Beneath the Twisted Trees

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “It would make for a fine playhouse,” Fezek said, staring up at the seats.

  Davud licked his thumb and began wiping away the blood on Esmeray’s forehead, thereby lifting the spell of hiding he’d placed on her.

  Anila, meanwhile, sighed. “This isn’t the time, Fezek.”

  “Of course not, but perhaps we might revisit it? It does seem like a waste to show off a bunch of birds and hardly speak a verse!”

  “Fezek.”

  “Of course, of course,” he said absently, though none of the wonder had left his cloudy eyes. “I’ll give you time to think about it.”

  The sigil that had masked Esmeray’s presence was gone, leaving only the one that kept her asleep. Davud suspected it would work for hours, perhaps even days, on anyone else, but he could already feel her stirring. Even so, he decided not to reapply it. One way or another, this wasn’t going to take long.

  Indeed, a few scant breaths later, movement in the clouds caught his attention.

  “There,” he said, and Anila nodded.

  It was little more than a smudge at first, as if the clouds were daubs of paint being smeared by the finger of an overexcited child. It twisted and turned, wending its way toward the amphitheater. Then it rushed downward to a place on the third row of seats. There, suddenly, stood a handsome, dark-skinned man whose face bore more than a few similarities to Esmeray’s. He wore a tan turban, cocked to one side, a matching thawb, and a rope of a necklace with grape-sized beads that ran halfway down his chest.

  He held a kenshar with sigils engraved into the blade in one hand. He pointed this at Davud and Anila. “Step away from my sister.”

  “I warn you, Esrin, to come no nearer.” Davud pointed to the blood on the dirt. “None of us wants Esmeray to be harmed, but she will be should you or a spell or even that blade of yours cross this line.”

  Esrin stepped forward, stopping short of the circle of blood. “I told you to step away from my sister.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that. Not until we’ve come to an accord.”

  A voice called from behind them, “An accord?”

  Davud turned to find a woman standing near the wooden stage. She wore a flowing red jalabiya with a headdress of lapis and silver. Blue tattoos marked her chin and cheeks and ran above her eyebrows in arcs. Like Esrin, she had a striking resemblance to Esmeray. She was Dilara, their sister.

  “You think you can come to an accord with us?”

  Davud had hoped they would face only one of them, need to convince only one that he meant no harm, but there was nothing for it now. “Not an accord with you,” he said, “with the Enclave. We’re here to request sanctuary.”

  Esrin adjusted the aim of his kenshar, pointing to Esmeray’s wrist. “You blooded her.” He stepped down along the seats, then dropped to the amphitheater floor with a clomp of his leather boots. “You’ll die for what you’ve done.”

  “Esmeray would tell you herself that she attacked us,” Anila replied easily.

  Dilara approached the line of blood and stared at it warily. In the dim light it looked like ink spilled over a mottled piece of parchment. “That doesn’t sound like my sister.”

  A blatant lie. The tales told of Esmeray all spoke of a woman who lost her temper more often than a sick mule. “She tried to gouge my eyes out with her ring!”

  Dilara had yet to take her eyes off the circle of blood. She was looking for a weakness and thankfully couldn’t seem to find one. “Well, if that’s the case, this doesn’t have to end in bloodshed. Dismantle your spell, and we’ll let you walk away.”

  “I can’t do that. We’re being chased by the Kings. They’re hoping to use us, or see us dead. Wasn’t the Enclave formed to protect magi against precisely that?”

  At this Dilara looked up, her indignation masked by a calm face and a sweet smile. “The members of the Enclave protect one another,” she said. “You think any of us could trust you after this?”

  “Not you,” Davud explained again. “The inner circle. One meeting is all we’re asking for, to tell our tale and to let them decide.”

  Dilara smiled, her white teeth shining in the heavy shadows of the stadium. “Right now, we are the inner circle.”

  Davud caught movement on his left. Esrin, staring at the circle with an expression of pure concentration, lifted one hand toward it.

