Fire Dance

by Ilana C. Myer

  That was what it boiled down to, what they’d told her. Wait. Wait and see if he wakes.

  She was not his guard anymore. She’d been relieved of that duty, of all duties; her job was to recover and rest. In a ceremony she could hardly remember Eldakar had awarded her an estate near the eastern border for her devoted service to the land, to his brother. She did not care. She would stay here and wait. At this door. The guards at the door pretended not to see her, as if to spare her dignity. As if she cared for her dignity.

  Now Eldakar was within and he was singing. It was deep night. The song sounded, to her ears, like a lullaby. Perhaps one the brothers had shared as children? She didn’t know. Mansur never spoke of his childhood. It was irrelevant to him. All that mattered was the cut and thrust of present achievements, of bloodstained triumphs attained. Vagaries of the nursery were relegated to the past.

  She knew, of course, that Eldakar had recently suffered losses. His queen had deserted and humiliated him in the worst way possible. The defeat of Almyria reflected on him, his leadership. She’d have expected him to appear broken, after all that. He did not seem broken to her. But there was an otherworldly quality to him, as if he’d detached himself. The cool dignity with which he comported himself was appropriate for a monarch but it was also, perhaps, too calm in light of recent events.

  As if thoughts of him were a summons, Eldakar opened the door. He said, “Nameir, come in. I don’t know if he can hear us, but he’d want you here.”

  “You can’t know that,” she said, bleak. “He was more interested in your queen, as it happens.”

  “Everyone was interested in her,” he said, unperturbed. “Maybe she used that with him. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I know he cares for you, too.”

  It took her a moment to realize that she had, without thinking, possibly revealed herself. And that the king did not seem surprised or to care.

  “Forgive me,” she said, standing. “I spoke … I spoke with great insolence to your grace.”

  Eldakar hugged her. Nameir, stiff and shocked, did not respond and he backed away. He said, “Commander Hazan, it matters not. Not now. Don’t you see? We who care for him must put aside whatever … whatever else he is or did. I love him and so do you. Come sit with us.”

  So she let him lead her by the hand, and took her place in a chair by the bed. The room was lit in the faintest outlines from scant moonlight. Eldakar sat by his brother and held his hand. He began again to sing. A simple air such as a nurse might have sung to them, once. Or their mother. Now Nameir heard the words.

  When the moon climbs

  When the owl cries

  When the fire wanes

  I think of you.

  You and only you.

  You and only you.

  It was on her sixth day in the palace, when she’d allowed herself to leave the prince’s room, that Nameir encountered a phantom.

  She froze. It was not the place where one would expect to see a figure from her nightmares. The day was a splendor of sunlight such as one might expect of a Kahishian spring. In the courtyard, orange trees dripped tender blossoms. Beauty that made mockery of her sadness, but also, just then, of the shock at what she was seeing.

  It was a man with a darkly furred jaw, a man who looked just a little bit like a wolf. Greying hair, trim figure but solidly built. He wore a ruby earring in one ear which gave him an attractive, rakish look.

  She stared. He crossed the courtyard with the easeful arrogance of a fighting man. He glanced her way only briefly, assessing a potential threat, deemed her a part of the scenery. So she was, she supposed; drained by grief, and besides, loyal to Eldakar. She’d never initiate a fight within these walls. But what the appearance of this man stirred in her began as an inward tremble that spread to every inch of her flesh.

  She saw things she thought she had forgotten. She had remembered blood puddled on the floor of her childhood home and scraped along the threshold. Now she remembered that the threshold looked that way after her mother had dragged herself across it. And now Nameir began to recall what she’d seen before that. It was like a box she had kept bound with iron and chain because to open it would eviscerate her. The sight of this man in the courtyard brought it all back.

  All this in moments. With a jaunty step the man vanished through the double doors that led inside the palace. She was alone again under the orange trees. Their scent like a heaven from which she was barred.

