A Desert Torn Asunder

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “There is a war on, my King,” Ramahd said.

  “A war in which Qaimir no longer has a part.”

  “But it does. It must! The people of Sharakhai depend on it.”

  Basilio sniffed. “Let them take care of themselves.”

  “They can’t. Not with Mirea occupying their city. Not with the Malasani hounding their royal navy across the desert.”

  Hektor licked his lips, clearly conflicted. When he glanced up at Basilio, however, his eyes hardened, which made Ramahd’s gut sink like a stone. “I’m sorry, Ramahd. We’re leaving. Our fleet is going home.”

  “Let me take my ship, at least. Let me see what Meryam is about and—”

  “But it isn’t your ship,” Hektor said, his voice harder now. “It’s mine, and I forbid you to use it. We will remain here until the last of our ships arrive, and then we’ll set sail. All of us, including you. Do you understand, Lord Amansir?”

  Ramahd steeled himself. “You are talking about genocide. About letting it happen.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic?” Basilio asked.

  Ramahd stared at him in disgust. “Did you learn nothing from your time as Meryam’s advisor?”

  It was Hektor, red in the face, who answered. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means he’s never been able to see beyond his own nose.” He swung his gaze to Hektor, who straightened in his chair as if he felt threatened. “I’m going to my ship, my King. If you won’t believe me, I’ll go. I’ll find the proof you need and bring it back to you.”

  He turned and left the cabin. After a pause, Fezek’s heavy footsteps followed.

  “Lord Amansir!” King Hektor called.

  Ramahd kept walking.

  “Lord Amansir!” He sounded angry now. Ramahd was taking the stairs up to the main deck by the time Hektor reached the cabin door. “Ramahd!”

  Ramahd turned. Hektor’s cheeks and forehead were red with anger, embarrassment, or both. Ramahd was certain he was about to be thrown in the brig. The longer the silence went on, however, the clearer it was that Hektor wasn’t ready to take that step. Not yet.

  “You’re willing to go this far?” Hektor asked. “You’re willing to risk your own lordship over this? Your land? Your own country?”

  “I am.”

  “Your life?”

  “Yes.”

  Behind Hektor, Basilio had puffed himself up like a pheasant preparing to take flight. “My King, you cannot—”

  He fell silent when Hektor raised a hand. The flush faded from Hektor’s cheeks as he sized Ramahd up. There was something in his eyes—respect, maybe even admiration—that revealed his answer before he opened his mouth.

  “Take your ship, then, Lord Amansir. See what you can learn about our former queen.”

  “Your Excellence!” Basilio gasped.

  But Hektor waved his concerns away. “Go,” he said to Ramahd, “before I change my mind.”

  “Thank you,” Ramahd said to him.

  “I owed you a debt, Lord Amansir. It is now repaid.” With that he closed the cabin door, leaving Ramahd feeling exposed and alone.

  So be it, Ramahd thought, and left the king’s ship with Fezek in tow.

  Chapter 14

  Davud stood in the room with bamboo pipes hanging from a vaulted ceiling. Around him, standing in a circle, were Queen Alansal’s water dancers. Water fell from the pipes, the sound of it like the rattle of windblown leaves. The air was cool but not cold, which in the desert was a rare and wonderful thing. The water dancers smiled, telling him without words that he was loved.

  Then everything changed.

  The falling water gained a violet tinge. The smell turned acrid. It was poison, Davud knew, yet instead of running from it, the dancers spread their arms wide, threw their heads back, and opened their mouths wide.

  The tainted water fell on their upturned faces, pattered against their tongues and into their open mouths. They screamed as the poison worked its way through their systems. They had just begun to crumple to their knees when Queen Alansal swept into the room, a demon in a red dress. One hand held high, she stormed toward Davud so swiftly he had no chance to stop her.

  The palm of her hand came down and struck his forehead. A scream unfurled as the burning pain sunk deep beneath his skull. He tore at the flat, oval stone she’d held, only to find it sunken beneath his skin.

  He tore his skin bloody trying to remove it, but the more flesh he cut, the deeper the stone went. The pain intensified, until it consumed him entirely.

  Davud woke in a great lurch, gulping for air, his breath fogging in front of him. He was curled on his side, his hands clutched over his forehead. He was cold. Very cold. Fortunately he still had on the thick clothes he’d been wearing when he’d entered Eventide, or he might have frozen in his sleep. He rolled over on the tiny cot, and saw the sunlight filtering into the cell through the tiny hole cut high into one wall. His head ached, particularly his forehead, but thankfully it was nothing like the dream. Only a dull headache, the sort that came from too much drink and too little water.

  When he touched his forehead, however, pain flared. He snatched his fingers away, remembering only then that Alansal really had slapped a stone against his forehead. Gods, it felt like he’d taken a flaming brand to the head. And the jade stone was still there, too, grafted to his skin.

  With ever-so-gentle movements, he probed the stone and the surrounding flesh. The stone had a smooth surface with subtle ridges. Any pressure sparked an intense pain that was slow in fading. Even so, he tried to remove it with a sharp tug.

