Neylana blew out a long trail of smoke, then took up the glass of citrine liquor beside her, downed it, and held out the empty glass. As a woman with gold chains running from her left ear to a piercing in her nostril knelt and refilled Neylana’s glass, Emre stepped close enough to be seen.
Neylana’s eyes passed over him, then snapped back. The wrinkles around her mouth and eyes deepened as she frowned. Emre tilted his head toward the nearby pavilion, a request to speak. The nod she gave in return was aggrieved, as if his very presence was a curse laid on her by a vengeful desert spirit. As he backed away from the fire, she stood unsteadily and smoothed the skirt of her crimson jalabiya. “Keep the fire warm for me.”
Raised glasses all around. A bow from the handsome tale spinner.
She tottered toward Emre, her movements loosening up the longer she walked. “Around the back,” she said without so much as looking at him. She continued toward the pavilion’s entrance, where two sentries with spears pulled the flaps wide. “Out!” she called as she headed inside. The sound of people rushing from the tent followed.
By the time Emre reached the rear of the pavilion, the ties to one of the support poles were being undone and the canvas wall was lifting up. After a glance to make sure no one was watching, Emre dropped to the sand and rolled through the gap.
“You’re a bloody fool for coming here,” Neylana said in a soft voice.
Emre stood and brushed the sand from his clothes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
The pavilion’s interior was lit by several oil lamps made of colorful blown glass. Neylana motioned to a circle of carpets, and they sat.
“I know why you’ve come,” Neylana began. Her eyelids were heavy from the tabbaq, but the set of her jaw and lips made it clear how wary she was, how defensive. “The thirteenth tribe is young, and already it’s been turned upside down. I’ve no doubt you’re here to drum up support for Çedamihn, but things have changed since you and I last spoke.”
“Have they, really?” As he spoke, he ticked things off on his fingers. “Sharakhai is still threatened by her neighbors. The desert tribes have now allied, as we knew they would. Hamid remains a threat to both.”
“It’s revenge you’ve come for, then?”
“Justice, not revenge. But I come for deeper reasons besides.”
“Oh?” Neylana’s eyes blinked slowly. “Enlighten me.”
“We’re fighting for something that goes beyond tribes. Beyond cities in the desert.” He motioned to the pavilion walls, toward the sounds of revelry. “Everything we know is threatened.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“You think so? I could tell you tales about the vault in Sharakhai. I could tell you about the crystal that shattered, having been fed the blood of the thirteenth tribe for centuries. I could tell you about the pair of brave souls who stepped through and even now prevent the gods from completing the plan they formed long before Beht Ihman. Hamid must pay for his crimes, but we look beyond that. We need access to the valley so Çeda can use the acacia. We need to inform the shaikhs about the real threats to the desert so that we can stop the plans of the gods.”
“Are Malasan and Mirea not real threats?”
“They are. And both must be shown that the desert is not theirs to take. But what Hamid wants is slaughter. He’ll kill us all if he gets the chance. He’ll do the same to Sharakhai.”
“The Kings had too much power.”
“I don’t disagree. The Kings wielded their power ruthlessly. But that doesn’t mean I want to see Sharakhai burn. It doesn’t mean I want to see her people starved and dying of thirst.”
A strange transition overcame Neylana in the moments that followed. She’d always struck Emre as a rock, a woman who stuck to her convictions. He’d never thought he’d see her look ashamed. “Sharakhai has earned its fate,” she said after a time.
“Those are Hamid’s words.”
“So what if they are?”
Emre took a deep breath. He was worried about pushing Neylana too hard. She might react badly, but he judged she needed pushing. She had to be shown the consequences of what she was considering. “I know what Hamid told you and the other shaikhs during your first council.”
Neylana’s jaw jutted. “Been speaking to Aríz, I see.”
“Hamid plans to destroy the aqueduct,” he continued, neither acknowledging nor denying the accusation. “He wants to tear down the reservoir walls and poison the wells that remain. He plans to harry Mirea and Malasan’s supply lines and force them to retreat. He’ll starve the city. With a dry winter coming, every man, woman, and child would be dead before spring.”