  He wore the red and black of the Tamryllin guard. So he was one of theirs now. He hadn’t been, not on the night he broke into her parents’ home. That time he’d been with one of the viziers, back when the provinces were continuously at war. The community of Galicians had made for an easy, if predictable, scapegoat on that day. The raid had been joined not only by those under the command of the vizier but even by residents of the town under attack.

  Nameir had been playing hide-and-seek with her younger sister. She’d been hiding under a table. She was small and—at the end—evaded notice. The men hadn’t stayed long—there was little in the home to steal. They’d found her family. They’d found the copper shrine, which could be melted down. They had, of course, burned the books. Burning Galician books, wherever they were found, was a popular pastime during raids.

  What they’d done to her parents, to her sister, was inside the box in her mind. It had to stay there. She had fought battles in Kahishi and overseas, waded through blood, to keep that box sealed tight.

  She thought she might lose her mind so she began to walk. She did not have an idea where she was going. Leaving the Zahra was out of the question—she’d sworn fealty to the king. She only needed to walk. To leave behind what she’d seen, if such a thing could be done.

  Her steps carried her into the gardens, to an area dense with trees. Not flower trees; these had broad leaves, in the shape of small hands. They left the ground thickly shaded, offered pockets of dark. She entered these as if toward an embrace. It was cool in the shade, and quiet. The only sound was of birds. Nameir was still. Another sound came through: a rush of water. Of course. These trees might appear wild, but they were part of a plan. That plan included the Zahra’s famous fountains.

  The undergrowth was springy beneath her feet and smelled of sweetness and earth. She was grateful for that. She was grateful for the birds calling in the upper branches. Anything that might help her forget.

  In time she came to a stream banked with smooth white stone. The sound of water was louder here. If she followed it, she reasoned, she’d arrive at the fountain. It seemed as credible a goal as any, just now. Soon she would return to her vigil beside Mansur’s door. The thought of him gave her an uneasy tug; she ought to have been there just now. But first she would do this. She would follow the water, with its rushing sigh, that sparkled in the sun. The way it both made her think of her sister, yet also let her forget.

  The water was clear and green. She followed it. The number of trees thickened, then thinned out again. Looking back once, she saw she had somehow covered a significant distance. She might have walked for an hour for all she knew. From here the palace was soaring, graceful, all archways and pillars at the foot of the hill. There was a subtle upward slope here that she was climbing.

  Lilies clustered beside the water, a reminder of something—what was it? She recalled they were symbolic of various things. Purity. Virginity. Oh yes, another: death.

  But there were purple irises, too, and these had no unpleasant traditions bound to them of which she was aware. She lingered to admire their contrast to the green water; their hearts of gold. No wonder there was a tale, Nameir recalled now, of a princess who commanded her seamstresses to create a gown fashioned after the iris. It was one of those children’s tales—one to do with flowers and magic. Maybe she did have a piece, here or there, of Mansur’s childhood that he’d shared with her. She’d never have been raised on such stories, herself.

  There were so many reasons to live. She had come here to remember.

  The
sound of the water grew louder. She had come to a great rock wall grown over with tiny white flowers and moss, fashioned into a grotto. The fountain burst within: at its center, the figure of a woman, arms outspread. A goddess, perhaps. Her eyes were bits of blue glass, but her hair flowed in a manner that was lifelike. So, too, did her dress. Still there was something cold to Nameir about the figure, unsettling in the lifelessness of the eyes. She shivered a little even there, under the sun.

  That was before she saw something in the fountain. She drew nearer for a look. First thing she saw was a stretch of silver that was like, yet unlike the water. Then that legs protruded from beneath this, the heels of satin shoes. It took a moment for Nameir to register that what she was seeing was a man, facedown in the water.

  The corpse she hauled from the fountain had been there for some time. And Nameir knew the significance of the silver cloak.

  Tarik Ibn-Mor, Second Magician of the Tower of Glass, had not run off with the queen after all.

