The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  “You are of those who call themselves djinn, are you not?” the marid asked. “I assume then you share one of the faiths of the humans in this land, the faiths that displaced me. A rather ironic twist of fate for us both.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “When your woman lay in your arms, your first words asked my price.” Sobek snagged Ali’s elbow, jerking him forward as the path behind them crashed down in a thundering waterfall. “In my experience, no man asks that unless part of him is willing to pay.”

  Ali recalled his wrenching despair when Nahri wouldn’t wake up. He opened his mouth, but that was not a charge he could deny. “She is not my woman,” he said instead.

  The look Sobek gave him was withering. “I have been in your head.” He turned back around, sparing Ali a response. “You are from a different time, mortal. A kinder one. You could not understand mine.”

  “But you were punished even in your time,” Ali pointed out. “I saw your memory. Suleiman sent Anahid to punish the marid for abusing humans.”

  Fury rippled across Sobek’s gray-green face, the fog churning at his feet. “Anahid went too far. She humiliated us, stole our lake, and forced my kin into servitude.”

  “So what happened? Did you help my ancestors take Daevabad from the Nahids? Was that supposed to be your revenge?”

  “In part.” Sobek raised his hand, snatching at the air, and a ribbon of gold mist froze in his fist like he’d pulled a rope tight. He jerked it over the three of them, and it was as if they’d entered a new world. The river was wilder here, crashing down boulders far above their heads and tumbling into the whirlpools of waterfalls.

  Ali gaped in awe, but now that he had Sobek answering questions, he wasn’t stopping. “But Manizheh and her … champion made the lake rise to attack my Citadel. That’s marid magic. Why would your people help them now?”

  Sobek hissed. “No marid would ever help a daeva by choice. If my cousins aided this Manizheh and the abomination at her side, it was because they had no choice.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Sobek tugged another current into his hand, a calm pool rippling over them. “It took us a long time to pry free of the Nahids. My people are proud, and we did not suffer their humiliations lightly. To bend ourselves to a daeva and be forced to erect a dry monstrosity of a city in our sacred lake—we rejoiced when the water finally tasted their flesh,” he said, sending ice into Ali’s blood. “I have been apart from my kin for a long time, but even I heard the rumors a descendant said to be Anahid’s equal walked the land, and that she intended to partner with a warrior with even more magic and bring back the old ways of her family.” Sobek’s voice was filled with quiet remorse. “My cousins had just gotten their freedom. I suspect they were desperate to find a way to stop her.”

  “So they killed her warrior,” Ali said, the pieces tumbling into place. There it was: the reason he’d been possessed. “Or made me do it, anyway.”

  “I suspect you were an opportunity they seized without much thought. My kin would have been looking for a way to get rid of him without directly staining their hands. To suddenly have a warrior like you in their waters—another daeva, or a djinn, or whatever nonsense you call yourself—who could wield the blade in their place? They must have thought it a blessing.”

  A blessing. There was that word again. “They tortured me,” Ali replied, his voice hollow. “I had nothing to do with any of this.”

  “You were there, and you were useful.” There was no cruelty in the statement. It was just that, a statement.

  “But their plan didn’t work,” Ali pointed out. “Darayavahoush came back even more powerful. So what went wrong?”

  Sobek halted without warning, and Ali nearly crashed into his scaly back. He turned around, staring as if he might break into Ali’s mind again. God, did those eyes make his skin crawl. It was the gaze of a predator from another world, another age—the gulf between them insurmountable.

  “Our exchange was not for your illumination,” the marid finally replied. “It was for mine. Give me the girl a moment.”

  Ali tried to step back, but Sobek slipped Nahri from his arms as if a wave had stolen her.

  “Be calm, you prickly creature,” Sobek demanded as Ali tried to pull free of the ribbons of water wrapping his limbs, the visible exasperation out of place on the ancient being’s face. “Seize the current to your left.”

  “Seize the current?” Ali repeated, baffled. “But I’m not marid.”

  “You still have hands, do you not? Seize it, or I shall toss your woman into it and offer you another challenge.”