  “Davud!” Anila called, mere moments before the stone beneath the circle of blood began to shatter in an expanding line. The spell on Esmeray’s neck should have triggered, but the exact opposite was happening. The spell was being dismantled before their eyes, and the release of its energy was pulverizing the stone beneath the blood.

  Something bright and blue crossed the gap between Dilara and Davud. Pain was just beginning to register when he saw the glowing tendril running from Dilara’s hands to his ankles. Smiling, Dilara yanked on it hard, and Davud toppled to the stone, banging a knee and one elbow in the process. Worse was the pain now running through him. It tightened his muscles. Rattled his bones.

  “Please!” he called over the pain. “We only wish to speak!”

  Anila, however, wasted no effort on words. Her hands were spread toward Esrin, who stood several paces away. His eyes were wide, haunted, as if he were witnessing his own death. He stumbled to his knees, and his hand went to his heart.

  “No!” Dilara shouted, and sent another glowing rope lashing toward Anila’s neck.

  Fezek intercepted it with a blinding swipe of his right hand. “You’ll forgive me,” he said, “but I can’t allow you to do that.” The spell had caught his wrist, but didn’t seem to affect him as it had Davud. With a perfectly calm expression, he began to draw Dilara nearer, pulling the bright lash hand over hand, forcing her to release the spell with a ripsaw buzz.

  The other spell was still very much alive, however, and the pain was growing worse by the moment. Davud could try to cast a counterspell to stop her, but with his body bucking like an unbroken stallion it was impossible. There was only one thing he could think to do.

  As a guttural moan escaped his throat, he threw himself over Esmeray’s legs. Immediately, Esmeray’s body began to spasm as well.

  Seeing it, Dilara released her spell.

  Feeling like he’d fallen from the heights of Tauriyat and struck every stone on the way down, Davud managed to gain his feet. By then a roiling ball of green flame was gathering between Dilara’s hands. Davud was just trying to summon a shield, a thing he was nearly certain to fail at, when a gravelly voice called, “Enough!”

  The resonance in that voice, its deep command, caused Dilara, Anila, and Esrin to turn. Fezek, however, was staring at Esmeray as if he regretted what he was about to do.

  As he lifted one foot, Davud cried, “No!” and tackled him across the waist. Fezek, however, was stout-bodied, and wouldn’t go down easily, not with someone as thin as Davud trying to tackle him. At least Davud fouled his aim. Fezek struck only a glancing blow with his foot, doing little more than dislodging Esmeray’s turban. Desperate, Davud used a maneuver he’d seen Çeda use once: he hooked Fezek around one ankle and pushed hard until they both fell tumbling to the ground.

  Fezek was suddenly fighting Davud. His big hands pummeling him, sending Davud reeling. And then Fezek was on top of him. Gone was his kind look. Gone was the innocence in his eyes. He’d turned into someone else. Something else. He had both hands clasped, lifted high, ready to deliver a killing blow.

  Before it could land, however, Anila raised a hand. Thin tendrils of fog traveled between her palm and Fezek, and he went still as stone, staring into the middle distance, bewildered. Davud, meanwhile, crawled quickly away and regained his feet. After a moment, to make sure Fezek was under control once more, he turned toward the entrance tunnel, where a bowlegged Kundhunese man was walking into the theater proper.

  He had dark, wrinkled skin and a short wi
ry beard. His roughspun clothes spoke of a simple life, a simple man. So did his tassled leather cap with a beaten coin on the front and strings of seashells sewn into the top and sides. Most arresting was his gaze, which was deep, as if his experience went beyond this world.

  “You’re Undosu,” Davud said as he reached the stage.

  “My reputation spreads so far?” His Kundhunese accent might be heavy, but his tone was as light as his smile. Then his reddened eyes fell upon Dilara and Esrin, and that all changed. “It’s true then?” His smile disappeared, and his tone became that of a disappointed grandfather. “You discovered their nature and thought to leave me in the dark?”

  It looked like Esrin wanted to speak but was having trouble breathing. Dilara stepped into the silence. “He was asking around the city for us, but he comes from Sukru’s palace.”

  “No,” Anila interjected, “we escaped Sukru’s palace. We were his prisoners.”

