the needle-sharp tip to press against Davud’s eyelid—“you aren’t welcome in the Enclave. Do you hear?”

  Davud cringed, sure she was about to put his eye out.

  Just then a dark figure wearing a hooded robe appeared in the arch of the boneyard’s entrance. It was Anila. Stepping beside her into the boneyard was a lanky man with arms long enough to encompass Davud’s entire family.

  Esmeray noticed. “Begone. This is no business of yours.”

  The lanky man lumbered ahead of Anila. Davud’s world, meanwhile, spun, righted itself, and spun again, making the man seem to lurch in queer and unexpected ways. He felt good and truly drunk.

  A tendril of darkness stretched between in Esmeray’s palms. “I told you to go.” With a low thrum the spell thickened. The tendril became a strand, the strand a thread, the thread a rope. Ever twisting, it seemed eager to be free of her control.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” the lurching man replied while picking up speed, “but I’m afraid I don’t have much of a choice in the matter.”

  The spell hummed as it flew through the air like a wriggling snake. It struck the man in the gut, and a sizzling sound filled the cramped space of the boneyard. Clothes and skin were blasted away, yet the man hardly lost a step. Esmeray’s eyes went wide as he loomed ever nearer. She clapped her palms and spread them while backing away, but tripped over a low grave marker. The lash of darkness she was forming flew harmlessly into a salmon-colored sky.

  The lumbering man was on her a moment later, gripping her wrist in one hand, her neck in the other. His hood fell back and his lank hair swayed as he thumped Esmeray’s head against the ground and she kicked and screamed. She clawed at his face with her free hand, but it was a losing battle. On the third strike, she went limp.

  Footsteps approached, lighter than the lumbering man’s. Davud lifted his head, still fighting the world as it lurched, to see Anila walking toward him wearing a dress of sapphire blue. The midnight skin of her face was largely hidden by her headdress and veil. A blanket was folded over one arm. She reached out to Davud with her free hand and pulled him to his feet. The vertigo was so strong that for long moments all he could do was take short breaths while pressing one hand to his stomach.

  “Time to get some answers?” Anila asked when he’d straightened up.

  She looked dead tired, but worse, seemed to be in pain. She was staving off the urges that had consumed her over the weeks since escaping Sukru’s palace. As always, he wished he could help, but this was well beyond his power. Reach the Enclave, he told himself for the hundredth time. Tell them our story, and they’ll help us.

  He nodded to her. “Time to get some answers.”

  Anila opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Her pain seemed to grow worse. Her lips and chin quivered badly. Tears collected in her bloodshot eyes. Ever since they’d learned of Hamzakiir’s death in the desert at the hands of the ehrekh, Guhldrathen, these episodes had grown worse. Her purpose, which had saved her from sure death in Ishmantep, had been her burning desire to see Hamzakiir dead. Robbed of her anger, her fight against the call of the farther fields was like a slow slide toward the edge of a cliff. Death was inevitable. It happened to all necromancers sooner or later.

  Unless I do something about it. Davud took her hand and squeezed. “Just a bit longer.”

  Anila nodded, then jutted her chin to Esmeray’s unconscious form. “Best we move quickly.”

  Davud couldn’t agree more. He knelt by Esmeray’s side, pierced the skin of her wrist with his blooding ring, and brought the wound to his lips. He felt a rush of power as he fed on her blood.

  The ghul was named Fezek, and he was beholden to Anila. She’d raised him in this very boneyard, his grave only a few paces away. His robe was burned, his skin as well, but his face held no look of pain. He studied everything Davud was doing with a look of naked wonder, then spoke in feathery tones. “Do you suppose, having drank her blood, her family will recognize you as one of their own in the farther fields?”

  “Be quiet,” Anila said.

  “He’s stealing a part of her soul, after all.” His voice sounded tattered and threadbare.

  “I said be quiet.”

  “Yes, who am I but the man you robbed of his afterlife? Why ever would you grant me the answer to one of life’s greatest riddles?”

  “That’s hardly one of life’s greatest riddles.”

  Fezek’s cloudy eyes were brimming with shock, the sort a stage performer might put on for the cheap seats in the back. “Surely you jest! With the answer to that one question, the riddle of our very nature might be unlocked!”

  “Be quiet,” Davud said. “Both of you.”

  Having swallowed enough of Esmeray’s blood, not only for what he needed to do now, but for the meeting that would soon take place, he dabbed a finger to the wound, collecting some of the blood.

  Fezek, meanwhile, muttered under his breath, something about wounds deeper than those that kill. The man was worse than a braying mule, but Davud forgave him for it. Whenever he annoyed Anila, she seemed to forget about her pain for a while. Besides, Anila was so weak, were they to lose Fezek, she might not have enough power to summon another ghul. Putting up with his millstone of a mouth was worth the protection he afforded them.

  Working quickly, Davud painted a sigil onto Esmeray’s forehead, combining guise with search. He negated them both by adding more precise arcs over it, the sigil for annul. It would be sufficient, he hoped, to hide Esmeray from those who would soon be searching for her. He drew another that would keep her in a state of sleep until he wished otherwise, then ran his thumb along her wrist. The wound closed with a sound like a skewer of goat being thrown on a smoking hot grill.

  Anila tossed the blanket she carried to Fezek, who caught it clumsily and wrapped Esmeray in its folds. Once he’
d hoisted her over his shoulder, the three of them left the boneyard and lost themselves in the shade-filled streets.

  Chapter 8

  ÇEDA’S LEGS WERE ON FIRE. Her throat burned. Her chest heaved like an oryx that had just slipped a pack of black laughers. She refused to slow down, though. Sümeya, still unconscious and badly wounded, lay on the makeshift litter Çeda was hauling. She hadn’t so much as groaned since Çeda strapped the zilijs together, laid Sümeya on it, and set out for Leorah’s yacht. With the moons set and true night fallen, Sümeya looked like one of the dead, and more and more Çeda felt like an undertaker delivering her to her grave.

  Beside her, the towering frame of Mavra’s son Sedef plodded along. They were a study in contrasts: Çeda’s pace uneven, Sedef’s rock steady; Çeda glancing back to Sümeya constantly, Sedef with eyes fixed forward but taking childlike care to ensure that Melis, cradled in his long arms, was as comfortable as he could make her.

  The rest of the asirim, including Mavra, followed a quarter-league back. They were wary of the open desert, and shaken by their confrontations, first with Çeda and then King Beşir. Better they remain back. The other women, those of the thirteenth tribe who’d agreed to accompany Çeda, had been told what to expect from the asirim, but meeting them face to face was another thing entirely. Better for them to meet Sedef first, to ease their transition. Çeda would introduce Mavra and the rest of her kin later.

  Little time had passed since Beşir’s attack. Çeda supposed she should count herself lucky—they might all have been killed and the asirim returned to their graves beneath the adichara—yet still she was angry Beşir had slipped through her grasp. Sedef’s mighty throw of the adichara branch had nearly rid Sharakhai of another King. And just after, she’d missed taking his head from his neck by a whisper. While tending to Sümeya and Melis, she had reached out, trying to sense his presence again, the whole time fearing the return of his rain of black arrows, but there’d been nothing. Wherever he’d gone, he was too far away to sense.