Aríz had told Emre more. He’d said the hardline shaikhs stood beside Hamid. The others had been given two days to consider their decision, which gave Emre and Çeda only a very short time in which to turn things around.
“Aríz plans to deny Hamid’s request,” Emre explained. “Shaikh Dayan is inclined to do the same, but the others are pressuring him, saying they’ll be considered the enemy should they withhold support for the coming assault. They were promised a thirteenth of the plunder if they agree: the riches of Sharakhai will be spread among the tribes while the city itself turns to dust.”
The words lingered in the air between them. Outside the pavilion there were whistles as the storyteller finished his tale.
“I assume you were given the same ultimatum,” Emre prodded.
“What if I was?”
“Countless thousands would perish. Beyond its base cruelty, you’d be succumbing to the gods’ plan. You can’t give in to Hamid’s demands.”
Neylana’s crow’s feet deepened as she frowned. “You don’t understand how dire things have grown in the south. Our caravans are plundered by the Malasani and Kundhuni raiders. Our young have been taken by a disease we don’t know how to fight. My physic tells me it passed through Malasan decades ago, and that the Malasani invasion has delivered it to us. I resisted the Alliance for a time, as you know, but that was before our mountain resting lands were struck by drought.” The sheer desperation in her voice was palpable. “I need this. My people need this.”
“No,” Emre said flatly. “What Hamid is talking about is genocide. It will stain the honor of Tribe Kenan for a thousand generations.”
“You would have us stand aside?”
“I would have you help us to save Sharakhai before it’s too late!” Neylana opened her mouth to speak, but Emre talked over her. “I’ve seen the gateway with my own eyes, Shaikh Neylana. I’ve seen the dead come back to life. I’ve seen the souls depart the living. If you wish for a future for your people, for all the people of the desert, we must find another way.”
“And how do I feed my people in the meantime?”
“Together,” Emre said. “We do it together.”
“What do you want from me, Emre Aykan’ava? State it plainly.”
“I’m heading back into the desert tonight. Tomorrow, I will return with Çeda. She’s going to demand a tribunal for Hamid to answer for his crimes. We need seven shaikhs to vote to authorize it.”
Neylana nodded. “And how do you think you’re to prove his crimes to the satisfaction of the tribunal?”
“Let us worry about that. What I need is your assurance that you’ll vote for the tribunal to be convened.”
Outside, music played. Just beyond the pavilion doors, a boy laughed, then screamed gleefully as he was chased over the sand.
“You have six votes,” Neylana realized. “I’m the seventh.”
“Yes.”
She waved one arm, encompassing the empty pavilion. “I don’t see Aríz beside you. I don’t see Dayan. What makes you think you can convince me alone?”
“Because I’ve seen your heart.” He rose from the pillows and stepped away, toward the gap where he’d snuck in. “I knew you would do the right t
hing in the end.” He crouched down, ready to leave, but paused. “We’re going to see this through. You, me, and all the rest. The desert will live to see a brighter day.”
“I hope you’re right, Emre Aykan’ava.”
“You’ll agree then? We have your vote?”
“I’ll agree to the tribunal. The rest is up to you.”
Emre smiled. “Be ready for us tomorrow.”
With that he slipped back under the canvas and into the night. He didn’t feel optimistic, precisely, but he no longer felt pessimistic. It was with that lighter mood that he headed toward a nearby schooner, ready to return to Frail Lemi. All thoughts of Neylana and the tribunal vanished, however, when he caught a glimpse of the bonfire. On the far side, sitting cross-legged on the sand, was Darius, Hamid’s companion, his lover. Surely Hamid wouldn’t be far.
Another heartbeat passed before Emre saw him. Hamid’s husky frame loomed over Aríz as the two of them spoke. Aríz looked like he was trying his best to control his emotions. Hamid, on the other hand, was red-faced, angry. Likely he was trying to browbeat Aríz into agreeing to his demands. Emre could hardly think about the council, though, or Sharakhai’s fate. Visions of Hamid throwing sand over him suddenly loomed within his mind. He heard the shovel’s rhythmic crunch. The thump as the sand was thrown on top of him. He felt the terror of realizing he was being buried alive.
