Beneath the Twisted Trees

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Won’t I?”

  “No. You’ll want to try it on someone else first. Someone with a similar wound. Perhaps someone who’s died more recently so that I might prove that it works before you risk your brother’s life.”

  Sukru’s eyes went flat. “You’re suggesting I allow you to resurrect your mother.”

  “It’s only prudent.” Anila’s heart was beating so madly she heard the rush in her ears. “She’s the perfect way to prove it will work. If I can resurrect her, you can heal her and watch her for a time to be sure she’s stable. Then you’ll be certain it will work for your brother.”

  “When I’m offered a bargain,” Sukru said, “I like the terms to be plain.”

  “Very well. Allow me to save my mother, and I’ll do as you wish.”

  “You’d do what I wish anyway.”

  “This is your own brother we’re talking about. Wouldn’t you rather I do this willingly, even gratefully? I would be working not only with the confidence of having done it before, but with the knowledge that my family has been safely released from the palace. I would be resurrecting him wholly committed, knowing that you could return them to the palace if you so wished.”

  Sukru sneered. “And now you’re asking that they are released from the palace!”

  Anila kept her voice as calm as she could. “They know nothing about what we’re doing here.”

  Sukru paused, considering. “You’re a perceptive girl,” he finally said.

  “Yes,” Anila said, knowing exactly where Sukru was headed with this.

  “And you’re smart.”

  “Yes.”

  “Were I to reveal the second, necessary step to resurrecting them, the part that comes after your work, you know that I couldn’t allow you to leave the palace.”

  He would kill her. “I know, and I would still do it gladly, knowing my family was safe.”

  His face pinched in annoyance. “I would hardly call living in a city surrounded by invaders safe.”

  And with that she knew he’d agreed. She was well aware that he might change his mind, but this was her best hope for saving her family.

  “Not safe, true, but alive and with a chance for more life.”

  He glanced at the bottom of the cage where, to her surprise, a blue-breasted saddleback lay on the wood shavings and bird droppings. It was unmoving, dead. She’d been so fixated earlier on the fluttering of the others she hadn’t noticed it.

  “Very well,” he said, taking up the dead bird. “Perform your miracle again. Work with zeal, for it won’t be easy as your subjects grow in size. Then you can summon your mother back from the dead. Return her to this world whole, do the same for my brother, and I shall consider our bargain complete.”

  “You’ll free my family? All of them?”

  “Yes, I’ll free them,” he spat, and held out the saddleback’s stiffened corpse for her to take. “Now get started.”

  Anila accepted it and repeated the ritual. Sukru had been right. It was much more difficult, not in finding the thread that led to its soul—the bird hadn’t been dead for that long—but to return its soul intact. By the time she was done an hour later, she was sweating and short of breath, but the bird . . . Gods, she’d done it. Its soul had been drawn through the crystal successfully and its body had begun to twitch.

  Sukru took it immediately and used a glass pipette to deliver three drops of a clear, bright blue liquid into the bird’s open beak. As they watched, a second miracle occurred: the bird’s dull feathers regained the color they’d been lacking; its movements—frenetic, even spastic, moments ago—became more natural. It peeped twice, then sang a longer song.

  With more care than Anila would have expected, Sukru placed the bird back inside the cage. It gripped one of the many branches, still for a time, then it flapped its wings and moved about, more alert than moments ago.

  Sukru’s normally sour face looked pleased, even satisfied, though he was clearly trying to hide it. “That’s enough for today,” he said. “You’re shivering from exhaustion.”

  “Very well.” He was right, she was shaking, but not from exhaustion. “Very well,” she said again, then turned and walked toward the Silver Spears, who would return her to Sukru’s palace. She worried he would call her back, worried he might sense her pleasure. But thankfully he didn’t, which left her to contemplate what she’d sensed while using that strange crystal.