  * * *

  THE Magician followed her in silence, though it was a long trek to the western edge of Majdara. Lin hadn’t explained herself and though she could see he wondered, he didn’t ask for details. As if he trusted her word. Even though it was clear she’d lied about at least one thing: she had not told him everything, as she had claimed that night in the Jonquil Safehouse. She had not told him, or anyone, about her dreams of Darien. More to the point, she had said nothing of Edrien’s presence within her.

  Zahir knew what the words of the wizard had been. A body cannot give shelter to the dead, even for a little time, and still live. She had left him free to extrapolate from there. As First Magician of the Tower of Glass, she assumed he had theories.

  Now she led him through streets Lin Amaristoth had never trod, that she could not have known. Not only that. With each step her certainty of their surroundings increased; scarcely did she glance about to orient herself or take stock of where they were. He had to have wondered about that. But he said nothing.

  He trusts me, she thought, sometime during that long walk in the cool morning. He shouldn’t. She felt that she was not stable, not to be relied upon. Not only because her soul could fly from her at any time. What had overtaken her in the Tower of the Winds, that had made her bleed on the page, was with her still. She felt herself a poison dart of rage. Not far, in the end, from where she’d come.

  She recalled Zahir’s smile when she’d woken him. Open and trusting as a child. I was in a dark dream. You saved me.

  A deliberate hardening of herself, not to break a little from this. Sometimes it seemed as if various such moments in her life broke something in her, one piece at a time. No matter how she hardened herself.

  With time, streets gave way to dirt road and fallow fields. They had not exited the city walls but had come to a place less populous, with only the occasional hut or farmhouse. The road wound upward. From here they could see that in the course of their walk, they’d been climbing a hill which was incremental, not steep; and by now, they could look across the rooftops of the city to the mountain where the Zahra and its piled gardens were. Here on this hill were wrought-iron gates and a place that seemed deserted. But it was, in its own way, occupied.

  “City of the dead,” Zahir murmured as they passed through the gates. They saw no one else about. Crypts dominated the hill in neat rows, as far as they could see. The place was overgrown with trees and even, nearby, blue morning glories that had twined about the pillars of a great tomb. Some crypts were the size of small homes, were varied in their architectural styles as the eras represented.

  This was not the sort of place to which many in the city would come. Only the very wealthy and, most often, the nobility were buried here. Gold was insufficient to buy entry—one must also possess the right bloodlines. Families whose ancestry predated the Alfinian conquest reserved plots in Majdara’s ancient cemetery. Some graves, Lin knew, were old as the city itself.

  “Let me help,” said Zahir, hushed. Perhaps out of respect for the dead. “What are we looking for?”

  She shook her head. “I wish I knew.” Then shook her head again, this time at her own obtuseness. “Wait. Give me a moment.” Standing in the path between rows of crypts, Lin shut her eyes.

  When she opened them, she began immediately to stride forward. “Of course,” she muttered, forgetting a moment that to Zahir she’d seem mad. “It had to be from that time, and it had to be someone who had sympathies with … with them.” She did not want to name the Jitana here. Some superstition, or something more, held her back. The place was so quiet. Lin knew how fluid was the boundary between the living and dead. More than most people, she knew.

  “Take me to the tombs of the Acazrian kings,” she said.

  He nodded, assenting. She could have led them there but it seemed more fitting, now, to be led by the First Magician to the king.

  The crypts of the Acazrian dynasty were masterworks whose architects had held nothing back, whether in materials or workmanship. Their reign was a period of flourishing for the city, made possible by a lull between wars. The winged horses that adorned these crypts were gilded. One crypt, grander than most, boasted a winged horse sculpture of porphyry before its entrance. Structures like these would house not only a king, but his queens, concubines, and heirs. Names were engraved along the sides of some of these, long lists. Many stillborn children, Lin guessed.

