As the crunch of their footsteps faded, Çeda and Sümeya sat cross-legged on the sand. There was no real reason for either of them to have come—tonight’s mission was Emre’s to complete—but Çeda and Sümeya both wanted to witness the gathering for themselves, to gauge what they were up against.
When Emre and Frail Lemi had been reduced to tiny silhouettes in the distance, Sümeya said, “You seem glum.”
“I am.” Çeda waved to the ships. “This was Macide’s greatest wish, to see the tribes banded together for mutual protection and prosperity. He championed the Alliance to all who would listen, and convinced many shaikhs to join on his own, but didn’t live to see his plans come to fruition.”
Sümeya’s history was deeply linked to Sharakhai and its Kings. Her father was Husamettín, the King of Swords himself. Husamettín was Çeda’s father, too, though she hadn’t discovered that until recently and hadn’t known him growing up. In Çeda’s eyes, he was a despot and nothing more. Sümeya, on the other hand, had been a faithful servant to the Kings for most of her life, which made it more than a little surprising when she said, “A pity he didn’t live to see this day.”
“Perhaps he sees it from the land beyond,” Çeda said with a sad smile.
“Perhaps.”
Sümeya lapsed into silence. Her hands began to fidget. She seemed to be avoiding Çeda’s eye, and she’d been silent and stiff on the sail in. Sümeya was normally so direct. She was starting to make Çeda nervous.
“Care to tell me what’s bothering you?” Çeda asked.
Sümeya sighed. “I should have said something sooner.”
The nervousness inside of Çeda intensified. “Should have said what sooner?”
Finally Sümeya did meet Çeda’s gaze. “I think we made a mistake in coming here.”
For a moment, Çeda was caught flat-footed—that wasn’t at all what she’d thought Sümeya had been about to say. “You agreed this was the right course.”
“I know, but seeing it with my own eyes . . . Knowing how much power Hamid has already gathered . . . If he has Zaghran by his side, he’ll have more shaikhs besides. He may have everything he needs to declare war before you set foot in their camp.”
“You’d have me walk away?”
“Yes.”
“I need the acacia, Sümeya. I need its visions.”
“You don’t even know if you can command it. You said so yourself.”
“I said I wasn’t sure,” Çeda countered, “but I was there when Nalamae used it. I felt her coaxing visions from it so she could learn about her former selves and piece herself back together.”
“Feeling her use of it and controlling the tree yourself are two different things.”
“I can only say it in so many ways.” Çeda flexed her right hand. She felt the dull pain there, felt the desert through it. “I feel a part of that tree. It will listen to me. I’m sure of it.”
“Wouldn’t we be better off searching for Nalamae? She must have learned more by now. She must have a plan. We can help her.”
“We could if we knew how to find her. But we don’t. And the fact that she hasn’t found us tells me she’s not ready for our help. Or that she’d find us a distraction.”
No one had seen the goddess since she’d disappeared in the old stone fort below Mount Arasal. Rumors spoke of her sudden appearance in Mazandir and a terrible battle with Goezhen, but beyond that no one knew her current whereabouts—or if she was even alive.
“If she’s anywhere”—Sümeya flung a hand east—“she’s in Sharakhai. Or near it. She must be.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Even if I’m wrong, we’d do better adding our strength to the Kings’. We need to regain control over the city.”
Çeda jutted her chin toward the distant ships. “What good would regaining the city do us if we immediately lose it to the tribes?” Before Sümeya could argue the point, Çeda went on. “I must go to the acacia.”
“If you must,” Sümeya said, “then let’s steal into the mountains and visit the acacia at night.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
Stunned, Sümeya swung her gaze to the fleet of ships. “No more dangerous than walking into the jaws of a lion.”
In the distance, light flared against the hulls of the outer line of ships—probably from someone tossing araq onto a fire. “Leave now, and Hamid’s ideology is likely to take hold. I can’t let that happen. What the people of the desert need now is truth and hope, and that’s precisely what I mean to give them.”