  The marid moved as if to do so, and in a burst of panic, Ali obeyed. He threw his hand to the golden mists, grasping. He expected his fingers to close on nothing.

  Instead it was as though he’d plunged his hand into a waterfall, freezing it with his touch. The power drove him to his knees, and Ali cried out, knives of pain raking down his arm. The ring scorched his heart.

  Sobek was there the next moment, laying his free hand against Ali’s brow. The pain was numbed to a dull ache. Ali opened his eyes.

  “God be praised,” he whispered. The world around them was suddenly even more wondrous, brighter, as though he’d stepped into a new level of existence. Ali could see a thousand currents, ten thousand, more possibilities and places than he’d ever imagined existed all spread out before him. Snowcapped mountains and tropical seas. Meandering northern streams and a cyclonelashed shore. The placid fountain of a simple mudbrick courtyard and a puddle in a gray, rain-soaked city.

  The one in your hand. Sobek’s voice burst inside his mind. Dive, little mortal.

  Acting on instinct, Ali let himself fall forward, dragging the current in his hand over them all. The moment he let go, all the paths vanished, and he tumbled to the white sand, breathing hard.

  The marid magic lingered. Ali tingled with it, tendrils of water dancing up his arms. A pearly path of sand stretched before him, the fish that passed overhead dashing away. He could feel the raw power pouring off Sobek.

  Nahri, though, was a different flavor. A tantalizing one. Salty blood and scalding magic. The kind that burned down the world and invited water to re-create anew. It was there, in her delicate veins and fragile skin that could be so easily pierced. So easily taken.

  Ali gagged, and the awful hunger vanished—though he’d swear his teeth had briefly sharpened. “What did you do to me?”

  “Nothing.” The marid’s eyes danced. “You still have it,” he murmured, as if to himself. “A dozen generations removed, and it still persists.”

  Ali was still struggling to catch his breath, his palms braced on the sand. Beyond, a herd of hippopotamuses thundered past the gleam of the watery tunnel.

  “How does all this work?” he asked, climbing to his feet. “The way you get inside my mind, the way we travel?”

  Sobek beckoned him forward, and they kept walking. “It is a difficult thing to put into words. My kind do not communicate like yours. We join with one another and share what is in our minds, our souls. We are … we are like the water, yes? There may be many streams, but they all come from the same river.” A dismissive tone entered his voice. “Not like daevas. You are all separate burning embers.”

  Ignoring the comment, Ali pressed on. “And the currents, all the paths I saw?”

  “There is water everywhere. Not just lakes and rivers, but streams far below the surface and rain in the clouds. That is how we travel—or rather how those of us who are capable of travel do.” Sobek seemed to be warming to the topic, more eager to explain this than the marid’s violent history with the Nahids. “I am among the first generation of my people, so I can take this solid form, but most of my kin cannot be seen by mortal eyes. They exist as part of their birth water, possessing other small creatures in their domain when they wish.”

  “Not always when they wish,” Ali said sharply. But there was something else, something he was missing … “Wait, can y
ou travel to any water? Could you take us through the lake? Back to Daevabad?” he asked, hope rising in his chest.

  The warmth vanished from Sobek’s face. “No.” He dumped Nahri back into Ali’s arms and stormed forward.

  Ali stumbled after him. “What do you mean, no? Because you can’t or because you’re unwilling?”

  Sobek spun on him, baring his teeth. “Because I will not see the seal ring returned to that foul city. Not for anything. If there is any light in the catastrophe my cousin’s heedlessness wrought, it is that Anahid’s spell is finally broken. I pray that foul island and its fouler city follow suit and drown beneath the waves.”

  Ali reeled. “It is my home.”

  “Then how fortunate you have another.” Sobek seized a new current, dragging it over them and stalking off.

  Ali followed, unwilling to give up. “Then can I do it? Travel the currents myself?”

  “No.” There was a new warning in the marid’s voice. “You will never have full use of your powers with that ring in your heart, and you should be grateful for it.” Sobek raised his hands, spreading them as though in prayer.

  The watery ceiling collapsed, landing as light rain upon Ali’s face.

