A Desert Torn Asunder

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  When they were done, Davud said to Jorrdan, “We’re ready when you are.”

  Since the time of the crystal’s breaking, the asirim had fought to remain alive, fought to protect the adichara trees and prevent the gateway from opening. They’d done so valiantly, driven by their love of Sharakhai and its people, but it was all too easy for them to give up the fight and let their souls pass. So it was for Jorrdan, who simply released his hold on life and drifted toward the farther fields.

  As before, Davud became aware of Anila, Brama, and Rümayesh. He tried to speak with them, but it remained impossible—beyond the vague awareness that they were present, there seemed to be no way to communicate with them.

  When the time felt right, Davud triggered the spells he and Esmeray had crafted in hopes of closing the gate. He faced the same problem he’d had from the beginning, though. He’d found no way to bind himself to the gateway, to gain purchase. Only if he did that could he find a way to close the gateway itself. It was the key to all that followed.

  Over the course of an hour, he tried over and over again, but each time, he failed. He felt no movement in the gateway, no sense it was closing. The brightness of Jorrdan’s soul dimmed, the adichara he’d lain beneath died. Near the end, when Jorrdan’s soul was dim as a distant star, Davud sensed other souls brightening.

  They’re the asirim, Davud realized, those who’ve already fallen.

  That they were welcoming Jorrdan with open arms came as no surprise. What was surprising was the sense Davud got that they were supporting Sehid-Alaz and the others in the blooming fields. Not content to simply pass to the farther fields and begin their new life, they were helping those on the other side.

  One of them—a woman—shone brighter than the rest. She seemed familiar, somehow . . . and she was reaching out to Davud.

  Before he could wonder why, he was swept away to another time, another place.

  * * *

  A much younger Davud stood in Sharakhai’s bazaar beside his sister, Tehla. They were in her tiny stall, and Davud was forming sweet, saffron-and-lemon buns from a bowl of dough. The bazaar was busy, patrons running to and fro on a scalding day made all the worse by the mouth of the dung-fired oven at Davud’s back.

  Tehla was gabbing with a customer, Old Yanca, who said she’d come for buns but had clearly come for companionship. She lived alone and enjoyed trading gossip with Tehla, Seyhan the spice monger, or anyone else who would sit still for long enough.

  After exchanging three freshly baked buns for a few copper coins, Yanca put them in her basket and left. Tehla turned and her eyes went wide. “Davud!”

  Davud spun toward the oven. The batch he’d put in a while ago were burning, the tops already charred black.

  Tehla speared a wooden peel into the oven, scooped up the buns with a deft swipe, and held them beneath his nose.

  Davud’s nose crinkled from the acrid smell. “I forgot.”

  “Well, stop forgetting.” She turned the peel over and dumped the burnt buns into a basket that was already partially filled with a batch of almond and raisin fekkas Davud had ruined that morning. Those burnt buns and fekkas would be Davud’s next several meals, as Tehla ensured the lesson was learned.

  Davud felt his face go red when he realized an older couple had stopped to watch, amused. He was about to put his head down and use a razor to cut the shape of amberlarks into the sweet buns—the one and only baking skill he had—when he noticed a woman walking briskly down the row.

  It was Ahya, Çeda’s mother, and she was moving with purpose. “Can I borrow Davud?” she asked as soon as she was near.

  Davud didn’t know Ahya well, but he could tell she was distressed. Her long black hair was wrapped loosely in a bright lemon turban. She had half-healed scrapes along one jaw, fading bruises along the opposite cheek. Her eyes were what struck Davud the most, though. She was worried and trying not to show it.

  “He’s working,” Tehla said sharply.

  “This won’t take long.”

  Tehla was already back to her mixing bowl, measuring out flour from a cloth bag. “I have a business to run, Ahya.”

  Ahya slapped down three sylval—full silver coins, not the six-pieces bazaar patrons often spent. “You’ll have him back in an hour.”

  Tehla’s eyes narrowed. “What do you need him for?”

