Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

  Nowhere, he realizes. Because Djerad Thymar is gone.

  There is no escaping its absence. The hole where the pyramid should be draws him in like a vortex, and his heart is screaming. Pandjed’s roars rival the distant thunder. Wasted qalim. Wasted koshqal. Get back to your mother.

  The building rises out of the plain as he slows, a beast built of stacked, polished granite layers. Six fortresses crouched atop each other, shining red in the sunset. The thunder builds and overtakes Pandjed’s roars, and Dumuzi’s panic ebbs as he considers the building.

  It has always been here; it has never left.

  A chorus of voices whispers on the wind: Enlil lugal kur-kur-a ab-ba dingir-dingir-re-ne-ke … lugal-e Unther-ah ba-gi-shey.

  Dumuzi turns—searching for the voices, searching for his home, but nothing is familiar and there is only the strange language singing in his ears. Djerad Thymar is gone. He cannot see the homesteads scattered across the plain of Tymanther. All along the horizon, more of the fortresses rise. Ziggurats—the word rises in his thoughts as certain and permanent as the structure. Tombs.

  Enlil lugal kur-kur-a ab-ba dingir-dingir-re-ne-ke … I-men ur-sag enlil-la-ke?… The singsong voices send a shiver over his scales.

  When he turns back to where Djerad Thymar should be, a man is waiting for him. A human with a thick, curly beard, floating beside him as if there were no simpler thing. The thunder keeps rumbling, the lightning building.

  “Who are you?” Dumuzi asks.

  The man watches his mouth, curious and puzzled, as if he cannot understand what Dumuzi has said. He reaches out a tentative hand and brushes the tip of his finger along the bridge of Dumuzi’s nose.

  Ushumgal-lú I-ngeshtugh-ngar-ngar, the man’s voice rumbles like the lightning. Untherah Tymantherah i-tehi …

  Dumuzi woke with a blistering headache that made his stomach threaten to upend. He staggered to his dresser and splashed cold water over his scales. The dream clung to his thoughts, filmy and tenacious as cobwebs.

  The ziggurats. The human man with the curly beard. Watching him.

  Dumuzi felt sure he’d seen that man before. Somehow. Somewhere. But the harder he tried to place the man—Westgate? Proskur? Suzail?—the more the image of him slipped away.

  Maybe you dreamed that too, pothachi, he thought.

  What did it mean if you invented people and things in your dreams? Dumuzi dressed himself with shaking hands and thought of Zaroshni. She would tease him and say they were only dreams. Or maybe suggest they were visions of Abeir. He had never been able to get his bearings with Zaroshni, but he enjoyed trying.

  Now the dead lay between them. Every time he spoke to Zaroshni she felt numb and cold and distant, as if something fundamental had died within her. He shut his eyes, clenched his jaw tight as if it could seal in the pain of that thought.

  They are dreams, he thought. They are only your mind turning circles while you sleep. The frenzy of a heart overwhelmed with grief. Your friends are dead. You cannot figure out how to help Zaroshni. Of course you have nightmares. He pulled his white mourning shirt on, covering the silvery, fernlike scars that wrapped around his ribs from his back before he could linger on them and remember all the other things he’d lost.

  He had done what he could to track down the rest of the Liberators, but try as he might, he could not seem to pin Zaroshni down. No matter when he went to the Shestandeliath enclave, she was not there.

  When they’d talked last, after that awful day, she’d agreed to speak with a handful of Liberators—each of whom, Dumuzi discovered, had gone missing, down in the catacombs after all. Except Shestandeliath Ravar. Of all the fools who thought they could save all the Lost and Abeir as well, Ravar was—to be fair—the most sensible.

  “It’s hard to say if he takes it seriously,” Zaroshni had told Dumuzi, long before he’d left to find Mehen. They’d sat in a teahouse, discussing the Liberators and whether she would leave them or throw in with their wild plans. It was hard to tell if Zaroshni had taken it seriously too—it was hard to tell if Zaroshni had taken anything seriously, and Dumuzi often wondered if that was what he found so enchanting about her. He sighed. She would talk to Ravar and maybe that would help. Maybe he would know what had happened.

  Dumuzi went out into the Kepeshkmolik enclave, his home for most of his life—aside from a month when he was ten and the time he’d spent searching for Clanless Mehen. All those days and he still could not shake the sensation that he had yet to earn his place within Kepeshkmolik. As he walked, the stair-step edges of the ziggurat seemed to ghost over his vision. Dumuzi rubbed his eyes, and walked straight into someone as he did.