  When he returned to consciousness some minutes later, the pain was spectacular. He didn’t so much as consider touching the stone again. Part of him feared he’d never wake up if he did. Instead, he lay still and let the pain fade.

  Eventually he was able to sit up. His head throbbed. It felt like one of the burly workmen in the rock quarry was taking a sledge hammer to it, and there was something more, he realized. He couldn’t touch his magic. He had no sense of it at all. It had likely been hours since he’d fallen to Queen Alansal’s assault. That was enough time for the blood he’d consumed to have faded beyond his being able to use it, but his sense of it shouldn’t have faded altogether.

  His ability to sense magic had been taken from him, he understood, by the strange stone in his forehead.

  He sat on the edge of the cot a long while. The cold seeped into his skin. There came faint sounds from outside his cell, a ticking sound, perhaps from the gaoler’s room. Moments later, his cell door clicked loudly and the door swung open.

  By the gods. It was no gaoler who stood in the doorway, but Willem, holding a set of lock picks. For several heartbeats, Davud could only gape like a fish.

  “How did you get in here?” he finally managed.

  “Never mind,” Willem whispered as he slipped into the room and closed the door. “I’ve come to—” The words died as Willem took in Davud’s forehead. “Breath of the desert.”

  Worry marred Willem’s pale features as he reached for the stone. Davud recoiled, fearing the pain it would bring on, and Willem snatched his hand back and stepped away. He became smaller, as he often did when he feared he’d erred. He seemed to be having a hard time even looking at Davud. Eventually, he said, “What has she done to you?”

  “It’s an artifact that prevents me from walking the red ways.”

  “Then let me remove it.”

  Willem had amazing abilities. He wasn’t a mage, but when he concentrated, he could force spells to slip from him like water over oiled canvas. He could alter spells, too, by unraveling parts of them or reweaving them altogether. He was asking permission to remove the spell worked into the jade stone so that he could separate it from Davud’s skin.

  When Davud nodded, Willem held his hands near the st
one. Davud felt a prickling sensation. It quickly grew into a pain that pierced through his skull.

  “Stop!” he cried when the pain became too much.

  Willem snatched his hands back and held them to his breast. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .”

  “It’s all right. It’s just . . .” Davud’s ears rang with the pain emanating from his forehead. “It hurts.”

  “I’ll go slower.” Willem’s Adam’s apple bobbed several times. “I’ll find a way. I promise.”

  The ringing subsided. So, thank the fates, did the pain. Still, Davud waited several breaths before nodding for Willem to try again.

  No sooner had Willem raised his hands than the clank of a door being opened reached his cell. It was probably the gaoler. He must have heard their conversation and was coming to investigate. He’d find Willem. They’d both be punished.

  “Hurry,” Davud said, “hide down the hall.”

  A heartbeat passed, then two, but Willem remained, terrified of leaving Davud alone.

  Davud stabbed a finger at the open door. “Go!” he hissed.

  Willem cringed, then burst into motion. Like a mudskipper heading toward deeper water, he flew from the room and retreated into the darkness.

  As the footsteps grew louder, Davud closed the door as silently as he could manage. He placed one foot against it as a Mirean soldier with a scar across one eye came and unlocked the door. Had the man been the regular gaoler, he would likely have known how the locks felt when opening and closing them. He would have realized it was already open. As it was, he had no clue. He seemed more concerned about Davud.

  “Back,” he said in Sharakhan.

  Davud stepped away. Only then did the soldier swing the door wide. He didn’t enter, though. Instead, he stepped aside and bowed.

  Behind him came Queen Alansal. “Leave us,” she said as she swept into the cell.

  The guard gave another bow, sent a wary look Davud’s way, and retreated. As his footsteps faded, Davud noted that Queen Alansal held a jade stone in her right hand, apparently the twin to the one on Davud’s forehead.

  Alansal took a sharp breath. “My advisors say you deserve to lose your head over what happened.”

  Coupled with the intensity of her anger, the statement made it clear that many of the water dancers, perhaps all of them, had died from the poison they’d swallowed. “Did Chow-Shian survive?”

  Alansal squeezed the stone in her hand, and the ache in Davud’s head turned to agony. Pain spread outward from the gemstone until it felt as if a pickaxe had pierced his skull. His knees buckled from it, and his screams reverberated through the dungeon.

  As quickly as the pain had come, it vanished.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” Alansal snapped when Davud’s moans had subsided. The skirt of her fur-lined dress flared as she paced his cell floor. “Are you aware that Chow-Shian is my granddaughter?”

  “I wasn’t, no.”

  “Before slipping into a coma, she tried to convince me it wasn’t you who poisoned them.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Queen Alansal’s expression grew harder by the moment. “Then why you were you there?”

  Davud wasn’t sure how much to reveal. If he told Alansal the truth, he would also need to confess what he knew about the Kings’ involvement.

  Alansal suddenly stopped pacing. With an expression of pure fury, she squeezed her right hand again, and the pain returned with a vengeance. Davud fell to one knee with his hands pressed to the sides of his head. The pain subsided a moment later, though it took several long breaths before he could lift his head and regard Queen Alansal.

  “Tell me why you were there”—she held up the jade stone for him to see—“or I’ll squeeze until your heart stops.”

