Meryam’s doubts, meanwhile, were starting to creep back in. The moment Goezhen tipped into that pit, there would be no turning back.
“We don’t have to do it now,” Amaryllis said. “We can wait.”
“I know,” replied Meryam, “but the very fact that it means so much to me means the sacrifice will have more power.”
What could Amaryllis say? She was out of her element, and they both knew it.
Meryam wished the bloody goddess had told her outright what to do. She wished Hamzakiir hadn’t been freed. She wished Ramahd hadn’t found her. She wished her magic hadn’t been burned from her. She wished Yasmine were still alive.
I told you to stop using me as your excuse.
Meryam ignored Yasmine’s voice and steeled herself. “Throw it in,” she ordered the captain.
The captain nodded. “At once, my queen.” He waved to his men. The crew spiked the butts of their poleaxes beneath Goezhen’s corpse and levered it forward in concert. “Through the gates may he pass,” the captain intoned, “whole and hale, to haunt this world no more.”
It was a prayer for the dead, used often in Qaimir and sometimes in the desert. Though often spoken in an endearing manner, at its base it was a plea for the dead to leave this world and to bother the living no more. That was surely how the captain meant it, but it sparked a memory in Meryam, a passage from the Al’Ambra:
Ivory is the key to the wakeful mind, horn the key to dreaming.
She’d been using ivory powder for the past week because of the first half of the cryptic passage. She’d fooled herself into thinking that waking Ashael was the correct next step. It wasn’t. Ashael was dreaming, which was precisely why she needed to use the other material mentioned: horn. Horn was the key to dreaming.
The men had Goezhen’s body halfway over the lip of the pit. All Meryam could see in that moment was the one remaining horn: black, curving, arcing around Goezhen’s head and his crown of thorns.
She hurtled forward, screaming, “Stop!”
Most of the crew did. One, halfway through his movement, kept levering, and the desiccated body started to slip over the edge.
“Save him!” she cried again, and fell upon Goezhen’s chest, hoping to pin it down. She was too slight of frame, though, and the body kept tipping.
Suddenly Amaryllis was there, grabbing Goezhen’s nearest arm. “Help us!”
Gravel crunched beneath Goezhen’s body as it slipped further over the edge. The captain fell upon the nearest ankle. Another gripped one stiffened wrist. A third grabbed the horn. With all of them on it, its movement arrested. Dust and rocks sifted down into the pit. For several frightful moments, no one did anything but make sure the body wasn’t slipping any further.
Then they were tugging it backward. It took long, harrowing moments—Meryam felt as if they would all plummet to their deaths—but soon they were back on solid ground.
Meryam’s breath was on her by then. “The horn,” she said while panting. “I need it shorn off and ground like the ivory.”
The captain’s look was sour. If he wasn’t so loyal, he might have kicked Goezhen over the edge. “You’re sure, my queen?”
“I’m sure.”
He nodded. “Then it shall be done.”
The horn itself was so strong it took nearly an hour to saw free. It took another two before any amount of powder was ready to use. Only when she had several handfuls did she accept the leather bag and command everyone to join her at the pit.
They stood as they had before. This time, however, Meryam took a handful of the horn’s powder and threw it into the dark opening before her. The sun was high by then, and Meryam watched the powder fall until it was swallowed by shadow. Seeing it gone, she motioned to Goezhen’s corpse.
“Now,” she said. “Feed him to the pit.”
The captain traded glances with Amaryllis, who seemed just as unsure. “You’re certain this time, my queen? There’s no hurry.”
Meryam shook her head. “Do it now.” She’d never been more sure of a thing in her life.
They did, and soon the monstrous, black corpse was tipping end over end into the darkness. When it, too, was lost to the shadows, Meryam took a pinch of the horn powder and breathed it in.
Earlier, when she’d taken the ivory, it had taken a long time to become in sync with Ashael’s dreams. Not so with the horn. She felt in tune with the elder god immediately, so much so that the bag of powder slipped from her fingers. It spilled. Amaryllis rushed forward to collect the bag, but Meryam paid her no mind. Her mind’s eye was already elsewhere.