  “To run a simple errand. But it has to be done now, Tehla.”

  “Then why don’t you do it?”

  “Because I have to be elsewhere.”

  Tehla paused. “What sort of errand?”

  “I need someone to collect Çeda.” She slapped down another silver coin. “Now can I have him or not?”

  Tehla looked from Davud to the coins. “Nothing dangerous. I’ve heard the stories.”

  “Nothing dangerous,” Ahya confirmed.

  After a breath, Tehla swept the coins into her dusty cloth purse, waved her dismissal, and went back to mixing dough. “Hurry back, Davud.”

  And so it was with no small measure of fear that Davud accompanied Ahya along the rows of the bazaar. He’d heard the stories, too. People who talked to her the wrong way winding up with bloody lips or a slash from her knife. People who’d threatened her going missing for good. Gang leaders found lying face down on the bed of the River Haddah after hurting Çeda.

  When the stall was out of sight, Ahya turned and snatched Davud’s wrist. “You know Dardzada’s apothecary?”

  Davud nodded, afraid to speak.

  “I left Çeda there, but she ran off, probably with that idiot, Emre. They’re likely running some scam. Find her, Davud. Tell her I sent you. Tell her not to go home. She’s to meet me at Bent Man Bridge at nightfall. Understand?”

  Davud nodded.

  “Hurry.” As she skipped backward along the dusty street, she pointed to the center of Sharakhai. “Check the Wheel first. They like gulling the tourists.”

  With that she sprinted in the opposite direction. The last Davud saw her, she was pulling the veil of her turban across her face, then leaping against a wall that abutted one of the densest and poorest sections of the Shallows. She was up and over it in moments.

  * * *

  The vision of that hot day faded, replaced by the piercing cold near the gateway. Davud felt himself floating, halfway between the worlds, and suddenly realized how close he’d been to slipping through entirely.

  Esmeray was clearly worried. “Who was that?”

  Davud, still disoriented, said, “Who was who?”

  “The woman in the yellow turban.”

  For a moment, he couldn’t speak. “You saw that?”

  Esmeray shrugged. “I caught a few glimpses.”

  “She was Çeda’s mother.”

  He explained the vision in full, and what came after. He’d gone to the Wheel, as Ahya had asked, found Çeda, and given her Ahya’s message. Çeda had laughed so hard his ears had gone red. She thought it was a joke Tariq was pulling on her, but then she suddenly sobered.

  “Oh, gods,” she said, and sprinted away, not toward Bent Man Bridge, but toward the Shallows.

  “Çeda!”

  “What did you tell her?” Emre had asked.

  But Davud only shook his head. There was no way he was going to reveal Ahya’s secrets.

  He left soon after. The following day, rumors floated around the west end. A back alley near the packed tenement where Ahya and Çeda had been living had been found covered in blood. No one knew why. No one had heard screams or sounds of a struggle. Davud didn’t see Ahya or Çeda again for another two months, and when they did finally show up again, Çeda refused to talk about what had happened.

  It seemed important somehow, but Davud couldn’t say how, and his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of distant clanking. He and Esmeray walked toward the sound, to the edge of a drop-off where, far below, the whole
of Kings Harbor could be seen. The clanking came from the harbor gates. They were opening, and the Mirean fleet, comprised of dozens upon dozens of dunebreakers, ponderous ships with four masts and league upon league of canvas, was preparing to sail into the desert.

  “What’s happening?” Esmeray asked.

  Davud could only stare at the dunebreakers and the staggering number of soldiers standing in formation on their decks. “Alansal’s been scouring the desert for the royal navy for months,” he finally said. “I guess she’s finally found them.”

  Chapter 32

  With every league that passed, Ramahd worried he would reach Mazandir too late to make a difference. He was increasingly certain that by the time he arrived, every last soul would either be dead or in thrall to Meryam.

  “Will it work?” Fezek asked, his cloudy gaze intent on the purse in Ramahd’s left hand.