His heart pumped madly. His hands shook. He balled them into fists, trying and failing to calm himself. Nearby stood a weapons rack holding spears, shields, and unstrung bows. Quivers of arrows hung from hooks. He could take up one of the bows, put an arrow through Hamid’s heart and slip into the night with no one the wiser.
Except he’d promised Çeda he wouldn’t.
“Kill him,” she’d said to Emre, “and he’ll become a martyr.”
Emre had been in a vengeful mood, fueled by too much araq. “Kill him,” he’d replied, “and his allies will lose heart.”
“No,” Çeda said flatly. “This is a war of ideas. Those ideas will not be snuffed out by the edge of a blade or on the point of an arrow. Hamid’s allies must led to see reason, not blind hatred.”
A deep voice called out behind Emre. “Who are you, friend?”
Emre turned to find a tribesman with a long beard and a plethora of blue face tattoos standing near the pavilion he’d just left. Emre recognized him. He was one of the sentries who’d opened the pavilion flaps for Neylana.
“I asked you a question.” The sentry stepped closer, his face hardening. “I heard you scurrying about like a dune mouse. Are you a spy, come to listen in on our shaikh?”
It was a relief he hadn’t seen Emre sneaking out from the pavilion—the fewer who knew his purpose, the better—but the sentry was clearly not going to let this go.
“I’m no spy,” Emre said while stepping back.
The sentry mirrored his movements. “Then why are you sneaking around Neylana’s tent?”
With the danger of being recognized growing by the moment, Emre turned and walked faster toward open sand. “I’m no spy.”
As the sentry’s footsteps quickened, Emre ran. He was just passing the ship’s stern, ready to sprint for the darkness, when a large figure rushed in from his left. He was certain it was the second sentry, but it wasn’t. It was Frail Lemi.
In a blur of movement, Frail Lemi crashed his fist into the sentry’s face. The man dropped like a tree and lay there unmoving. For a moment, Emre feared he was dead, but then, thank the gods for small favors, he saw the man’s chest rising and falling with breath.
“I told you to wait,” Emre hissed.
“I did.” Frail Lemi shrugged. “Then I started to get worried.”
That was when Emre saw what he was holding in his left hand. A bottle of araq. “Worried you weren’t going to get any bloody araq, you mean.”
With a wide grin that looked ghastly by the dim light of the bonfire, Frail Lemi held the bottle up. “Sometimes we make our own fate.”
“Lemi . . .”
Frail Lemi popped the cork and took a swig. “Try it.” He held the bottle out to Emre. “It’s not half bad.”
But Emre ignored the bottle. He turned instead and stalked toward the darkness. When Frail Lemi caught up to him and held the bottle out again, however, he realized the memories of being buried beneath the sand were still haunting him. He swiped the bottle and downed a healthy swallow.
Frail Lemi was right. It wasn’t half bad. He took another swallow then handed the bottle back.
Lemi took it with a chuckle, and the two of them walked into the night.
Chapter 13
In the captain’s cabin of his king’s capital ship, Ramahd sat beside the ghul, Fezek. King Hektor sat in a large, throne-like chair. Basilio Baijani, the pompous Qaimiri lord who’d once served as an advisor to Meryam but who now gave counsel to King Hektor, stood behind him, listening with only half an ear. Fezek was just finishing his tale of seeing Meryam’s crew hauling Goezhen’s rotting corpse onto a yacht before sailing away from Mazandir.
If Hektor seemed concerned by Fezek’s story, Basilio seemed bored. He held an orange-scented kerchief to his nose, some small defense against the scent of Fezek’s decay. Pulling the kerchief away momentarily, he asked, “How can our king be sure any of this is true?”