  Dilara gave Anila an icy glare, then returned her attention to Undosu. “It’s a trap. How many of us must suffer at the hands of the Reaping King before we learn?”

  Undosu closed his eyes as if he’d heard this argument too many times before. “The Kings have not broken the pact.”

  Dilara looked as if she was biting her tongue. “You think that won’t change?” She gestured toward Tauriyat and the House of Kings. “You think Sukru won’t do whatever he needs to win the coming war?”

  Undosu waggled his head from side to side. “And how would killing us serve that purpose?”

  “He worries that we’ll be used by the enemy! Or that we’ll decide on our own to aid them.”

  “The Enclave would do neither.”

  “I know that, but the Kings don’t. And if you can’t see that then you’re a fool!”

  “Well,” Undosu said, “perhaps I am a fool, but you know very well that only the inner circle alone has the power to decide who enters our ranks. Not you. Not your brother. Certainly not your fool-headed sister.” Without waiting for a response, he spun toward Davud. “We’ll take you to the inner circle to present your story, and then we will decide whether sanctuary will be granted.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  Behind them, Esmeray was waking. Undosu went to her and helped her to her feet, though Davud had the impression it was as much for Davud and Anila’s sake as it was for Esmeray’s. It took Esmeray a moment, but she seemed slowly to recall the events that had delivered her here. Then her eyes met Davud’s and a burning fury was kindled. She lifted her hands, but Undosu grabbed them both and pushed her back. “No, no, no, fool girl! They’ve been granted sanctuary.”

  “I don’t care what you or anyone else has granted them!”

  “You will or you’ll end up like your brother, and this time Dilara and Esrin will follow.”

  At this, the fire in Esmeray cooled, making it clear how much she cared for her siblings. And it hinted at the fate of the fourth—Davud didn’t understand what had happened to their brother, exactly, but it was clear his fate was final.

  After one last deadly look at Anila and Fezek, Esmeray allowed Undosu to lead her from the amphitheater in that strange, waddling gait of his. Esrin followed, leaving Davud and Anila alone with Dilara.

  She stabbed one finger toward the exit. “Well, get on, then!”

  Davud did, with Anila by his side. Fezek, his confusion gone, his cheery expression returned, lumbered in their wake.

  Chapter 16

  BRAMA WAS SHAKEN by the sudden arrival of the second ehrekh in the Mirean war camp. His skin still itched from the buzzing as it had vanished in a cloud of locusts. He wasn’t ready to return to the hospital ship—he’d only feel confined there, trapped—so he wandered the desert instead, wondering why the ehrekh had come.

  Had it been drawn here by the same scent as Rümayesh and Brama? It was the likeliest explanation. Queen Alansal hadn’t mentioned any other ehrekh—the notion of trying to keep two of them under control without destroying her own fleet made Brama’s head spin—but he wouldn’t put it past her. Alansal was nothing if not bold. Except she’d already promised the bone of Raamajit to Rümayesh. What did that leave for the other ehrekh?

  Or maybe he had it all wrong. Maybe the queen had made a pact with the other ehrekh before Brama had arrived at their camp. But if so, why wouldn’t Alansal have mentioned it?

  Did you know anything about it? he called to Rümayesh.

  She didn’t reply. In fact, he realized she’d completely closed herself off to him. At least when he’d arrived at the Mirean camp he’d had a vague awareness of her presence. Now he couldn’t sense her at all.

  He headed back to camp as the sun began to burn along the eastern horizon. Near the hospital ship, a pair of soldiers were carrying a woman on a stretcher. They took to the gangplank as she moaned and coughed, twisting where she lay. Brama couldn’t understand her words—they came in breathy gasps, as if she were in a fever dream.

  He picked up his pace and realized it was Shu-fen.

  He lost sight of them as they reached the deck high above. A knot of worry began to form in his gut. He made his way back to the infirmary, the long room with all the cots. An old woman wearing the simple robes of a physic and the young man who’d tended to Brama the day before were at Shu-fen’s bedside along with the two foot soldiers who had carried her in. Brama’s steps were heavy as he made his way toward them.