  Ramahd hefted it. There wasn’t much black powder within it—two or three pinches at most. “I don’t know,” he said, wrapping its cord around his belt.

  “I wonder if they’re part of the dream,” Fezek mused.

  Cicio stared at him hard, then asked in his broken Sharakhan, “What you mean?”

  Fezek waved to the sand, where a massive demon with four arms and anvil-like fists lay in the trough between two dunes. It had a thousand tears in its skin. Black blood stained the sand around it in a pattern that reminded Ramahd of a cressetwing moth. “Do they fight because the dream Meryam crafted shows them fighting?”

  “Perhaps,” Ramahd said. “Or perhaps, now that their god is awake, they’re vying for his attention.”

  Fezek was uncharacteristically somber. “For all we know it’s Meryam’s attention they’re vying for, not Ashael’s.”

  As the wind blew harder, making the ship’s hull creak, Ramahd gripped a ratline and stretched his arms and shoulders. “I doubt they’re even aware of her.”

  Suddenly, Cicio’s expression turned mischievous, the way it did in the oud parlors when he was fixing for a fight. “Maybe you make them see?” He jutted his chin at the purse hanging from Ramahd’s belt.

  He meant Ramahd should try to give the demons some insight, thereby exposing Meryam’s presence. “Better yet,” Ramahd said, “I could make Ashael see.”

  Cicio’s grin widened. “Now you on to something, ah?”

  Ramahd released the ratline as the ship passed another wingless demon lying broken on the sand. “I might make Ashael aware, but what then? What happens if he wakes?”

  Cicio’s grin collapsed, then he seemed to grow angry. “Fucking Meryam.”

  Fezek’s cloudy gaze was distant, his waxen face pinched in concentration. He shrugged in answer to Ramahd’s question, then sat and began writing furiously in his journal—his way of working through the problem, perhaps.

  In a bit of good fortune, the winds were favorable, and they made good speed toward their destination, sailing into the night. It was risky, but with this part of the desert largely clear of reefs and shoals, Ramahd considered it worth the risk.

  The next three days of sailing saw more demons left for dead, a pattern that only changed on their fifth day out from the Hollow. When morning’s light arrived, they saw no demons at all, making Ramahd fear they’d lost the trail.

  It was early on the sixth day when Cicio pointed off the port bow. “See there.”

  Along the horizon was what looked to be a black cloud. Meryam’s horde was nearing Mazandir. Alu’s Crown could close the gap if she kept her current pace, but the demons would surely spot her.

  Cicio stared at him grimly. “Skirt wide?”

  Ramahd nodded. “We can’t risk confronting them directly.”

  “Agreed,” Cicio replied, and began calling out course adjustments.

  They sailed hard along a path well wide of the demons, but made sure to always keep them in view. They gained ground, but Ramahd could already tell it wasn’t going to be enough. The horde kept its pace through sunset and beyond, and as the moons rose, they lost sight of the cloud entirely. Ramahd was certain Meryam meant to continue on through the night and assault Mazandir in the morning.

  They stretched the sails as far as they could. They lightened their load by tossing as much cargo, food, and water as they dared in hopes of reaching Mazandir in time to warn the fleet. Ramahd ordered the crew to sleep in shifts. He tried to find sleep himself, but the night was as cold as any he’d spent in the desert. The warmth seeped from his bones like he’d fallen into the Austral Sea.

  Giving up on sleep entirely, he returned to deck and stood at the bow for a long while, holding a stay line, praying to the one true god, Mighty Alu, that they would reach the caravanserai ahead of Meryam.

  When dawn brightened the horizon ahead, it created an idyllic glow that felt absurd in the moment. The geometric shapes of Mazandir broke the monotony of the sandy terrain. When Ramahd spotted Ashael’s black cloud, his heart sank. It had already reached the nearest harbor and was sweeping through the moored ships, moving into the streets.

  Cicio peered through his spyglass. “King Hektor’s fleet still lies to the south.”

  He handed the spyglass to Ramahd. Sure enough, the fleet lay beyond the shoulders of Mazandir. They had yet to make sail. They had no idea the sort of threat they were facing or the danger they were in.

