Another thunder strike, this time directly above their heads. Then another sound. What began to tear from Zahir was a scream. As if he were being flayed alive. Again the thunder struck; he did not even pause for breath. It was agony, unmistakable. Lin was shaking uncontrollably now, her eyes screwed tight. It took every particle of her strength not to turn.
It seemed to go on for hours. Later she’d come to realize it had been only a matter of moments. But the memory of that cry was something she knew she’d carry with her all her days, because while she did not know what manner of magic Zahir had worked, she was certain of one thing: the price he’d paid for it was real, and lasting.
After he’d fallen silent, after the thunder, when all was quiet again, Lin found that her heart had slowed to its accustomed rhythm. She wanted to weep. She wanted to rage, as well, at the Magician for failing to warn her sufficiently. But when at last he said, “You can look now, Lin,” it was with satisfaction. He looked exhausted, yes, and drenched in perspiration; but predominantly seemed pleased with himself.
“You’re all right,” she said, half relief, half irritation.
“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “Look.” He was pointing at the crypt. The front door was still shut as before. But between ornamental columns that flanked the side wall, a door had opened into the tomb.
He grinned wide, with obvious delight. “There was an enchantment in the ibis sign,” he said. “I managed to … shall we say, activate it. Though everything in it fought me. It is meant as a protection against enemies.”
“All right, that’s very impressive,” she said, still shaken and, therefore, annoyed. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”
“Yes,” he said. “Just one thing. I’ll need to lean on your arm, if you’d be so kind.”
The stairs that led down inside the crypt were lit with candles. So someone was here. Lin dearly hoped whoever was here would not be hostile to them, for Zahir was clearly not in fighting condition. He leaned hard on her arm and breathed heavily even though they were descending. They made slow progress, and once or twice she had to catch his arm when he slipped. She began to realize that much of his insouciance after the enchantment might have been for her benefit—whether as a masculine pose, or to reassure her, she didn’t know.
The room they came to was identical to that which she’d seen through Edrien’s eyes. Nothing changed. Lit braziers surrounded the round, deep pool on a floor like glass. But this time the room was not filled with people. Their footsteps rang too loudly as they arrived at the foot of the stairs.
A voice, cold but instantly familiar. “So it’s you.”
It was Aleira Suzehn, looking haggard and thin. Her clothing the worse for wear. “And you bring a Tower Magician,” she said. “It is as well that the people have gone. I wouldn’t trust any Magician of that palace.”
Lin’s heart sank. “They’ve gone.”
“Of course. They couldn’t stay. Not with what is coming to Majdara. And just as well, since you bring the enemy to our door. To our sanctuary.”
Lin shook her head. “You must understand … we only want peace. I found your letter about the prophecy. I vouched for you and King Eldakar believes you. We want to speak terms of truce, to fight what comes.”
Aleira shrugged. “If that is true, I shall let her be the judge,” she said. That was when Lin caught sight of another figure in the room with them. She was seated in shadow, upright, thinner even than Aleira. A purple gown, regal in cut, clad her slight frame and was belted with gold. Her hair pure white. “This is the Mistress of the city,” said Aleira. “Queen of the Jitana underground. She alone stayed behind.” Looking more closely, Lin saw the woman’s eyes matched her hair: filmed over white. “If the Mistress judges you worthy, you will be allowed to leave this place alive. And if there is any way you may serve as allies…” Here Aleira’s voice trembled, until again it held. “It is not usually our way, to associate thus with enemies. But perhaps now it is time.”
* * *
LIN and Zahir knelt at the pool’s edge. The floor cut into her knees. She knew better than to move. This had been the old woman’s command, spoken in a voice that was reedy yet implacable with resolve.
Beside her, Zahir was teetering slightly, still weak. He had uttered few words since their arrival. Lin didn’t know what Aleira had meant by allowing them to leave alive; she was confident she could take on both women if need be, if it came to weapons. It would be stupidly easy, in fact, and she couldn’t possibly harm an old woman. But Aleira was clever, so Lin suspected she had meant something else altogether. Some other, unspoken threat.