Sümeya looked like she wanted to argue further, but she held her silence. After wrestling with her emotions for a time, she seemed to resign herself to the fact that Çeda wasn’t going to change her mind. “I had to try.”
“I understand,” Çeda said, “and I appreciate it. I appreciate everything, Sümeya. I’ve never said so directly, but I know how much you gave up in order to help the thirteenth tribe. Melis and Kameyl as well. I’ll never forget it.”
“It was the right thing to do.” In a rare show of emotion, Sümeya gripped Çeda’s hand. “But thank you for saying so.”
Time passed. Çeda was content to listen to the music and sounds of revelry. So, apparently, was Sümeya. Çeda was surprised to see how far the moons had traveled across the star-strewn sky before they spotted Emre and Frail Lemi returning.
Çeda didn’t mean to, but she sensed Sümeya’s heart beat more rapidly. Her sense of it, however, was quickly suppressed. Sümeya was consciously trying to mask it.
“I’m happy for you,” Sümeya said.
And suddenly the host of butterflies had returned. Çeda knew precisely what she meant. She was touching on the very subject Çeda thought she’d been ready to broach earlier.
“Thank you,” Çeda said awkwardly.
“And I’m sorry”—Sümeya breathed deeply—“about what happened between us.”
She meant their romantic encounters. The first had been before they knew they were half sisters, the second had been after. For Çeda’s part, she’d never seen Sümeya as a sister. She still didn’t. Not really. They’d grown up in completely different worlds, neither aware the other even existed until Çeda had arrived at the gates of the House of Maidens, poisoned and near death.
“I regret parts of it as well.” Çeda reached out in turn and gripped Sümeya’s hand. “But I don’t regret meeting you. Your heart is good, Sümeya. You are true child of Sharakhai, one of its brightest jewels.”
Sümeya said nothing in reply, but she squeezed Çeda’s hand back, and soon Emre and Frail Lemi had arrived and the four of them were sailing back toward the Red Bride and Storm’s Eye.
“So?” Çeda prompted as they sidled over a dune.
Emre, sitting at the tiller, told them how he had gone in to speak to the shaikhs he knew while Frail Lemi waited in the darkness.
“We have five votes,” he finished, “and Aríz thinks he can get us a sixth.”
“We only need one more,” Frail Lemi said proudly, though he hadn’t actually done anything to help.
“I couldn’t reach Shaikh Neylana, but we’ll sail back in tomorrow and . . .” Emre’s words trailed away as his gaze shifted from Çeda to Sümeya and back again. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You two are acting weird.”
“Are we?” Çeda asked.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sümeya said with mock sincerity.
When Emre’s face turned sour as a Malasani lime, Sümeya smiled then burst into laughter. Çeda laughed too, which only served to make Sümeya laugh harder. Frail Lemi laughed with them, though it was clear he had no idea why. Emre just rolled his eyes and worked the tiller to guide them around a large dune.
All the while, the music of the gathered tribes slowly faded behind them.
Chapter 10
Meryam headed down a ladder into the hold of The Gray Gull, the grisly sloop she’d purchased. Amaryllis followed. On Meryam’s orders, her crew had remained on the yacht they’d used to ferry Goezhen’s body from Mazandir—she needed silence if she was going to make headway with the task she’d set for herself.
Within the hold, the sounds of the harbor were muted. Light canted in through half-open shutters, illuminating the object that dominated the space: Goezhen’s body, which they’d transferred to the Gull a few days back. The corpse looked horrific, a nightmare come to life. Goezhen’s skin was shriveled like a prune and graying. His cheeks were drawn. The pits of his eyes were deep and his cloudy white eyes gave the impression that he was staring at Meryam from beyond death, promising pain and misery for treating his remains like some alchemycal ingredient.
