by Lucy Tempest
“Yes, by sharing the responsibility for the answers. We’re going on this quest together!”
“It is his quest to restore his kingdom and retake his birthright. You’ve already fulfilled your sole purpose in this realm by destroying the first and robbing him of the second. Your status as a tagalong serves no purpose in this story anymore.”
“That wasn’t my purpose,” I tried to push away from Cyrus as I yelled at it. “I was used! But I’m here to help set things right, so don’t you tell me I have no place in this story.”
It suddenly stretched its neck, bringing its beak level with my face. “I could eat you right now as compensation for him taking so long to respond and it wouldn’t make a difference to his quest.”
“She is my partner in this.” Cyrus pressed me to his side protectively, like he feared the simurgh would make good on its threat, voice pitched low with sincerity and restrained fury. “Our survival is dependent on one another so you will allow her to act as I do.”
“You are in no position to make demands. Your missteps will lead to your deaths.”
He pushed its beak away from my face. “You won’t kill us.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because you must want something out of this, too,” he retorted. “And it’s not the chance to eat us. If questing fools were your sustenance, with one coming every hundred years, you would have died of starvation eons ago. Unless you aren’t the same simurgh Esfandiar encountered as you’ve said.”
“What difference does it make if I’m not?”
“If you’re not, and you’re stationed here, like other guards, you’d want to be reassigned to other posts, elevated to a higher position or relieved of duty.”
“What is your point?”
“Don’t interrupt me!” Cyrus shook his finger at it in reprimand. He might really be losing his mind. “You are stationed here, which means the only way you can be relieved is when your job is done. And I know you want to leave because this isn’t your habitat.”
It bent its head, its version of raising an eyebrow.
“You’re a bird, mostly, make your nests in great trees or mountains,” Cyrus continued, driving his point home. “If we answer correctly, you get to move on the same way we do, perhaps you even get to go home. If we fail you, you eat us as punishment, but it’s a punishment for yourself, too, as you stay stuck here where you’re forced to live underground.”
“You are quite perceptive,” it finally said.
Cyrus inclined his head in an adamant pose. “We agree then, that it’s in your best interests to give us every advantage. Let her answer if she wants, but if she’s wrong I’ll have the chance to rectify it.”
The simurgh mirrored his head tilt. “But you must decide which of you answers first. And if you’re both wrong, I will not give you a second chance.”
“I’ll go first,” I spoke up.
His brows creased. “Only if you want to.”
“I do things I don’t want to all the time,” I said, before tripping all over myself to add, “But I do want to do this.”
He frowned down at me before he finally nodded, faced the simurgh with a spectacular glare. “One more time, if you don’t mind?”
It narrowed its eyes as it repeated, “At night they come without being fetched and by day they are lost without being stolen.”
He’d bought us some time, and a repetition of the riddle, both invaluable assets. Now I joined him in trying to make sense of the riddle.
It wasn’t true I was good at riddles. The only ones I knew had been from school or from Cherine on train rides. I’d just tried to put myself between Cyrus and the simurgh’s threat.
Now our lives literally depended on solving this one.
Something that came at night—every night judging by the phrasing—and when morning came they were ‘lost’ without being ‘stolen…’
I had a feeling that simurgh had chosen this specific riddle to throw the word ‘stolen’ in my face.
But if something happened that regularly, then vanished every morning, like they were plucked from our view once the night ended, like we had lost sight of them—
“Give your answer now.”
At the simurgh’s rumble, I looked at Cyrus, terrified I might give the wrong answer, cut his chances in half, or even end them if he hadn’t figured it out. Terrified this might be goodbye for real this time.
“Now!”
“The stars!” I cried out, quaking down to my marrow.
The simurgh bowed its head, eyes sliding fully shut. “Correct.”
Cyrus let out a ragged, lung-deflating breath.
“Before you go onto the next stage, you must purify yourselves.” It pointed a wing at the fountain.
Neither of us questioned it, even if we wanted to. Cyrus went first, scooping some of the liquid in his palm to sniff. Satisfied with its scent, he dipped his hands into the basin and began to wash his face, hair and neck.
I did the same, before bending over the lip to stick my entire head in the basin. A sobbing groan bubbled out of my inflamed throat as the liquid soothed my burning scalp and face, washing the grime of dread and depletion away.
Underwater, I could hear nothing but the rumble of liquid, see nothing but the inner concavity of the basin—see something shining at the bottom…
The shimmer teased me to open my eyes wider to see what it was. It grew, swirling hypnotically, glowing brighter, urging me to move closer.
Something grabbed my arm, tried to pull me out. I resisted, thrashed. Nothing could pull me away, nothing would. Unable to look away, my eyes strained as images began to solidify among the iridescent glimmers. It was Bonnie!
She was running up a blue hill where flowers as big as trees hung over her. Something was chasing her, something huge, casting an endless shadow over her trail as she neared the hilltop. Her image grew bigger across the bottom, her gleaming hair whipping across her face in the wind as her mouth opened, not just to pant but to shout—to scream. The thing chasing her reached out, its clawed hand poised to sink into her shoulder—
Screaming my remaining air out, I dove into the fountain, taking my anchor with me.