  “I’d learned of the Kings plan to poison them, but I didn’t know how. I went to find out.”

  “Why go yourself? Why didn’t you warn me instead?”

  Long moments passed in which Davud debated on what to say. He could hardly tell her the truth. He might have found some acceptable white lie, but it was so hard to think.

  For a moment, Alansal looked angry enough to fulfill her promise, but then an eerie calm settled over her and she lowered the stone. “You came because you hadn’t decided whether to let it happen.”

  “I did by the end, though. I tried to save Chow-Shian.”

  “But not the others.”

  “They were all so accepting of it. I didn’t understand until it was too late.”

  For a time, Alansal simply breathed, her nostrils flaring as she did so. “And the poisoning itself, who ordered it?”

  “The Kings.”

  “Which Kings?”

  Davud might have told her Husamettín had ordered it. He might have identified the Kestrel, Shohreh, who’d been tasked with infiltrating Eventide to perform the deed. But the truth was he didn’t wish to tell Alansal any more than he had to. “I don’t know.”

  “Then how did you learn of it?”

  “An informant,” he said simply.

  “Did the Enclave play a part in it?”

  “No.”

  She resumed her pacing, reminding Davud of a caged snow leopard he’d once seen in the bazaar. “Tell me what Chow-Shian said to you.”

  “She said she saw me leading her down an endless tunnel. I think she meant I would help her reach the land beyond. Then she said I would lead you through the gates of ivory.”

  She stopped and snapped at him, “That’s nonsense!”

  Davud’s mind was muddled, but he understood that Alansal had heard those words before. “Chow-Shian told you the same thing, didn’t she?”

  “You think I would believe that Chow-Shian saw the others die and let it happen? Why would she do that? Why would any of them?”

  “I don’t know, but I think I understand what she meant about using her. If she’s in a coma, she stands between life and death. I could use her to examine the gateway. I could—”

  “You would use her?” Alansal held the jade stone as if she were going to punish him for the very thought, then she slowly lowered it. “I want you to heal her.”

  “I’m no healer,” he said.

  “Be that as it may, you will try.”

  In that moment, he realized they were no longer alone. Willem stood in the doorway. His cheeks and nose were red. He was shaking. He looked struck dumb with fear and worry. And there was a knife in his hand.

  Queen Alansal hadn’t noticed him. If Davud didn’t do something, Willem was going to stick the knife in her back. Part of him was willing to let Willem do it, but if Alansal died, Davud would lose any chance he had of studying the gateway. He wanted, he needed Alansal’s approval. He would only abandon his cause if she gave him no choice.

  “Don’t,” he said, staring straight at Willem.

  Such was Alansal’s intensity that it took her a long breath before she realized he wasn’t talking to her. She spun, saw Willem, and took a step back while reaching for something at her belt.

  “No!” Davud cried, but he couldn’t reach her in time.

  She threw down a small glass sphere, which broke at Willem’s feet.

  “Willem!”

  Willem’s slender form was lit in green flame. It didn’t appear to be touching his skin, though. Not a single hair on his head was singed. His clothes didn’t blacken or burn. He slid through the magical flames as if he were made of so much glass. And the look on his face . . . It was murderous.

  “Willem, stop!” Davud cried. “Both of you, stop!”

  Willem, thank the gods, obeyed. Alansal dropped the jade stone she’d been holding, which fell to the floor and skittered away. She gripped her steel hairpins and held them like a pair of fighting knives, but made no move to use them.

  “Chow-Shian spoke of
demons,” Davud said quickly, before either she or Willem could change their minds. “She and the others spoke of the elder god, Ashael. What they saw and why they saw it, I have no idea, but I’m certain it’s linked to Sharakhai’s fate. I’m certain it’s linked to their decision to take the poison.”

  Alansal pulled her gaze from Willem long enough to stare Davud straight in the eye. “If that were true, Chow-Shian would have told me.”

  “Not if she feared it would endanger you. Or your people, or Mirea itself. The end of this grand tale is nearing, Your Excellence. Whatever the desert gods had in mind when they bargained with the Kings on Beht Ihman is about to come to fruition. You need look no further than the gate, or the shimmering vault that hangs above us. Both are proof that the gods still don’t have what they want.”

  “Passage to the farther fields,” Alansal said.

  “Yes,” Davud replied. “They see it as a right that was denied to them. But how do they plan to reach it? That is the question that plagues us. Grand fleets have amassed in the desert. The Sharakhani Kings have lost their houses and fled, making them all the more desperate to take it back. The gods toy with us, maneuvering the pieces on the board. And if that weren’t enough, there is evidence that demons will arise. Ashael may walk the earth once more.” He took a step toward her. “We must learn what they mean to do before it’s too late.”

  “A task made all the more difficult without my water dancers.”

  “Which means the burden falls to us.” Davud waved to Willem. “Let us help you. Let us help to find the answers to these riddles.”

  Alansal’s gaze flitted from Davud to Willem and back. “You will do as I command.” She spat the words, as if she expected Davud to be cowed by them.

  Being careful to avoid the jade stone, Davud touched his forehead. “I will do nothing as a slave.”