“Because I will vouch for Fezek,” Ramahd replied. In truth, he wasn’t all that surprised at Basilio’s reaction. The courage he’d shown in betraying Meryam for the greater good of their country had long since vanished. “You know Meryam as well as any of us. Do you think it beyond her?”
“The question isn’t whether Meryam would do it,” Basilio countered, “but whether Tulathan truly came down and spoke to her. If all you and your”—the kerchief came and went like a startled firefinch—“friend have told us is true, she has no more ability to command magic than I do.”
What could Ramahd say? “The fates work in strange ways.”
“An elder god, though?” Hektor waved toward the desert. “Assuming Ashael remained in our world, and I’m not convinced he did, how could a woman like Meryam, powerless as you freely admit, hope to raise him?”
“I don’t know, but you saw what happened with the crystal. You witnessed the vault’s creation.”
“What does that have to do with Ashael?”
“If everything Çeda and King Ihsan said is true—”
“If,” Basilio interjected.
Ramahd took a deep breath. “If it’s true, and the gods must take care to meddle as little as possible in the affairs of mortals, then what better way to keep their distance than to manipulate a woman with a deep knowledge of the arcane?”
Basilio looked contemplative. “Let’s allow the scenario to play out, shall we? Assuming the elder gods left Ashael behind, they did so for a reason. They didn’t want an evil like that tainting their new world. The young gods must know this.”
King Hektor, still holding Ramahd’s gaze, tipped his head toward Basilio. “It does seem a rather foolhardy gambit, Ramahd. Why would they be so desperate?”
“Perhaps they fear the gateway will soon close. Perhaps they’re convinced they can’t pass to the land beyond on their own. Whatever the reason, the fact that they would use a long-buried evil, a being that stained the earth with every step he took—”
“Oh, that’s a nice turn of phrase.” A quill and ink at hand, Fezek began writing in his book.
Stifling his annoyance, Ramahd went on. “That they would use even Ashael proves they’ll resort to anything to get their way.”
“I say we let them!” Basilio said. “Who cares if the desert gods leave? What does it matter to Qaimir if they rouse an elder to do it? When it’s done, the world will be rid of a being that, in your own words, stained the earth with every step he took.”
“What Çeda and her friends uncovered—”
Basilio rolled his eyes. “My King, the trust he places in a traitor to her own land . . .”
Ramahd focused on King Hektor, if only to avoid wrapping his hands around Basilio’s neck. “What Çeda and her friends uncovered was that the gods’ passage would wreak untold devastation.”
“Excellence,” Basilio said, “these are presumptions from a poem that is four hundred years old.”
Ramahd couldn’t take it anymore. He stared straight into Basilio’s round, red-cheeked face. “A poem that has provided untold insights into the Sharakhani Kings. A poem that led to their downfall. A poem that allowed the asirim to be freed. Its verses have yielded truth after truth.”
“Granted, and yet, as you’ve admitted in the past, the Kings not only suppressed it, they planted false verses. How do we know this isn’t another?”
“Because it feels true.”
Basilio’s condescending laugh filled the cabin. “It feels true. My King, are we to remain in this accursed land because Lord Amansir has had a feeling?”
Ramahd sat back down so that he was once again eye-to-eye with Hektor. “Your Excellence, Meryam is our responsibility. She has yet to pay for what she’s done, both to our country and the desert. Let us go to the Hollow. Let us stop her. Let us bring her home to face justice. Meryam is a stain on our country’s history. It’s time we turn the page on it.”
Fezek’s cloudy eyes brightened. “Oh, that’s good as well!”
“Fezek—” Ramahd snapped, then took a deep, calming breath. “Please, my King.”
“Our soldiers, our people, are waiting to go home, Ramahd.”
Ramahd sat there, stunned. Hektor was still a young man. Together they’d taken great risks to stop Meryam in Sharakhai. Since becoming king, however, he’d lost his sense of daring, always preferring the safer path. It was due in large part to Basilio, who for some reason Hektor had allowed to counsel him. Even so, Ramahd still hadn’t expected words like these from Hektor’s mouth.
A Desert Torn Asunder Page 11