  The winged horse sculpture was distinctive; it caught her eye as a possibility. But only a moment. “Not this one,” she said. “No. But…”

  And there it was, without fanfare, with nothing more than some instinct that made her glance up. Up at the tomb they had come to that was less splendid than some, though graceful with its rose-colored columns, a copper-tiled roof long since gone to green.

  “Here?” said Zahir.

  “Look,” she said. She felt something almost like joy. She indicated one of the steps to the tomb, where at a corner—so remotely placed one might well miss it—was a symbol worked in gold.

  “The ibis,” he breathed, as if he, too, feared to disturb the peace.

  “It will be sealed against tomb-robbers,” she said. “There must be some secret way in. Let me think…”

  “I suspect,” he said with a grin, “what you’re doing is not exactly thinking.”

  “Hush,” she said. She turned inward to the depths of her mind. To Edrien. It was a process less smooth, this time; as if the nearer she came to her desire, the more the Seer withdrew. Perhaps he wanted to protect these people. From her? From Zahir? Though she and the Seer were intertwined, nearly as one, she could not always read his intent.

  She had come to it now: a wall between her and the Seer, such as the time he had shielded her from her knowledge of how to access the Path.

  Just in case, she marched up the steps that led to the tomb doors, and tried them. As she expected, they were sealed.

  “I need your help,” she confessed. “I feel sure—I am sure—that the ibis signifies what we believe it does. There must be another entrance. Those who use it must have a key. Is it possible—with your magic, would it be possible to make our own key?”

  Zahir was examining the sign of the ibis in the stair. He had cleared away the dirt and debris that dulled it. Its gilding caught the sun. “I know one charm,” he said. “With the help of … of my friend. It is … complex, and will leave me weakened for a time.” He smiled at her. “I trust you will not take advantage of me in that state.”

  She thought it was a forced smile. She said, “Never.”

  “Cities are their own mystery,” he said. “Each one. Especially the old ones. And a city of the dead … it is where dimensions of the world meet and mesh. There are forces here that, with great effort, I may harness.”

  “Your … friend will help you.”

  “As ever he does. There is one condition, though.” Zahir took hold of her arms, set his gaze firmly to hers. “You must look away. If you don’t, I can’t shield you from what may com
e.”

  “Zahir, is this dangerous?”

  He smiled again, as if at a secret joke. “Magic is always dangerous,” he said. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Oh … but you know that better than anyone, don’t you? I’m sorry.” His smile died. “Yes, there is danger. No more than I’ve dealt with in the past. Just be patient with me after, my dear one. I will, for a time, have the strength of an old man or a child when this is done. There are risks in that … in being vulnerable like that. But this needs be done, so look away now. Look away.”

  She turned, gripping her arms against her body. She felt cold and knew it was her fear.

  “Remember,” he said. “No matter what happens … no matter what you hear … don’t turn.” His tone became pleading. “Don’t add your death to the tally of my sins.”

  “All right,” she said. “I won’t turn. I promise.”

  “No matter what you hear.”

  “No matter what I hear.”

  He sighed, as if at a task accomplished. She stood very still. He had begun to mutter under his breath. Harsh, guttural sounds. Just barely she could hear him as winds stole away the words. Winds. That, in fact, was strange. It was a mild day, the sky without clouds. But she heard what sounded like a thundering above them. The wind picked up. Lin’s hair whipped at her face.

  Zahir’s voice had grown stronger, resonant in the wind. He hissed, hurling imprecations at something unseen. As if whatever he worked was fashioned not of the serene enchantments she’d glimpsed in the Tower, but of some elemental rage.

  But of course, she thought—the Ifreet was no “friend.” Not to him nor to anyone.

  There was no mistaking his rage as he gnashed out words in a language she didn’t know. She wondered if it was a tongue spoken anywhere on earth. She thought of him as a boy, bereft of parents and a home, resolving to turn this dark force to his purpose.

  Lin gripped her arms tighter to try to keep still.