  Kepeshkmolik Uadjit, in full black scale armor, grabbed hold of his shoulders. “Careful there.”

  “My apologies. I was preoccupied.” Dumuzi made a little bow to his mother. A lopsided white ribbon had been tied around her long sword’s hilt. “Good morning, Uadjit. Did you just arrive?”

  Uadjit smiled. “Not an hour ago. It’s good to see you’re back, and all in one piece.”

  “Thank you,” Dumuzi said. “I succeeded.”

  Uadjit’s smile fractured. “Did you? Then … you brought him back?”

  “He’s at the Verthisathurgiesh enclave. With his daughters. And … one of their lovers. It’s confusing.” Dumuzi searched his mother’s face for a hint of her reaction. He’d gleaned enough—between Kepeshkmolik whispers and Pandjed’s tirades—to know what had happened, why Mehen was not in favor with Kepeshkmolik or Verthisathurgiesh, why his father might be circumspect about seeking Mehen out. But Dumuzi never could tell what Uadjit truly felt about the matter. She was a mirror, a mask. It made her an excellent diplomat, and a sometimes puzzling mother.

  For a moment, she looked distant, calculating. He wondered if she was going to ask him what he thought of Mehen, to see if Dumuzi could give the right opinion in the right way, when such a fractious situation presented itself. But when she spoke, Uadjit only asked, “Have you seen your father since you came back?”

  “I thought it would be better that I didn’t,” Dumuzi said. Arjhani stayed high up in the Lance Defender barracks, training his students. No doubt Anala had sent a message telling him not to bother making appearances. Arjhani would only upset her plans.

  Or make them, Dumuzi thought a little bitterly. Arjhani had a way of convincing people to love him, even while he was stealing the rugs from beneath their feet.

  “He’s your father,” Uadjit reminded Dumuzi.

  “I don’t want to take up his time,” Dumuzi said. “I’ll try today.” His tongue fluttered behind his teeth, betraying his frustration. “Did they tell you about the murders?” he blurted. “Down in the catacombs.”

  Uadjit’s pierced brows rose. “Murders?”

  “Baruz, Parvida, Mirji, Versvesh, and some others.”

  “Murders? Are you sure? Does Narghon know?”

  Dumuzi nodded. Uadjit regarded her son with such sadness. “I’m so sorry, Dumuzi. Losing friends, comrades is never easy. But with time—”

  “Thank you.”

  Uadjit pulled him into a stiff embrace, rubbing her jaw frill along the crown of Dumuzi’s forehead. Dumuzi hugged her back——she smelled of leather and oil, panjar gum and stale guano. “Everything will be all right. We’ll be sure of it.”

  “Matriarch Anala hired Mehen to find the murderers,” Dumuzi said, releasing his mother. “I don’t know if Narghon knows that.”

  “I see.” Uadjit studied him another moment. “So he has daughters?”

  “Adopted,” Dumuzi said, not sure why that made him nervous. “They’re tieflings. Twins. Same-egg twins, or … however they call it. Well mostly. One of them is … Farideh has an odd-eye. Silver and gold. And they’re very different from each other.”

  He clamped his mouth shut, as the moons along his mother’s brow rose and her dark eyes seemed to sharpen—surprise at his babbling or something he’d said. “The lover is a human. Only they’re not really lovers.”


  “It’s confusing,” Uadjit finished for him, suddenly warm again. She smoothed a hand over the top of his head. “I have things to see to, before I can call myself settled, but tomorrow let’s plan for highsunfeast together. You can tell me about your many months in the world beyond, noachi.”

  Uadjit left, and guiltily Dumuzi felt a weight come off his shoulders. Kepeshkmolik Uadjit was like something out of an ancestor story: powerful, distant, and almost unreal. Her regard—her approval—felt far more precious and unreachable than her mere affection.

  “If you are going to be Kepeshkmolik,” she had said to him once, the first, worst time he’d disappointed her, “then you must never refuse your duty like this again. The clan is only as strong as the weaknesses each of us shows.”

  Dumuzi knew he ought to go and seek out Arjhani, to let him know face-to-face that he’d completed the task Arjhani had laid upon him. But as he left the Kepeshkmolik enclave, he couldn’t imagine anywhere he’d rather go less.