  The wondrous river tunnel was gone, the glimmering light, the gold-flecked path. Ali and Sobek stood in the knee-deep shallows of a winding, beachside creek. It was still night, but the stars and moon gave enough light to reveal that the desert had been replaced by a jungle of unfamiliar trees. Though he couldn’t see the ocean, Ali heard the break of waves in the distance.

  “Ta Ntry,” Sobek announced. “Walk south. The coast and the forests are marked with the human ruins your kind like to haunt.”

  Ali was thrown by the abrupt change in scenery and found himself aching for a final glimpse of the Nile’s enchanted underbelly, the radiant temple of water. Its vanishing echoed through him with a sorrow he couldn’t explain.

  He glanced down at Nahri. She hadn’t so much as stirred in her charmed sleep, a damp curl plastered against her cheek.

  What is your price? Ali was suddenly very glad he hadn’t had to answer the question for himself. “You’re the marid that cursed her appearance, aren’t you?” he asked. “The one that made her look human and left her in Cairo.”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Because her human kin paid my price, and it was the best way to protect her.”

  “She was a child, alone and frightened. That was no protection.”

  Sobek’s eyes flashed. “I have saved her life twice and made a journey that might have killed you pass in a night. I have honored my exchange.” He stepped back. “You should go.”

  “Wait!” Ali moved between Sobek and the deeper water. “Is there truly no way I could learn to travel the currents? To access the kind of water magic I had before I took the seal?”

  “No.” Sobek tried to step past him.

  Ali blocked his path. “Then could another marid?” He thought fast. “Tiamat. The one who was birthed in the lake. Is this ocean not said to be her domain now? Could I—”

  Sobek grabbed him, and any protest Ali might have made died on his lips.

  “Tiamat would more likely rip your soul from your body and devour you, ring and all.” Sobek stared into Ali’s eyes with his black-and-yellow gaze, and Ali’s heart skipped in fear. “I am granting you mercy, mortal. You have a place in your world. Return to it. Were you wise, you would forget what you know of marid. My people have your name, and you will not be able to fight them, not with Anahid’s ring holding you back. Take your woman and flee to your deserts. It is safer.”

  He let go of Ali so abruptly Ali lost his balance, nearly dropping Nahri. By the time he recovered, Sobek was striding deeper into the creek, green clouds swirling around his lower half.

  “Why?” Ali burst out, suddenly fearing that he’d missed something, that Sobek was twisting him in a way that would become clear too late. “You say you don’t help us, you only work in exchanges. Why grant me your mercy or your advice?”

  Sobek paused. His youthful humanoid form was almost gone. “Alizayd al Qahtani,” he said, speaking Ali’s name aloud for the first time. “I will remember you.” The last bit of his visage slipped away under a crocodilian mask.

  And then without another word, he vanished beneath the water.

  16

  DARA

  It was silent in Daevabad’s Grand Temple at this darkest hour of the night. For a people who honored the ascent and descent of the sun, marking the first and last glimpse of its burning orb with quiet gratitude to their Creator, this time farthest from its presence was meant for being safe and asleep with their loved ones, a fire altar burning to keep the demons out.

  But Dara had no loved ones and was a demon himself, so here he was.

  The first night he’d come, he’d been drawn to the earliest shrines: to the Nahids who’d united the tribes to build Daevabad and their Afshin protectors, figures from a world that seemed so much simpler, one in which heroes were just that, and their enemies as obviously wicked. His gaze traced their statues with envy and longing. How he wished that could have been his society.

  And yet even Dara had a limit for useless brooding, and so though he found himself returning, slipping through the Temple gate and along the moonlit garden paths smelling so sweetly of jasmine, he did so with a purpose: sweeping the floor of ashes and dusting the shrines. He did so without magic, for it was not permitted in the Temple, and it felt better to perform this service with his hands, the smallest penance he could.

  Dara was doing so, running a broom of dried rushes along the marble foundation of Anahid’s enormous central altar, when the sound of soft steps caught his ear. He recognized the weary intake of air and the shuffling gait with the expanded senses his form now gave him, senses that had a predatory instinct he hated.