She saw Ashael striding over a windswept sea. Crashing waves sprayed water over his sandal-covered feet. The white, knee-length shendyt he wore, bunched at his waist, was so bright it looked like freshly fallen snow. His well muscled chest and lithe arms were bare, but the golden armbands, the embossed cuffs that covered his wrists and forearms, and the torc wrapping his neck glimmered brightly in the sun. His cheeks were drawn, his mouth small and pinched, his eyes nearly lost within deep, sunken hollows. Most striking were the two broad horns that curved from the back of his skull and spread horizontally near his temples. They were the color of bone, an unsettling complement to his bloodless skin.
Many would feel small before the god, but not Meryam. She felt made for this moment. She’d spent years dominating others. She’d invaded dreams. Stolen secrets. She’d manipulated others by altering their reality, altering their memories, altering their very sense of self.
So it was that Meryam willed herself to appear on the sea’s surface. “Come to me,” she called.
Ashael had been calling to Alu, whom he was displeased with. In the dream, Alu hid in the depths below, smug in his place of power. At Meryam’s words, the elder god turned, confused.
“Come to me,” Meryam repeated.
And Ashael turned and strode across the water.
Outside the dream, Meryam stared down. She saw nothing at first, but then a lighter shadow appeared. Something was rising from the depths. Around her, the crew backed away. So did Amaryllis. They watched in stunned silence as Ashael rose.
The elder god was tall as a watchtower. He still wore the armbands, the cuffs, the golden torc. His sandals were scuffed and torn. His eyes, though, were hidden, wrapped in bands of dark, fraying cloth similar to his tattered shendyt. His body was gaunt, emaciated, his ribs clearly visible. His skin, pale before, was so ashen it looked as if a strong wind would see him eaten away, bit by bit, until nothing of him remained save bones and his two broad horns.
Strangest of all was the misshapen spike piercing the center of his chest. No rust marked the ebon steel. Dark, crusted blood caked around the point of entry. She recalled her vision of Iri driving it through him, recalled how the spike itself was one element of the spell that bound him to this earth.
Tall and proud in the dream earlier, this Ashael was bowed over that ancient wound. It weighed on his soul, caused unyielding pain, yet Ashael made no move to touch it—she felt his fear at the very thought of doing so.
Within the dream, Meryam said, “Come, Ashael, for there is a task that befalls us.”
She’d taken the guise of a being with immense power. She made Ashael think she was one of the fates themselves, those who’d created the elder gods—one could do anything in dreams, after all.
Ashael believed her. He’d been dreaming for millennia, caught in the spell the other elders had laid upon him. He’d seen countless variations on reality. Why question this one?
He didn’t speak in the real world, but in the dream he bowed his head and in a deep, liquid voice said, “Shall I call my children as well?”
Meryam’s head jerked back. She’d been so focused on raising him, she hadn’t considered his children. “Yes. We will soon have need of them.”
“As you wish.”
With this, both in t
he dream and without, Ashael raised his slender arms to the sky. Below, a great fluttering could be heard. A chittering came, a cacophony of screams, a cloud of beating wings. They burst from the pit’s mouth in a great gout, swarming around Ashael as they went. Other, wingless demons crawled up along the pit’s walls to reach the circle of stones. On and on they came, more and more flying upwards, or crawling from the pit to spill across the rocky terrain.
The captain, the crew, and Amaryllis stared in abject horror. Meryam grinned. By sea and by stone, how frightened she’d been these past many weeks, how uncertain. No longer. Now she felt potent, triumphant, all but a god herself.
As she took in the demonic host, a giddiness welled up inside her. “All of them, Ashael!” A laugh burst from her lungs. “Bring them all!”
The sheer number of them was dizzying. Eventually, however, the flow slowed, sputtered, and stopped altogether. Only then did she realize the demons had arrayed themselves in a pattern. It was in the sigil Ashael had made of the dead bodies in the dream Meryam had witnessed when she first arrived at the pit. She suddenly recalled its meaning. It was a sign of repentance. What it meant in this context she had no idea, nor did she care.