  Just as it had enabled her to ferry a soul back from the land of the dead, she was certain she could do the reverse. And when I do it to you, King Sukru, not even your bloody elixir will be able to save you.

  Chapter 40

  ESMERAY WAS RIGHT. Davud was felled by a terrible fever over the days following their bloody kiss. He could hardly keep his eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time.

  When wakeful, he relieved himself in the chamber pot. He ate soup filled with root vegetables and pork laden with so much lemon and herbs it was almost overwhelming, but Esmeray insisted. He stretched and ran in place several times a day so that he wouldn’t lose more days regaining his strength after the fever finally passed. But when he did he grew dizzy, and he ached so terribly that he often lay back down after only a short while on his feet.

  Thankfully she was right about it not being as bad as the change he’d undergone in Ishmantep, his passage to becoming a blood mage. Those had been dark days. The experience had swept over him like a storm, nearly killing him. This time it was no worse than a bout of influenza.

  On the morning of the fourth day after Esmeray’s kiss, the fever finally broke. Davud woke to find Fezek sitting crosslegged beside his pallet, staring at him with those cloudy eyes.

  Davud pushed himself up, his night shirt damp with sweat. “Gods, Fezek, how long have you been there?”

  “Since dawn yesterday. We thought you were going to die.”

  “We did?”

  “Very well, I did.”

  “Hoped you mean.”

  Fezek shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to.”

  “Fezek, talking is all you do.”

  “About what it’s like, I mean. You can’t really understand what I’m going through until you’ve experienced it yourself.”

  Davud stood on trembling legs, if only to shake off the feeling of being weakened prey beneath the stare of a vulture. “And this would improve your situation how?”

  Fezek shrugged. “You know what they say about the miserable.”

  “Yes, that they drown those around them in misery too.”

  “No, that only through misery can we truly know happiness.”

  “Let me guess: you wrote that.”

  Fezek sniffed. “I rather like it.” He might have been affronted. It was difficult to tell on his decomposed face.

  Davud felt exhausted and weakened from lack of food, but the aches in his muscles and joints were all but gone. “I need a night out,” he told Esmeray later. “Take me to an oud parlor.”

  She looked as though she didn’t consider it the best idea, but then she shrugged. “I know a place.”

  As they walked through the old city, bells began to ring. It took only moments for the sound to spread throughout the city. When they arrived at the oud parlor, a small cellar room with painted blue walls and golden lamps, they heard why. The Malasani, who for over a week had seemed content with burning the blooming fields and slaying any asirim scared up from the roots, had suddenly abandoned the practice.

  “The asirim put the fear in them,” one man said. “Saw the face of Thaash, they did. They know now, mark my words, the gods are coming to save the city.”

  “No,” the proprietress shot back. “The gods have abandoned the city. That’s why the asirim left. They’ve returned to Goezhen who made them.”

  Whatever the reasons, all agreed on one point: that the Malasani king had repos
itioned his fleet closer to the mouth of the southern harbor. Dozens, hundreds of war machines were being moved into position and with no threat of a counterattack from the royal navy, an assault on the city was imminent.

  A musician played his rebab in one corner while his wife sang. The sound mixed with both the hum of conversation and the warmth of the araq. One might almost forget that the city was under siege, and that Anila was trapped in a palace with the cruelest of the Kings. He felt instantly guilty.

  “You can’t help her if you’re not ready,” Esmeray said. She poured him another helping of araq from the small green bottle she’d ordered.

  “I know,” he said, and downed a healthy swallow.

  “Hey. Hey!” Esmeray’s perpetual frown was back, and she was staring in wide-eyed horror at his glass, which was now half empty. “I’m fairly sure you’ve heard the word savor, yes?” She lifted her glass and took in a long inhalation. Her eyes fluttered closed and she smiled like a lotus addict taking a deep breath off a shisha, then allowed herself a small sip. “Savor it.”