The basin grew as wide and deep as a lake as we sunk into the pearlescent water like we had rocks tied to us, taking us straight down to the spinning light I needed to reach, and sucked us into the blinding nothingness.
Chapter Seventeen
I continued falling through the world beyond the fountain.
It was as deep and as vast as the night sky. But rather than endless darkness, it was a calm twilight, a celestial watercolor painting of soft lilacs, pale blues, and translucent purples.
Every now and then, in the gaps between overlapping clouds, I could see glimpses of other places. Locations with ongoing scenes, and portals like the ones I’d been sucked into. Like the one I was still falling through, with no wind in my ears and no end in sight.
Cyrus was supposed to be with me. My anchor. He’d tried to pull me out. I’d pulled him in instead. But I couldn’t find him anywhere in my unending fall.
A burst of dark color blossomed below me, reaching upward in smoky tendrils, like blue ink undulating into a glass of milk. The moment it touched me, the dream-like state of my endless descent ended.
The source of darkness below me became solid ground and the weightlessness became a true fall. The tug of earth on my body, the wind hitting my face, whooshing in my ears and drying out my eyes had dread bursting in my gut.
I squeezed my eyes shut, a thousand wishes for those I loved thundering with my last heartbeats as I—
—hit the ground with a soft thump.
Body shaking beyond use, I remained face down, boneless, whimpering—processing.
I’d thought I’d die a quick, agonizing death. It was like I’d rolled off the couch instead.
I finally lifted a head filled with cacophony and debris and looked around.
I was in a wasteland. One with ragged
hills of mudstone and shale, with a petrified forest bordering the vast expanse of cracked-dirt ground where I lay.
The deepest blue sky above was like wrinkled beds sheets sprayed with glitter dust. In all my nights on the streets, I’d never seen so many stars.
I rose onto quaking knees and more lights appeared across the canopy of night. Lines of blues and greens with glowing centers and fuzzy borders, connecting the stars in irregular webs. When I made it to my feet, more glowing masses revealed themselves around me, mobile and flickering like flames in soft winds.
There seemed to be no immediate threat, but there was also no shelter. The forest was too far, and I didn’t dare make a run for it. Those moving lights might be any of the nighttime demons the Cahramani feared. I’d already had my unforgettable disaster with the ghouls, and I had no desire to experience ifrits.
My desires clearly made no difference, as a few lights wandered closer to me.
I flattened myself to the ground again, suppressing my breathing as I watched them float by. In shades of lilac, sea-foam green and starlight yellow, these humanoid apparitions moved past me on see-through legs, their centers ebbing and flowing in waves of light. I couldn’t see their faces, didn’t know if they had ones, but I could hear their amalgamation of whispers.
They passed me without incident, not noticing me or even each other.
Were these ghosts? Was I a ghost? Had I died when I’d hit the ground and hadn’t realized it? Or had I already been dead, drowned in the fountain, and the fall had been a dying dream?
Apart from the crushing disappointment of thinking I’d died before undoing my mistakes, the idea itself didn’t alarm me as I thought it would. I only hoped Cyrus would carry on his quest and have a better chance at succeeding without me. As for me, I only wished I’d find my mother. That would be the only good in this situation, if death finally reunited us…
Something moved in the distance. The only moving thing beside me not emitting light.
All thoughts of death and resignation evaporated as hope detonated in my chest.
But I didn’t have enough breath to run. So I used what I had to scream the one thing on my mind.
“Cyrus!”
The silhouette turned around then broke into a powerful run in my direction.
It was him.
I ran then, on what felt like the fumes of my burning lungs. But I had to meet him halfway.
He met me with outstretched arms, sweeping me off my feet, spinning me before pulling me into a tight embrace. I held onto him with every remaining wisp of my strength.
I could feel his heat, hear his heartbeat.
“You’re alive!” I gasped.
“And so are you.” His arms tightened around me as if to reassure himself of the fact. “I plunged into the Salsabil when it dragged you in, tried to pull you out.”
Salsabil? The pink fountain waters had a name? And a story, no doubt.
“I knew this was what we were supposed to do anyway to get here, but you seemed distressed, and I thought you were drowning.” His voice deepened, becoming ragged. “But once I followed you inside the Salsabil, I lost track of you, felt like I was plummeting for an eternity. Then I landed here, started looking for you immediately—but I couldn’t find you. Your scream was the best thing I’ve ever heard.”
And he was all around the best thing I’d ever known.
He moved back to look down at me as if trying to reassure himself I was unharmed. “The good part about this is that by ‘drowning’ in the Salsabil, it’s said you can never be thirsty again.”
It was just then I realized I wasn’t anymore. I’d been beyond parched before I plunged in it. My mouth fell open as his words sank in. “You mean we never have to drink again?”
He shook his head. “I think that at best it gives you some magical resistance to dehydration. But we’ll just have to wait and see. For now, we’re restored after our trek through the Land of No Return.”