“What now, my lady?” Ashael asked in their shared dream.
“We go to Mazandir.”
Ashael’s head swiveled south. Though his eyes were masked, he was gazing straight toward the caravanserai, the place where Tulathan had promised Meryam power. Like a seed borne by the wind, Ashael drifted toward it. His demons rose from the rocks and flowed in his wake.
Meryam turned to her crew. “To the Gull. We set sail immediately.”
Amaryllis looked worried. “My queen—”
Meryam cut her off. “Not a word, Amaryllis. We sail for Mazandir to take my fleet. Then we move on. To Sharakhai, the desert, the world.”
Soon The Gray Gull was sailing across the dunes behind the elder god and his host of dark demons. Meryam stood on the foredeck, bearing witness to the beginnings of her rule.
Chapter 27
As dawn broke over the mountains, Çeda stood beside the burned remains of the acacia. She knew she should feel angry. Part of her was. She knew that Hamid or one of his toadies had set fire pots into the tree and ignited them. But in truth she felt numb, as if they’d reached the end of a road. She had no idea where to go from here.
The entire valley had gathered around her, people from all thirteen tribes. They waited, watching expectantly, as the shaikhs and their vizirs stood in an arc.
Çeda was well aware how the vote would go when the tribunal was convened. She’d insisted on it anyway. At the very least, all would know the story of Hamid’s treachery. Whether they chose to believe it or not was now out of her hands.
As the people of the desert tribes watched, Çeda approached the trunk. The fire had only gone out an hour ago. The charred bark was still hot to the touch. When they’d finally managed to put it out, she’d hoped she might still call upon the tree’s power. There had still been some life left—she could feel it flowing through the roots—but the faint sensation had faded as the sun rose. As much as it pained her to admit, the acacia was dead as the mountains around them.
Carpets were laid out. The shaikhs sat on them and listened as witnesses were presented. Çeda spoke of what had happened in Mazandir. Emre spoke of how Hamid had tried to kill him, how he’d fled when confronted. Shal’alara spoke as well, as did Shaikh Aríz. But Hamid was allowed a defense, and he called just as many witnesses to speak to his innocence. Rasime vouched for him, as did others in the thirteenth tribe, most of them the old guard of the Moonless Host, men and women thirsty for the blood of the Sharakhani Kings. A few shaikhs stood and spoke to Hamid’s character. They were the ones most harmed by the Kings’ ruthless policies, the ones most hounded by the royal navy, the ones punished most heavily through taxes on trade. They had been the Moonless Host’s staunchest allies, and as such were sympathetic to Hamid’s cause.
For a time the tribunal devolved into a shouting match, an airing of all grievances the tribes had against the Kings. Çeda tried again and again to bring them back to the subject of Hamid and how unfit he was to rule, but each time she did, one of Hamid’s allies would steer it away again. It was a tactic, plain and simple. Get the crowd thinking about how cruel the Kings were, and it would diminish the perception of Hamid’s own cruelties, or excuse them altogether.
“And where is Sehid-Alaz that he may speak his own truth?” Shaikh Zaghran asked as the conversations wound down and the vote neared.
“He’s in Sharakhai, protecting the trees,” Çeda said. “He and the asirim are keeping them alive until we come to their aid.”
“He didn’t come,” Hamid bellowed, “because there’s nothing for him to tell. Do you think for one moment the ancient King wouldn’t come if he felt I had treated his memory and the memory of all the asirim poorly?”
There came a chorus of low voices, a smattering of nods.
“He’s giving his life to protect us,” Çeda said. “They all are!”
“Enough bickering,” Zaghran said. “Do you wish us to take a vote now, Çeda?” His eyes slid meaningfully to the blackened ruins of the acacia. “Or do you have more to show us?”
Everyone was standing by that point, their blood up. “Please, sit,” she bid the shaikhs.
It took time, and there were grumbles, but eventually they all did.