The god had been dead for months, and yet the threat seemed real, which made Meryam feel inadequate to the task she’d set for herself. She quickly smothered the feeling. Goezhen represented a chance to regain her power. He was the key to her taking control over the desert and the lands beyond. All she need do was unlock a few more precious secrets.
Tulathan had made clear that if Meryam hoped to claim the desert as her own, Goezhen’s remains were an essential component. Except she hadn’t said how. Meryam had puzzled over it for days, becoming angry and frustrated that the goddess hadn’t divulged more. In time, her anger faded and the reason for Tulathan’s reticence became clear: the gods couldn’t meddle in the affairs of mortals. Do that and they bound themselves to this world, which would prevent them from crossing over to the farther fields.
Meryam was well aware that if she succeeded in her plans with Goezhen, it would further their goals.
So be it, she thought.
The gods could go to the farther fields if they wished. They would leave behind a desert ripe for the taking. Without their influence, it would be that much easier to secure Sharakhai, retake Qaimir’s throne from King Hektor, and move on to the other neighboring kingdoms. It would be the beginning of the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
Amaryllis stepped across the deck, avoiding the piles of Adzin’s oddities they’d culled from the sloop’s passageways and cabins. Staring at Goezhen with an inscrutable expression, Amaryllis ran a hand over the stubby remains of one horn. It had been shorn free by Nalamae during their battle in Sharakhai’s northern harbor. The other was still intact. Bumpy and ridged, it curved up and around Goezhen’s great head, one half of a ram’s crown.
“What of the fears of the Sharakhani Kings?” Amaryllis asked. “They say the gateway could destroy the city.”
“That’s the Kings sowing seeds of doubt,” Meryam replied as she sat on an overstuffed pillow. “They hope those seeds take root and force Queen Alansal to listen to their demands.”
After the city had been taken, Kings Ihsan and Husamettín, the only two remaining of the original twelve, had sent Queen Alansal a message consisting of two parts. The first was an urgent warning that meddling with the glimmering gateway below the Sun Palace could result in the destruction of the city. The second was an offer to cease hostilities that together they might solve the mystery that plagued Sharakhai, namely how to safely close the gate. It was an invitation that, so far, at least, Queen Alansal seemed disinclined to accept.
Amaryllis sat on another pillow and took up a piece of driftwood from one of the nearby piles. “What if they’re right?”
“They aren’t.”
“But what if they are?”
Meryam looked up at her. “They aren’t.”
Amaryllis forced a smile. “Of course, my queen.”
As Amaryllis used a magnifying glass to inspect the driftwood, Meryam couldn’t help but think that Amaryllis might one day turn on her, as both Ramahd and Basilio had done, but she refused to dwell on it. If she couldn’t trust Amaryllis, she could trust no one. Instead, she focused on the piles of oddments before her. They’d spent days searching through them all, and they were far from done. So far, they’d identified a dozen that were linked to Ashael and to the pit in the desert that Adzin referred to as the Hollow.
A hundred more still needed deciphering and categorizing. They had to take care not to overlook clues. Doing so could lead to failure, either in trying to raise Ashael or in controlling him once raised.
Meryam took up a bent awl with dark stains on it. Using a magnifying glass, she read the words along the rounded end of the wooden handle.
The ifin are attracted to silver, as many demons are, but they are particularly attracted to coins. If one hopes the ifins will do one’s bidding, a steeping of the coin in the fate of the supplicant is necessary. There was no explanation of how one might “steep” a coin in the fate of the supplicant.
Setting the awl on the pile of items with no link to Ashael, Meryam took up another, the spiral tip of a narwhal tusk. Along one curving trench was more of Adzin’s script: Ivory is the key to the wakeful mind.
It was part of a longer passage from the Al’Ambra. Ivory is the key to the wakeful mind, horn the key to dreaming. It referenced the way the elder gods first entered the world. Some stepped through gates of ivory: the gods of perception, logic, and fact. Others came through gates of horn: the gods of dreaming, creativity, and ambition. So they came, read the Al’Ambra, and so the living were made.