Up close, the water swirled. It was indigo in color, like ink, and reflected none of the light.
The woman Aleira had called Mistress was seated across from them in her chair. Aleira stood behind her, a hand on her shoulder. The older woman spoke. “I believe we need not fear these strangers, Aleira Suzehn. Each is capable of great harm. Each has done, or will do, terrible acts. It is hard to see which—past and future are, to my sight, much interlinked. But they intend no harm to us.” She went silent. They heard her breathing, a labored wheeze. The filmed eyes fixed on Lin, then Zahir. Again she spoke. “They are both so interesting. Each is beset with a dark rider.”
Aleira stared at Lin, perhaps accusingly. “Really.”
“Calm yourself, child,” said the old woman with a note of derision. “As I said, we are not the ones who need fear these two. They speak truth about their intentions here.” For the first time she smiled, as if charmed by a discovery. “The man wears a face not his own. His rider gives cover to him.”
Up close, Lin could see her seamed lips, the strong line of a jaw that would once, she was sure, have been beautiful. She wore earrings of emerald and pearl. She appeared unspeakably old. Yet also, in some way, familiar.
Lin saw her opening to speak. “Mistress, if we have your trust, we are grateful. It is why we are here.”
The woman laughed. “You are here because I permitted you entry,” she said. “Otherwise, that spell outside? You, Magician, would have perished of it. As it was, you almost did.”
Zahir met her blind gaze steadily. He looked numb, like an animal caught in a trap. Lin had never thought to see him thus.
When the woman sat back in her chair, it was with a changed expression. “And the idea of that—that I could have killed you—that terrifies you. Doesn’t it, Magician? But not for your own sake. There are voices added to yours. A multitude, if I listen. As if their lives are tied to you, and your death would damn them. Again, interesting. I have not had a puzzle like this in so long. But that’s not why I allowed you here. Magician, hear me. I know you work in prophecies.”
Zahir nodded. In a flat voice said, “Yes, Mistress.”
“We Jitana do not. Not exactly. But through the years a few prophecies have acted as our guideposts, handed down by the goddess Eret through her messenger. Cambias, who led us from the desert lands with the promise of home. Some of the prophecies have come to pass. Some have not. One, in particular, speaks of a time of darkness from the west.” Her face turned to Lin. “Your people. Seers. They work evil on us here. In my dreams it takes the form of a tower, where they are, on an island swept with cold.”
Lin kept her voice neutral as she could. “How does your prophecy say to stop them, Mistress?”
With a quick motion, the woman tossed something into the pool. It was powder, a sprinkling of what looked like gold. As it fell on the water it was submerged instantly, disappeared. “There must be a dance,” said the woman. In the water, an image was gathering. A flare, as if flames burned beneath the water’s surface. As the image sharpened and took shape, Lin saw it was fire, indeed. In the silence of the chamber they could even hear its crackling, smell its smoke. “It will be a true Fire Dance like that of old. Like has not been seen in some years.”
Aleira made a sound, an indrawn breath. “I thought those were myth.”
“You hoped,” said the woman. “
As we all hope such things will never be. But here, look.” She threw another handful of powder into the water. It sank again. The water began to brighten and they saw, emerging against that brightness, the outline of a figure. Then it came into focus. A pale woman with long hair, clad in a dark dress. It looked to Lin like a painting. Clasped between her white hands, pointed downward, a sword nearly of her own height. There were symbols etched in the blade.
“The Queen of Swords,” said the Mistress. “A woman of power and intelligence. She has strong passions which she holds in check. Wielding the blade for justice.”
The figure dissolved. Once again the pool was dark. The woman tossed in another handful of powder. Another figure surfaced. This was a man, clad in a crimson cloak, a tunic belted with gold, presiding over a table. The table held a jeweled chalice, a scroll, and a grinning skull. “The Magician,” said the Mistress. “This can be a man or a woman. A person with great power, too, employed with lighthearted wit. Someone versed in the world’s dimensions.”