  The elders had not fit him back into the assignments of chores. His friends were all dead or beginning their Lance Defender service. Looking down at the busy walkways and market of Djerad Thymar, Dumuzi couldn’t remember a time he had felt so alone, so ill at ease.

  Because you were right at home in Suzail, he could imagine Zaroshni teasing, and he longed for those days.

  He had felt alone in his search for Mehen, in the streets of Suzail—but there had been a self-righteousness to his aloneness, a sort of security in it. It would make him stronger, wiser, better for Kepeshkmolik. And then he had settled in, beside the woman Clanless Mehen called daughter, one of the few people who could truly understand why Dumuzi didn’t want to go see his father at the peak of Djerad Thymar.

  Was it odd he missed her company and Dahl’s? That he even found himself missing Havilar and her mercurial reactions, Brin and his odd manners? Mehen …

  He remembered Pandjed’s roars, echoing through his dreams, through his memories, and shuddered.

  Farideh, he told himself, would not be too busy. If Mehen was engaged in the search for the killer, then she would still be here, still be waiting, still be at loose ends as much as he was. Before he could talk himself out of it, Dumuzi began walking toward the Verthisathurgiesh enclave, deliberately not thinking about the other times he had been there.

  WHEN FARIDEH WOKE, every nerve of her body screamed with another nightmare. The pale light of Djerad Thymar’s false morning glowed through the curtains, calm and rosy, and grating as a rasp against her rattled brain. Beside her, Havilar snored softly, echoed by Zoonie stretched out on the floor. For the third night in a row, she’d slept over.

  For the third night in a row, Lorcan had been needling at her brand, watching Farideh, still keeping his distance.

  For the third night in a row, she’d dreamed of Asmodeus.

  Or Asmodeus had visited her. She couldn’t ever be sure of the difference. Farideh dressed, trying to shake off the lingering buzz of fear that still jangled her nerves. She combed the braid from her hair before the tarnished mirror hanging beside the door. The skin under her eyes was puffy and bruised looking.

  For a long moment, she watched her reflection. Then she took hold of the powers Asmodeus had granted her, the magic sliding through her brain like the sharp talons of an unspeakable beast. When she opened her eyes with the soul sight cast across them, her reflection wavered and blurred. But once more there was no sign of Asmodeus’s mark upon her, no hint of how corrupted her soul had become, no sense of how deeply in peril she really was.

  She let go of the powers. No one else gets to know, she reminded herself. Not really. You have to just try to do your best and hope.

  But what hope would there be for the tiefling Chosen of Asmodeus?

  The soft notes of Brin’s flute wafted through the door along with the scent of food—onions and bread and spices. In the sitting room, Brin sat perched on a low sofa, playing a meandering tune and looking at a spread of food, as though it were a puzzle. He spotted Farideh and stood too fast—he thought I was Havilar, Farideh realized.

  “Good morning,” she said, as his smile fell a little. “What did she send today?”

  “Good morning. Um, let’s see.” He pointed to the plates in turn. “That’s some kind of mutton pasty. These are stuffed bread. I think these are pickles, and I have no idea what’s in this”—he picked up a sort of fritter from a stack—“what that wiggly thing is”—he pointed at a wide bowl of yellow custard—“or what in all the planes above and below is in the red bowl. Also, there’s that spicy tea. Do you want a cup?”

  “Please.” Farideh sat down and put a pasty and a fritter on a plate, as well as a small pile of pickles. She scooped up some of the custard. “Steamed eggs,” she said. “With … um …” She plucked one of the morsels of meat from the custard—it had a creamy texture and a faint metallic taste. “It’s just lamb brains.” Brin turned a little pale. “Have you never eaten lamb’s brains?”

  “There’s a lot of other parts of the lamb I prefer,” Brin said. “What’s in the red bowl?”

  “Yochit,” Farideh said. “You put it on the farothai—um, the stuffed bread.” She considered the lumpy white mixture flecked with spices and green herbs, knowing that telling Brin the ingredients would only give him trouble. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

  Brin shook his head and handed her a cup of tea. She added several lumps of golden sugar to her tea. “Did you sleep all right?” she asked, stirring.

  Brin shook his head. “You? I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “No. Just bad dreams.” She took a bite of the fritter. “Mm. Gourd and egg,” she said around a mouthful. Brin made a face, and she shook her head, dipping the fritter into a vinegary sauce. “It’s good. I promise.”