  They’d removed the bandages around Shu-fen’s right thigh. The wound had been stitched, and there was a poultice that glistened over her skin. The flesh around the wound, however, wasn’t right. It was dark. Black. Less than a day had passed since the asirim’s attack. The asir’s claws had clearly infected her flesh, but it was spreading faster than anything Brama had ever seen and, if the grim expressions on the faces of the two physics was any indication, he was not alone.

  Just then a terrible coughing fit overtook Shu-fen, and she looked up at Brama with a surprised expression, as if she’d just realized he was there. It was in that moment, with their eyes locked, that Brama realized a terrible, horrifying truth. He could somehow feel the effect the infection was having on her, like some dark demon clawing toward a pit and dragging Shu-fen with it.

  And Brama liked it. His sense of its hungry growth sent thrills running through him. He was horrified Shu-fen might die, and yet the disease itself was like an old, favored meal that had been laced with spices he’d never tasted before. It completely changed the dish, made it new again.

  This is how Rümayesh feels. This is how she experiences us, whether it be joy, love, pain, or anguish. They are all but flavors to be savored.

  He wanted to give Shu-fen hope, but how could he do that when he couldn’t even hold her eye?

  “Are you well?” the young physic asked him in Sharakhan.

  Brama blinked, realizing the man must have been staring at him for some time. He was saved from replying when Shu-Fen’s twin sister, Mae, burst through the doorway, out of breath, as if she’d sprinted the whole way here. She wore not the lacquered armor of the Damned but a simple blue silk shirt and trousers. Shu-fen’s look immediately softened. She stared at Mae with a mixture of confusion and helplessness, then seemed to notice Brama again. Her expression turned serious, and she spoke to the healers quickly while pointing to Brama’s midsection.

  The young physic motioned to Brama’s bandages. “May we see?”

  Glad for the distraction, he removed his shirt, tossed it on a nearby cot, and unwound the bandages wrapped around his chest. When his skin was revealed, both Shu-fen and Mae gasped. What had been a furrowed landscape of fresh wounds yesterday was now a collection of angry but mostly healed flesh. Only a few spots still wept clear fluid, and there was no trace of darkened flesh.

  “Did your mistress heal you?” the physic asked.

  Brama shrugged. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  The ph
ysic nodded as if that were a perfectly reasonable answer to give. “Can she also do this for Shu-fen?”

  “I can ask her upon her return.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He seemed disconcerted at that, but smiled anyway. “You’ll let us know?”

  “I will.”

  He bowed from the waist. “Thank you.”

  Don’t thank me yet, Brama thought. I’ve no idea what she might demand in return.

  Over the day that followed, Shu-fen’s condition worsened. She lay in her cot, either awake and coughing or asleep and thrashing. And the infection in her wounds continued to spread. They came to Brama several times to ask about Rümayesh, but he told them the same thing each time.

  “She’s gone, and I don’t know when she’ll return.”

  By the end of the following day, they couldn’t wait any longer, and decided to amputate her right leg. Despite the milky serum they’d administered, her screams filled the entirety of the hospital ship.

  Brama asked to speak with the queen again, planning to broach the subject of the ehrekh. He thought it too much of a coincidence that the very night Rümayesh had chosen to leave the Mirean camp had been the same night the other ehrekh had spoken with Queen Alansal. In reply, he was told that the queen would be happy to speak to Rümayesh. When he told them Rümayesh went where she would and could not be summoned, they said they understood and would he please inform them if he somehow found a way.

  In the eyes of the queen, I’m nothing more than a lackey.

  The following morning, guards were assigned to him. They didn’t prevent him from leaving the ship, nor walking in the desert if he so chose, but they accompanied him everywhere and insisted he remain away from the pavilion.

  That night, Shu-fen died.

  Surely it was as much to do with the strange infection as it was the loss of blood and amputation of her leg. As was the way of the Damned, Shu-fen’s qirin died as well. Apparently, it had simply lain down beside the pool where the qirin were being kept, closed its eyes, and never got up again. The two were buried together in a deep desert grave.