The image had changed: the Queen of Swords and the Magician now shared the space of the pool, though did not touch. The Mistress said, “These two will be central to the Fire Dance. That is the prophecy. What falls from there, I cannot say. It is a single flaring in the dark. What comes to pass after will be determined by the acts of many—not only by us and our dance. But do you want to know how you may act, Lin Amaristoth? This is all I may tell you.”
“I have one more question,” said Lin. “You said, before, that we hope such things—such as the Fire Dance—will never be. Why?”
Sometime in the dialogue Zahir had taken her hand. Lin didn’t know why, but did not withdraw. She watched, as she knew he did, as the image of the Queen of Swords and the Magician faded, until the pool was lifeless again. She continued to stare into that water. She almost expected the words to come, as if she had dreamed them once before.
They were a long time coming. The silence stretched. At last Lin glanced up at the Mistress and saw the woman gazed down at them with what seemed a look, for the first time, of compassion. “Every dance is, at its heart, a transformation. This one more than most. For a shadow to be vanquished, there must be sacrifice.”
Aleira choked. Lin saw there were tears on the woman’s cheeks, though she kept her lips pressed tight. The older woman squeezed Aleira’s hand where it rested on her shoulder, the first sign of softness from her Lin had seen. But her face showed no emotion.
“I cannot say whether it is the Queen or the Magician who will meet their end,” said the Mistress. “Or I should say, meet the final transformation, which is death. That is the prophecy: Two enter into the dance. One survives.”
* * *
ON the third day that Garon Senn was in custody for the murder of Tarik Ibn-Mor, Nameir descended to the dungeons to see him. For three days she had postponed what felt to her like a queasy, unavoidable obligation. Suspicion had fallen upon him after her discovery of the Magician’s body, since Garon had been seen so often in his company. Or, as one servant put it, “creeping about” in Tarik’s vicinity. Garon had confessed to spying on the Second Magician on behalf of Lin Amaristoth but that was, he’d insisted, as far as it went. Tarik had been in the process of betraying his king, brokering a deal with Ramadus. This was documented; Eldakar already had been informed of it by the Court Poet. It had been unsurprising that a man engaged in such treasonous activities should flee.
But some of the more grizzled of the palace guard testified, one after another, of the brutish nature of Garon Senn. Murder was nothing to a man like him. What remained a mystery was motive. What had Garon Senn, commander of the Court Poet’s personal guard, to gain from the murder of the Second Magician? It made no sense.
Such were the thoughts Nameir shouldered as she made her way down the winding stair through the part of the palace—perhaps the only part—that was devoid of beauty. It was lightless, dank, and polished tile gave way to slabs of granite. The delicate scents of the palace—ambergris, incense, orange blossoms—drowned here with the stench of fecal waste.
Nameir had seen and smelled far worse. These were not what made her feel as if the ground dropped from beneath her as she viewed the man through the bars of the cell door. Mostly what she could see were his eyes, sullen whites agleam in a slant of light from above. “What do you want?” he said.
An easy answer for that. She said, “I want my family back, but that’s neither here nor there.”
Now she saw something other than his eyes; the baring of teeth. “Are you here for revenge, commander? I’d thought you were more the obedient type. Not the sort to enact your own justice.”
“You thought right.” The bile had risen in her throat. To be talking to this man. It felt like betrayal. “I am here for the king. He doesn’t know I’m here, but it is in his service. I wanted to hear for myself what you had to say. There’s a false ring to this story and while I don’t mind the idea of your execution, I want to make sure my … my people are not in danger. Someone who murdered the Second Magician might kill again.”
Again that unnerving grin. She could imagine, with dizziness bordering on nausea, that that grin might have been the last thing her mother saw. “You’re right to worry,” said Garon Senn. “I don’t know who killed Tarik, but it wasn’t me. Why would I do it? I was doing well in my career. Lin Amaristoth had promised to raise me up, reward me with lands for my service to her. For what possible reason would I go out of my way, risk everything, to turn all that to shit?”