  “Skirt west,” Ramahd said, knowing that to sail too close to the horde would doom their mission from the start. “We’ll sail to meet them.”

  The helmsman pulled at the wheel and the ship creaked while the crew made subtle adjustments to sails and rigging. Ramahd, meanwhile, sat on deck, leaned back against the foremast, and took out the leather purse Ihsan had given him.

  “May Mighty Alu guide you,” Cicio said.

  Ramahd smiled ruefully. “I never took you for a religious man, Cicio.”

  Cicio smiled his cocky smile. “In death’s shadow does the beacon of religion shine brightest.”

  Ramahd chuckled, and Cicio set off to see to the ship while Ramahd pinched some of the powder between his thumb and forefinger, lifted it to his nose, and inhaled sharply. He’d hardly cinched the purse before he was lost to a vision.

  * * *

  Ashael stood before a city by the sea. The gray strips of cloth over his head were gone. So was the misshapen spike of ebon steel that, outside the world of dreams, pierced his heart. His eyes were open, two diamonds all but lost in deep pools of shadow.

  The city had been built for the mortals by the elder god Raamajit the Exalted, and they adored him for it. They worshipped him. Raamajit himself was gone, flown to the northern wastes to build great palaces of glass among the ice. He might stay there for another day or another age. It was impossible to tell with him.

  But the city itself remained, a testament to Raamajit’s power, and to Ashael, its very existence was offensive. It was long past time to tear it down, to prove that Raamajit could neither protect it nor the mortals within.

  Ashael stormed the city. With a wave of his hand, roots rose from the earth. They devoured the roads, consumed the crumbling walls. They knocked down buildings and choked those who survived. At another wave, a murder of ravens swept over the people who rushed from their homes and from their temples. They saw him and despaired. Some ran, but it mattered not. The ravens descended, wrapped black wings around necks, tore with beaks, with claws, with talons.

  The streets turned red with blood.

  * * *

  “Ramahd!”

  Ramahd blinked. He hardly knew where he was, so strong was the vision of Ashael and the golden city. As it faded, Ramahd saw Cicio standing beside him. He was pointing to Mazandir, now less than a league distant—much closer than it had been when he’d inhaled the black powder. Judging from the sun’s angle, over an hour had passed.

  The sound of screams drifted to them. The demon horde was sweeping through the streets, as the
ravens in his vision had been. There were hundreds, thousands, of them breaking through the feeble line of defense the Silver Spears and a ragtag militia had managed to mount.

  “Concentrate, Ramahd! Stop her!”

  Mighty Alu help me, I don’t know how.

  But the patron god of Qaimir was, as ever, silent. Ramahd stared at the purse in his hands. He’d hoped to save some of the powder, to use another time if needed. But there was nothing for it. He had to take the rest and hope it would be enough.

  He pinched more between his fingers and sniffed. Then again with the last of what was easily accessible. The visions were already sweeping over him as he turned the purse out and sniffed one last time, getting all he could from the material.

  His perceptions shifted, and Mazandir melted away.

  * * *

  Ramahd watched as Ashael floated over the streets of the city by the sea. The perspective was different this time. He was himself, not Ashael. The realization made him feel as though his existence had just been exposed.

  Indeed, Ashael’s head turned, his broad, bone-white horns sweeping through the air as he did so. For a moment the elder god’s gaze searched for Ramahd.

  The sense Ramahd had of the dream world was not so different from the weeks he’d spent hiding from Meryam in Sharakhai. She’d been a queen then, and had considered Ramahd a traitor. She wanted him brought to justice, wanted the threat he represented nullified. Her arcane searches rarely bore fruit, but when they did she sent Silver Spears or Blade Maidens to capture him. Through the stalwart actions of his most loyal men, Ramahd had had escaped her time and time again and, each time, grown more adept at avoiding her spells. The skills learned then were likely the only thing that saved him from being seen by Ashael in Mazandir.