  He took several of the mutton pasties instead. “I want you to tell me about Arjhani.”

  Farideh stared at her plate. “What’s there to tell?”

  “Don’t,” Brin said. “Look, I know she and I are … That things are complicated right now, but this seems like it’s serious. I should know. I could help. Please.”

  Farideh broke her fritter into pieces. “Arjhani … He’s the one who taught her to use the glaive. He came and lived with us for a summer, when we were eleven. Almost twelve. Havilar adored him, of course.”

  “Did you like him?”

  No, she thought. Never. It was a lie—she’d wanted to love him as dearly as Havilar had, to feel like she fit into this new version of their family. But Arjhani knew what to do with her even less than Mehen had at times, and Farideh’s doubts about Arjhani made him snappish and distant. “I don’t get along with people as easily as she does. Anyhow, he left. And she didn’t take it well.”

  Brin set down his plate, and for a moment, he said nothing. “And you’re afraid it will come back to her the same way? It was a long time ago.”

  As long as it was, Farideh felt tears crowd her throat. The memory of the fight they’d had, of the childish anger that filled her knowing Havilar was willing to fall apart because of that henish, because of someone who wasn’t even family. Of finding Havilar gone, of the empty bottles and the building storm. Of how pale she was when Mehen brought her back. “All the same,” Farideh said. “It was bad enough the first time.”

  Brin shook his head. “Why doesn’t she talk about this?”

  “Some things are better to forget.” Farideh gave him a stiff smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Dahl? Or Tam?”

  “No. Sorry. Keep in mind,” he added, “Tam’s put me down as wandering, and Dahl’s likely out of scrolls. He’ll have to track down components and find a way to pay for them.”

  Assuming he’s safe enough to search, Farideh thought, her throat closing tight. Assuming he’s alive.

  Brin moved to sit beside her and clasped an arm around her. “He’ll be all right, you know? People can survive without you being there to rescue them.”

  Farideh laughed and it chased off th
e tears. “Fair point.”

  He hugged her tighter. “I do know what it feels like. Just … have to keep going and believe it will be all right.”

  Farideh blushed. For nearly eight years, she and Havilar had been imprisoned in the Nine Hells, leaving Brin and Mehen behind. He did know what he was talking about. “Thank you.”

  “You want advice for how to do that, I don’t have a lot to offer. I was terrible to be around.”

  “I’ll bet your advice is better than Havi’s.” Farideh reached for another fritter. “She thinks I ought to cut my losses with Dahl.”

  Brin gave her a wan smile. “I think maybe Havilar’s not being entirely unbiased there. Sorry.”

  Romance is the worst. Farideh speared a pickle with her fork, a chunk of purple root slick with oil and brine and speckled with spice. But Havilar didn’t get sick. You can’t fix this, she told herself.

  “Did she tell you anything?” Brin asked. “About … you know …”

  “Not yet. But we’ll find out one way or another, right?” she said, trying for careless as she took a bite of the fritter.

  Brin sighed. “I just want everything to sort out. I just want her to be happy, and—”

  Farideh gagged and clapped a cloth to her mouth as the spices in the pickle gripped her tongue. She spat out the bitter, musky-tasting root, and washed her mouth with tea, as Mehen came into the room. He raised a scaly brow ridge.

  “What’s in the pickles?” Farideh asked.

  Mehen peered at the plates and sniffed. “Türkhaari. You won’t like those. Peppers, gourd, charchuka root, lemon, and some herbs. Talsch—it’s … a resin,” he said, switching to Common at the word. “Comes from an herb, nychaki. That’s in there too. Kind of … kiskartchi,” he decided, switching back to Draconic for the right adjective. “It’s a taste you have to grow up with.”

  “If you say so,” Farideh said.

  “Stick to the hand pies,” Mehen advised Brin.

  “Are we going to go anywhere today?”

  Mehen only grunted and sat beside Brin. The last two days, Anala had insisted they couldn’t properly search, because the enclave was in mourning and would be for the rest of the tenday. Every Verthisathurgiesh dragonborn wore a white ribbon tied around their weapons, leaving behind all jewels but for the clan piercings. Anala’s plumes fell loose and unarranged around her shoulders, and she’d left her gauzy wraps behind for plain armor over a white sheath.