“What if Tarik knew something about you … something you wanted hidden?” Like, for example, that you’re a monster.
He laughed. A sound that made her shudder. “Everyone knows about me,” he said.
Everyone. A thought that caught her in the belly like she’d been kicked. The people of the Zahra knew what Garon Senn was … what he’d done. The Court Poet of Eivar knew. And it didn’t matter, because the world had moved on. Because his skills were indispensable in war.
He said, “If I’m not executed before we’re attacked, mark my words, commander, I will be freed. Your king needs me in this fight. It’s a mistake, keeping me here. I led his father’s troops to victory and could do the same for him.”
The world had moved on, indeed, from the small house with its copper shrine that she could hardly, no matter how she might try, conjure in its details anymore. It had moved on from deeds too awful to be spoken of or even recall. Worst of all was that she understood. She had spent too many years with a sword in hand, with fighting men in her charge, to delude herself about the exigencies of war. And its horrors.
She had no further words for the man who had slain her family and violated her mother. But as she took the stairs, leaving behind the overpowering smell and tomblike murk, Nameir thought what she would say to Eldakar Evrayad, the ruler to whom she’d sworn allegiance. Who even now massed his troops for war in the north, when he was not attending to his brother.
She closed her eyes on this thought. Mansur had still not shown signs of waking.
She imagined meeting privately with the king and telling him that the man in the cell, a man who had demolished countless lives, was most likely guiltless of this particular crime. And that while she’d gladly have seen him dead, what she wanted was irrelevant. The question of justice too ambiguous to pursue. What mattered was that the murderer was still loose. Someone in the palace who had seen fit to murder one of its highest officials. Who had succeeded in doing so despite all Tarik’s powers and protections.
Someone who might therefore strike again.
* * *
THEY headed for the gate of the cemetery, hand in hand. Dusk was falling and the shadows of the crypts had lengthened. The paths between them shaded as the sun set.
“I won’t do something that could mean your death,” he said.
“That’s silly,” she said. “I’m to die anyway. Remember? But it might be you. And … I don’t think I can bear that.”
“So we find ourselv
es at an impasse.” Zahir kept walking. When she looked at him, she thought she saw hints of his true face in the lines of cheekbone and jaw. She recalled the earlier engagement with Jitana magic, that which had nearly cost his life, and wondered if it had worn this particular charm away.
“I don’t know what to do,” he confessed. Yes, he was back: the eyes he turned to her turquoise instead of black.
“We go north,” she said. “We treat with them. Maybe there’ll be no need of that dance at all. Maybe,” she added, feeling inspired, “the old woman is mad and the prophecy nonsense. Or a malicious lie to frighten us.” Now that she said it, she wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her earlier. They had no reason to trust that woman, nor any of the Fire Dancers. And why this sudden mention of a Fire Dancer prophecy, when she’d never heard of them having prophecies before? Most of their lore was kept secret and never written, but still, it seemed convenient. What’s more, Aleira had made no mention of them.
Aleira, who had stayed behind, looking bereft. Lin was moved to embrace her before they departed. And then they had taken the stairs back to the light above. The enchanted door closing behind them and leaving no trace, not even a seam in the stone.
“I refuse to believe you will die,” said Zahir. “You are made of diamond and ivory and will last forever.”
She laughed. “Believe what you will. So long as we go north.”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “We go north. We’ll meet with the self-styled King of the North. And you’ll use that Amaristoth charm I’ve heard so much about.”
And so, improbably, they were both laughing as they made their way between tombs, out through the wrought iron gates and back to the main road. As if whatever had taken place in the subterranean room beside that pool possessed no more substance than a fog that, as they walked and laughed, was already lifting.
CHAPTER
25
IT was impossible to say how long they’d been in the desert. It could not have been a long while: they didn’t burn in the sun, nor grow thirsty from the punishing heat. Yet to Julien it seemed interminable. The presence of the woman floating ahead cast a pall, the heaviness from her almost palpable. It meant Julien and Dorn felt compelled to hold their silence, except for the most perfunctory exchanges.
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