  “I wondered when you would catch me,” he greeted Kartir quietly, tidying the accumulated pile of dust without turning around.

  “I thought to let the acolytes responsible for cleaning enjoy another morning of extra sleep,” Kartir replied. “But it struck me that a man sneaking in to serve the shrines in the middle of the night might be in need of counsel.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  The priest’s voice was gentle. “It has been apparent for a very long time, Darayavahoush.”

  Dara’s grip tightened on the broom. “You are the only one apart from Manizheh who calls me that anymore.”

  “You are Darayavahoush to your Creator. Afshin is a title that need not define you here.”

  Dara finally turned around. “And my other title? Do you think the Creator knows that one? Surely They must; prayers for justice from a thousand lips must weep it.” His voice turned bitter. “It was almost finally granted.”

  Kartir moved forward. “I heard. How are you feeling? There was word you were injured. Word you haven’t been so … visible.”

  That was one way of putting it. Manizheh had been as good as her promise, pulling Dara from most of his official duties and replacing him with the warriors he’d trained. Dara could no longer offer guidance when it came to running Daevabad. Instead, he was given assignments by so-called cooler heads, expected to obey and keep his mouth firmly shut.

  There is honor in being a weapon. He ground his teeth. “You might say I’ve fallen from favor.”

  “You and I both, to be honest,” Kartir replied. “Banu Manizheh has made clear she desires my retirement more than my advice. But you saved the life of a fellow Daeva, did you not? The young woman?”

  “Irtemiz.” The presence of his protege at training had been a sliver of good news, even if, with her broken arm and leg, all she could do was shout corrections at his recruits from a chair.

  But Dara’s mood had already dimmed. That night at the hospital had broken something in him. Hunted like an animal, he saw clearly how the rest of the world viewed him.

  “I probably took three dozen lives to save hers,” Dara said
. “Maybe more. Not that it matters, right? They were sand flies and dirt-bloods. Unnatural creations; soulless abominations whose very existence threatens ours, and their fanatical supporters.”

  “Do you believe that’s what they are?”

  Tears burned in Dara’s eyes, the wetness sizzling again his hot skin. “I used to. I used to believe it all, Kartir. I had to.”

  Kartir’s expression betrayed no judgment. “Why did you have to?”

  Dara took a deep breath and then they were out, the words that expressed the most hidden fear of his heart finally spoken aloud. “Because it had to be true, Kartir. Because if the shafit were people, innocent mothers and fathers and children, and I did to them the things I did …” He exhaled. “Then I am damned. I am a monster, worse than the vilest ifrit, and I—I do not want to be that. I was just trying to serve my tribe. I was eighteen when the Nahids sent me to Qui-zi. I worshipped them, trusted them, and they lied.” He raised his hands, taking in the Temple. “What is any of this supposed to mean if it makes room for such an atrocity?”

  “I think it a mistake to judge the Creator by the misdeeds of mortals,” Kartir replied. “I believe the Nahids are blessed. I believe they are meant to guide us, but that doesn’t mean they’re not flawed. It doesn’t mean they don’t fall prey to their own fears and desires. I love the Nahids enough not to burden them with expectations of perfection. I cannot. I have seen a Temple-raised woman use her gifts to kill, while a human-raised one broke a taboo I thought sacred and saved lives.”

  Dara was close to losing the battle with his tears. “Then what do you do?”

  “I think you start by listening to this”—Kartir tapped Dara’s head—“and this”—he touched Dara’s heart—“as much as you do the holy words of priests, books, and Nahids. Your heart and mind are bestowed by the Creator as well, you know.”

  “My heart and mind are telling me that I committed the ghastliest, most unforgivable of crimes. That I helped create a world that can only be fixed by more violence. That I—” Dara hesitated. Still this felt traitorous. “That I followed the wrong people.” He glanced, imploring, at the priest. “What do I do with that kind of burden, Kartir? If there were any justice, I would be burning in hellfire. Instead, I keep being brought back to life.” He gestured to his body. “My form? The ifrit live for millennia like this.”