  Hiding a smile, he copied her and noted the smoke and cinnamon and caramel. He was no connoisseur, but it was impossible not to appreciate the finish and its strong, almost citrusy burn. “Well, well,” he said, lifting the glass to the lamp flame between them and taking another look at the pale golden liquor.

  Esmeray was clearly pleased but was trying to hide it. She’s an odd one, Davud thought, difficult to predict. But he liked that about her. It brought him back to his days at the collegia and the pleasure he found not merely in the solving of a difficult theorem, but in working at it, uncovering its mysteries bit by bit.

  “I spoke to Ramahd this morning,” he told her. “He wants to free the admiral, Mateo, tomorrow night. As soon as that’s done, we’ll go to free Anila.”

  She stared into his eyes. The lamp lit her from below, and made him realize how full her lips were. “I’m no scholar like you, but don’t you think it wiser to rest for a few days?”

  “I feel fine,” he said. “Or I will. And Anila’s been there for too long already.”

  Esmeray considered him, but not in a critical way. She seemed surprised, as if she hadn’t expected it of him. “Very well.”

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “I’ll come.”

  “I’m not going there to find Sukru. In fact, I hope we don’t come across him. I’m only going to save Anila.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  “It’s just . . .” How could he tell her? “I want you to stay.”

  Her head jerked back, then she looked at him anew, her eyes narrowing, as if she’d just realized something. “You’re trying to protect me.” Before he could say a word, she was laughing, her head thrown back. All eyes turned to them, though as her laughter faded, those watching thankfully returned to their own conversations.

  Disregarding her own advice, Esmeray downed what remained of her drink in one go and poured herself another. “Let me tell you something, Davud Mahzun’ava. I don’t need protection. Not from my father. Not from the Enclave. Certainly not from you.” She looked like she was going to down another full glass, but she stopped herself. As her araq swirled, amber in the lamplight, she pointed at Davud. “You think because we kissed you can prevent me from doing as I wish? I don’t know how things were in your posh home in Goldenhill, but that isn’t how things work in the west end.”

  “I was born in Roseridge. I’ve lived my entire life in and around the bazaar.”

  “Then you should know!”

  “Know what?”

  She looked as though she was going to laugh again, but she took it no further than an amused smile. “Give me your hands.”

  Davud swallowed, and did as she asked. He felt the suppleness of her skin, the cleverness of her fingers as she repositioned his hands. “Did you feel what my brother and sister were doing before Ramahd unwound their spell?”

  “Not exactly. It happened so quickly.”

  “Think back.”

  He did, recalling how intricate the spell had seemed, how tight the weave. “It felt like they were weaving it together.”

  “Yes,” Esmeray said. She lifted her forefinger, on the tip of which was a fresh drop of blood, shining in the dim light of the room. She reached out and touched it to his lips.

  Davud, his eyes glancing nervously about to see if anyone was watching, opened his mouth and took her finger in. He tasted the blood, felt the small rush of power that accompanied it. Esmeray kept her finger there just long enough to make a circling motion inside his mouth, which he made no move to stop.

  When she withdrew it, she said, “Now concentrate on the flame.”

  “And do what?”

  “Wait. Watch. Feel.”

  Davud did. He didn’t know what she meant to do, but for the moment he was simply glad to be with her. He felt warm inside. Tingly. The very air seemed to cradle them.

  The flame flickered. It fluttered, altering from its typical lilac-leaf shape. The tip thinned and lengthened, a thread that circled the flame as if it were nothing more than a skein of sun-bright wool. Up it wound, then curled in on itself like a knot viper until it had made a new shape, something like a gilded cage.

  It returned to its normal shape with a barely audible whuff.

  “You felt my touch?” Esmeray asked.

  “I did.”

  “Good. Now join me.”

  When the flame lengthened, he watched her workings more carefully. It was like stepping behind her as she worked a piece of blown glass.

  “No,” she said, and the flame snapped back. “Like that you’ll only feel what I do. You cannot simply observe. You must join me.”