Çeda, meanwhile, stood beside the tree. She placed her hand on the warm, dragon-skin char. She reached out to it, tried to summon the dreamlike state that now felt familiar to her. There was the smallest glimmer of it, but it was like a lone star in the sky. It sat on the very edge of perception, too dim for her to see by, much less share. She pushed herself, thinking she wasn’t trying hard enough, but it was no good. Too much of the tree had been burned.
Please don’t let it end here.
“This has gone on long enough.” Hamid stood, then strode away in that cocksure way of his, calling over his shoulder as he went. “Vote if that’s what you’re going to do, but I’ll not sit through this any longer. My tribe has a war to prepare for.”
The others stared at one another, then stood as well. Zaghran gave Çeda a sympathetic look, as if he wished things had gone another way, then his expression hardened. “So we vote. All those who wish to acquit Hamid Aykan’ava of wrongdoing?”
“Wait!” came an aged voice.
All heads turned to see Leorah, making her way through the crowd with Nalamae’s staff in hand.
Many of the shaikhs looked on in confusion. Shaikh Zaghran seemed both tired and displeased. “What’s the meaning of this, grandmother?”
Leorah said nothing until she reached Çeda’s side. “You asked for the truth.” She placed one hand on the burnt tree and regarded Çeda with a kind, motherly expression. “Be prepared to witness it.”
“What are you doing?” Çeda asked so that only Leorah could hear.
Leorah patted her shoulder. “Wait and see, girl.”
With that she closed her eyes. The tendons along her wrists tightened. The crystals worked into the staff’s charred head began to glow. The most striking aspect of the strange turn of events wasn’t the staff, but the amethyst on her right hand. It glowed brightest of all. The ring had always reflected light in a way that made it seem alive. Now it was doubly so, trebly. It was a burning star, brilliant and beautiful to look upon.
Several in the crowd gasped. Gazes shifted from Leorah and her ring to the acacia. Here and there the charred bark was splitting, falling away. All across the tree, green shoots pierced the blackened wood. They spread outward like vines and grew leaves, more and more growth spreading, lifting, creating a lush green crown on a thing everyone thought was dead.
Çeda felt power return to it. With it came the sense that she stood in the doorway between past and present. Leorah had done it. She’d given �
�eda what she needed. But something was wrong. The amethyst was still glowing, bright as the sun.
With a sound like crystal breaking, the gemstone shattered. Çeda recoiled from it, felt a stinging sensation along her right cheek a split-second later. Others cried out as the amethyst’s shards bit. When Çeda turned back, Leorah was on the ground, her staff just out of reach. Çeda rushed to her side and saw the mess the stone had made of the right side of her face. She was bleeding from a hundred tiny cuts.
She blinked up at Çeda, took in the others standing nearby: Emre, Frail Lemi, Shal’alara, and more. She looked as though she didn’t recognize a single one of them.
“Leorah?” Çeda asked.
Voice trembling, the old woman lying on the ground replied, “I’m afraid not.”
It took Çeda long moments for understanding to dawn. When it did, tears formed in her eyes. “Devorah?”
Devorah nodded and with Çeda’s help stood. “Yes, child.”
Shal’alara unwound her cream-colored head scarf, plucked the amethyst’s shards from Devorah’s skin, then pressed the cloth to the many small wounds along her face. Devorah’s stature was more upright than only moments ago. She shook less. For decades, Devorah and Leorah had shared the same body. Through the magic of the amethyst, they’d traded places at sundown. Leorah had seen more life through this strange union, and it had shown in how much wearier she had seemed in recent years. And while Devorah might have experienced less than her sister, it was for that very reason she was the more vigorous of the two.
“She knew she was going to die,” Çeda said breathlessly.
“We both did. She gave herself that you could make a difference.” Devorah waved to the tree. “She gave herself that we could see a brighter day.”
Çeda had felt numb earlier. Now she felt deep regret as she blinked away tears. She stared at the acacia’s green shoots as the loss threatened to overwhelm her. But then she caught sight of Hamid, staring up at the tree with naked shock. He knew. He knew Çeda had the power to destroy him.
A Desert Torn Asunder Page 23