“Your trek. I was a mere passenger. Or cargo.”
His lips twitched and my knees almost gave out. Would he smile at me again?
But even if not, he was talking to me, he had worried about me, tried to save me yet again. And we were both alive, and here. In the in-between.
But what was this place exactly?
As if in tune with my thoughts, he raised his head to look around. “I’m wondering if this place leads to the spirit worlds, too.”
This made an alarmed wheeze escape me. “Spirit worlds? You mean the afterlife?”
“Not exactly. Beyond the other realms where other creatures live, there are supposed to be many levels of life beyond ours. Seven, if I remember correctly. I was never clear on what they all are, as there are so many contradicting accounts, and how they’re different from other realms, but I guess the in-between is another word for the null level—Barzakh.”
“Bless you.” I leaned back in his arms, trying to add some levity to the moment. I knew it was a word that sounded like Cherine’s Duzakh.
His lips quirked, if only for a second. “Barzakh is what we call the existence between all realms of life and all stages of the afterlife.” He tossed his head at the passing apparitions. “It clearly wasn’t something to scare the young and wayward into behaving.”
“What are these then?” I held on to his arms, still afraid he’d suddenly vanish.
“Apparently the souls of those who are forever doomed to wander the in-between, not worthy of heaven but not evil enough for hell.”
“They can never move on?”
“Not by any means I was told about.”
Realization popped out with a stifled shriek. “We’re in limbo?”
He cringed at my volume. “If this is what they call it in Arbore.”
“I don’t know what they call it in Arbore,” I admitted, deflating.
“I keep forgetting you’re not who you said you were.” His hands slid off me as he took a step back, sizing me up. “But I think I know where you’re from. I don’t know why I didn’t catch on earlier. If you were from Arbore, and had a recent ancestor from a desert kingdom, you would have been like Fairuza, with some of our features, but still fair like Arboreans. The people who look closest to you are from Almaskham.”
“I didn’t know that myself for sure until Marzeya’s test. But you probably won’t believe that, as you must think everything I say is a lie.”
For moments, he looked almost desolate, before he shook his head. “I don’t think that. I don’t believe everything was a lie.” Before I could burst out that none of what we had was a lie, he added, “But it maddens me not knowing what exactly was and what wasn’t.”
“I-I’ll tell you everything.” I choked. “Just promise to hear me out—keep an open mind.”
He brooded down at me, face somber. Then he finally exhaled “Explanations have to wait. We have to find that other gateway.”
“How do we do that?”
He looked away and I followed his line of sight to a path that had etched itself in glowing demarcations, as if pointing us in its direction.
He extended his hand to me. “We walk.”
I lunged to take it, matching his pace. “To where?”
“To the end.”
“What if there is no end?”
“Since we’re not dead, there should be an end for us.”
“But what if that chimera tricked us, to trap us here forever?”
“For what purpose? I already established it needs us to win so it can move on.”
“What if we make it out of Barzakh, but not end up where the Cave of Wonders is? I mean, if this is limbo, what if we end up in hell?”
He shrugged. “Then we shall meet a lot of interesting people.”
“Don’t even joke about it,” I spluttered.
“I’m not. Those damned to hell usually have the most interesting lives. Though, sometimes their tales are only so interesting because they were awful people.”
“Sometimes, not always
?”
“Well, slaughtering your dinner guests isn’t the only reason to be damned to hell. Gods are sometimes fickle in passing judgment. They can even impose their first stage of punishment in life, turning those who offend them into demons, or transforming people through their own actions into monsters. And sometimes damning them for no reason at all.” His mouth compressed grimly. “Remember when you thought Ayman was a ghoul?”
“Don’t remind me.” I buried my face in his arm. “Of ghouls in general, or what happened to him.”
“I can’t think of what happened to him or I would go mad and be of no use to him. But I can’t stop thinking that I had to fight to give the position of my guard, when he’s my cousin!”
I clung harder to his arm, desperate to soothe his outrage and anguish. “But you did consider him one, a brother even, treated him as such.”
“Yes, but it’s not enough. I’m not enough. Once we restore him, he would have his birthright. That and every other compensation from everyone who wronged him, for all he’s suffered, through no fault of his own.”
His impassioned wrath reflected everything I felt on Ayman’s behalf. I nodded vigorously. “I know exactly how you feel. When I learned he’s my half-brother…”
He juddered to a standstill. He stared down at me as if he too had turned to stone, trapped in this expression of total shock for eternity.
“He’s…what?”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I knew there was no putting this off anymore.
Explaining my relationship to Ayman turned out to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done. It led to explaining who my mother was, who I am, and consequently to explaining everything to him. Not in the way I’d intended at all.
But it was all out now.
“I-I might be wrong about all this. But I really don’t think I am.”
After my concluding words, we remained like that, staring at each other.
Time melted away, the whole of existence disappeared.
Suddenly, a thought I’d never entertained before, burst in my mind, making me stumble away. “W-what does that make us?”
Chapter Eighteen