She set the tusk on the same pile as the awl, then pinched the bridge of her nose. “Mighty Alu, his script is difficult to read.”
Amaryllis nodded without looking up from the grisly string of fingernails she was inspecting. “At least he was neat.”
They worked for several more hours and were nearing the last of the macabre curiosities when Amaryllis breathed, “By the gods . . .”
With a look of sheer wonder, she handed Meryam a hulking silver ring with a setting of what looked to be children’s teeth. It’s inner surface held an inscription: A half day’s sail from Sharakhai at twelve knots steady, on a bearing toward the setting sun at the autumnal equinox, will a plateau of rock be found. A short walk in the same direction delivers one to a circle of standing stones. The Hollow lies within.
Meryam knew she should be pleased but could only stare at the ring with a feeling of numbness.
“I thought you’d be happy,” Amaryllis said.
“I am, but . . .” Meryam took up another item from the pile. “Let’s just finish.”
Amaryllis paused, then took up a compass with what looked to be bloodstains on its glass face. “Very well.”
They went through the last of the items, but it went precisely as Meryam feared.
“What’s wrong, my queen?” she waved to the silver ring beside Meryam. “It’s good news, is it not?”
“The location of the Hollow does us no good if we don’t know how to control Ashael.”
“We’ll find it,” she said, but her tone made it clear that she, too, thought it unlikely they could find a way to raise and control an elder god.
They spent hours going through every item again. The sunlight through the shutters shifted from port to starboard. The rays of light crawled up the wall and faded by the time they were done. As Meryam had feared, they discovered nothing new of value.
“Fetch me a lamp,” Meryam said to her, “then get some rest.”
“You should rest as well.”
“I will.” She waved toward the piles before her. “I only wish to look a few of them over again.”
Amaryllis didn’t look convinced, but she left anyway and returned with a lantern, a cup and ewer of water, a bowl of nuts and dried fruit to see Meryam through the night, and a shawl, which she lay around Meryam’s shoulders. “May Alu shine his light on you.”
She headed up the stairs, leaving Meryam alone with the two piles of curiosities: one pitifully small, with writings that shed light on where Ashael’s body could be
found and how Adzin had profited from it; the second staggeringly large with notes on other magical minutiae, some practically useless, others tantalizingly powerful, all of which had no relevance Meryam could discern to the problem at hand.
After sipping some water and stuffing a handful of the dried fruit and nuts into her mouth, Meryam set to again, going through each item and considering it in a dozen different ways before setting it aside. She tried the pile of relevant objects first, and felt comfortable that not only could she find the Hollow, she could perform many of the rituals Adzin described. None would help her with her true goal, however, so she moved on to the second pile.
The sounds of industry in the harbor faded, replaced by the sounds of revelry and music as sailors and work crews visited the oud parlors, the brothels, the inns. Eventually that faded too, leaving Meryam feeling cold and alone. As it should be, she mused, for what am I if not cold and alone?
The sun was just rising as she came to the narwhal tusk once more. Ivory is the key to the wakeful mind.
She read it over and over again, considering Ashael, how long he’d been there, the state the elder gods might have left him in.
“He’s dreaming,” Meryam said to the empty hold.
Outside, the harbor was waking. A mule brayed. Mallets thudded rhythmically. A woman yawned, an exaggerated sound that was followed by tired laughter and muted conversation. Meryam, meanwhile, stood. She held the tusk before her, her mind running wild.
“What is it?” Amaryllis stood at the foot of the stairs holding two steaming mugs of jasmine tea. Her eyes were dark, her curly hair wild.
Meryam held the tusk toward her. “Ashael is dreaming.”
Amaryllis blinked. “And?”
“And we have to wake him.” She went up the stairs, and fetched both hers and Amaryllis’s chadors. After wrapping hers around her head, she handed the other to Amaryllis, who accepted it with a confused look.
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