  Taking a deep breath, he nodded and tried again. As the spell formed between them, he let himself be drawn like smoke into a column of heat. He became a part of the spell, guiding it with Esmeray. Instead of a single thread curving back on itself to form the tiny cage, many threads did, creating something so intricate he would need to bend closer to appreciate it all.

  Like this, the flame altering, creating new shapes as they watched, Davud felt Esmeray more intimately than he’d ever felt anyone. They were not one, but neither were they separate. They were together, acting in concert in a way that was so intimate it brought tears of joy and wonder.

  He blinked them away, and the flame snapped back. The song finished and another began, eliciting raised glasses and smiles all around. A woman near the door released a high warbling call taken up by several in the crowd.

  Esmeray never took her eyes from Davud’s. She watched him carefully in the wavering lamp light, reached out and wiped away his tears.

  “I didn’t know such a thing was possible,” Davud finally said.

  “Because you’ve learned under two men who would never work with another mage like this.” Her eyes glanced down at the flame. “But now you see what it can be like. I can help you, Davud. So can Ramahd. Together we can do this. Together we can do more. Isn’t that what the philosophers at the collegia teach you about consciousness? That we can be more than the sum of our parts?”

  “It is,” he said, surprised.

  “So it is with magic. So it is with people.”

  Davud felt like he was going to burst. He leaned in and kissed Esmeray. She returned it, and though Davud felt the amused gazes watching them, he kept kissing her until Esmeray released his hands and sat up straight. She brought her glass beneath her nose and drew in a long breath, eyes closed. “Together?”

  Davud smiled and took a sip of his drink, feeling more relieved than he’d felt in a long, long while. “Together.”

  Chapter 41

  BRAMA ENTERED A CIRCULAR tent that had been hastily erected in the small hours of the morning. Dawn was breaking. The eastern wall of the tent was lit in a burst of molten brass. The tent had gone up for the express pur
pose of having Rümayesh prove her ability to heal. After Brama’s failure, it had taken some time to convince Queen Alansal, but she realized that this was the only chance she had to save her people. This time she’d insisted that they start with one of the sickest, to prove that there was hope for all.

  So it was that at the center of the tent, Rümayesh loomed over a bed-ridden soldier, a man deep in the throes of the scourge. His face was almost entirely black and ashy. As were his fingernails, toenails, armpits, and much of his shoulders and hairless chest.

  Brama considered Alansal’s choice imprudent, but when it became clear she wouldn’t bend, he had used it to insist that Rümayesh be given the bone of Raamajit, a thing both he and Rümayesh thought would be necessary to halt the spread of the disease. Alansal had reluctantly agreed but had yet to hand it over. She still held the reliquary, as she might a baby bird, while staring at the diseased soldier, perhaps wondering if she was making a terrible mistake. Her thin eyebrows pinched, and she twisted the cap and spilled the bone into the waiting hands of Juvaan, who brought it to Rümayesh.

  “You may begin,” Alansal said.

  Rümayesh’s eyes were alight as she took in the fabled artifact. As all those in the tent stared with awe, she pinched it between two fingers and pressed it to her forehead. Where it touched, her ebony skin parted, wrapped around it, subsuming it until the bone was lost beneath her skin and all that remained was a misshapen lump on her forehead.

  She glanced at Brama with an expression he could only describe as ravenous, but it was gone almost as soon as it came, and she was turning toward the soldier and placing her right hand on his chest. Her hand was so large it wrapped around his ribs. The man’s nostrils flared. His breathing, already rapid, sounded shrill over the tent’s flapping walls and ceiling. His brow furrowed. His mouth made a circle. His eyes were wide and white and horror-stricken. It was such a stark contrast to the euphoric expression on Rümayesh’s features, it made Brama’s gut twist. He could only imagine what was running through her mind as she experienced the soldier’s steadily increasing panic.