Twelve Kings in Sharakhai

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  She shivered and turned away, moved to the nearest window, and stared out at the courtyard below, looking for a way out. She found it in the form of a stone lip that ran between this floor and the one below it. It was narrow, but there were handholds in the stone that would allow her to creep sideways until she reached the corner of the building. From there it was a long but manageable leap to the curtain wall around Tauriyat and the House of Maidens. Her nightdress, thankfully, was overly large, which would give her more freedom of movement, but she would look quite the sight, running through the streets of Sharakhai.

  The courtyard—praise to Yerinde herself—was empty. After scanning the windows and doorways of the nearby buildings, she slipped out and onto the stone lip. She was forced to pause and steady herself against the windowsill as a wave of dizziness overcame her. The feeling passed, but when she took more sidelong steps toward the corner of the infirmary, hugging the wall behind her as tightly as she could, the dizziness came on again, stronger than before, and her breath was suddenly coming in great heaves. Her heart began beating like a war drum. It was all she could do to remain in place.

  She stared at the curtain wall, a leap she could have made with ease were she in good health. But like this? She’d likely tip over, fall to the courtyard, and break her neck on the stones below.

  Gods damn her, she couldn’t go. Not now. She’d die in the attempt, or she’d fail and Sümeya would send someone after Emre to tie up loose ends. She couldn’t allow either to happen. As much as it grated to be trapped under Sümeya’s thumb, she needed to wait until her body would no longer betray her.

  With the breeze tugging the hem of her nightdress, she swiveled and looked up to the palaces of the Kings. They looked close enough to touch, and she wondered at the threads that had led her here. How many lives and deaths and decisions of others had led her here? Like streams converging they had created a river that had carried her all her life: her mother’s, Emre’s, Saliah’s, Dardzada’s, and surely many, many more that Çeda knew nothing about. Wasn’t that what her mother had always said? Ahya had told her to trust that river, to feel for its currents to avoid the rocks and navigate the rapids that lay ahead.

  The river is certainly carrying me now.

  As much as it made her insides churn, she sidled carefully to the window and lowered herself back inside. She’d no sooner set her feet down than a voice spoke from deep in the room. “I’m glad you returned.”

  Zaïde was seated on a nearby bed, hands in her lap. “Come,” she said, standing and motioning to Çeda’s empty bed, “I’ve something to show you.”

  Çeda looked about the room, expecting more Maidens to appear, to force her to follow Zaïde’s instructions. But there were none but Zaïde and the wounded women at the end of the room.

  Zaïde struck a lantern and set it on the table at Çeda’s bedside, then sat on the bed and patted the space next to her. Çeda sat beside her, and Zaïde, without a word, took Çeda’s right arm and began unwrapping the bandage. As the thin gauze was unwound, and more and more of the skin beneath shone through, Çeda saw there was blood as well, centered around her palm and thumb, and no small amount of dark ink that had bled through the bandage.

  When the bandage was free at last, Zaïde stared at Çeda’s hand as if she dearly wished to inspect it more closely, and there was a strange respect—almost reverence—in her eyes. She looked to Çeda and then nodded to her own handiwork: the tattoos that covered Çeda’s palm, thumb, and the back of her hand. By the light of the nearby lantern, Çeda stared. She’d been so distracted there’d been little time to wonder how Zaïde had marked her skin. The desert tribes used tattoos to tell the story of one’s life, applying the markings at different times, sometimes at a parent’s behest, sometimes at the threshold from childhood to adulthood, but most often at momentous times in a person’s life. This is exactly what Zaïde had done for Çeda. She had saved her life with some combination of ink and magic and technique, and perhaps even the story the ink told. Çeda thought surely it would mark her as a thief, a beggar in the slums of Sharakhai—a mark to match the bastard symbol on her back. But it didn’t.

  As she turned her hand over and stared, taking in the ancient words and images Zaïde had captured on her hand, she nearly cried.

  The ink traveled not much further than her wrist, and her fingers were untouched, but the rest was covered in an intricate indigo tattoo. On the back of her hand was the tale of her life in Sharakhai. A child of the desert. A woman who had touched a thorn and lived to tell the tale. A woman who’d risen from simple beginnings. On the palm of her hand was the tale of a fighter, one who was no stranger to sword and shield. A woman with fire burning in her heart, for nothing else could explain how she had lived so long when all stood against her. And on her thumb was a tale of revenge. A woman who would stand against those who had done her wrong. Along the top, words were written in the ancient script of the desert. Words embellished with tiny leaves and thorns and twisting vines. The vines converged along the back of her thumb. A tree, of course. An adichara. And among its vines the words proclaimed: The lost are now found. And: Bane of the unrighteous.

  “What is your name, child?”

  “Çeda.”

  Zaïde’s mouth cinched like an old leather purse. “I asked for your name.”

  “Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala.”

  “Tell me, Çedamihn, daughter of Ahyanesh, was I wrong?”

  Çeda could only shake her head. “You were not. But how could you have known?”

  Zaïde took Çeda’s hands in hers and touched the calluses she found there, traced the lines on her palms. “Lives are not so difficult to read as you might think.” She touched the adichara wound and pain flared deep beneath Çeda’s skin. “The poison will never leave. This is a battle you will wage for the rest of your life. It may wane like the moons. There may be days when you’ll forget it is there. But there will also be other times when it will threaten you again, and then”—she tapped the bold lines around the wound—“these will not protect you.” She reached up and touched Çeda’s heart. “You will need to fight it here instead. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” Çeda said.

  “No, you don’t”—Zaïde laughed, an old woman’s chuckle, a heavy millstone turning—“but you will. And do not try to use anything to ease it, as you did before coming here. No poultices. No elixirs or salves. You will only make it stronger.” She tapped Çeda’s heart again. “You can fight only here. Remember this.”

  Çeda nodded, very uncertain of herself, which she hated almost as much as she hated being at the mercy of the Kings and their Maidens.

  At the far end of the room, one of the women moaned softly and turned over in her bed.

  Çeda turned her attention back to Zaïde. Part of her wanted to tell Zaïde about Sümeya’s threat, but thoughts of Sümeya hurting Emre out of mere spite stayed her tongue. Another part of her wanted to ask if she knew Dardzada. He’d refused to reveal anything about his contact in the House of Maidens, and later Çeda had been too disoriented to ask. For all she knew, Dardzada had told her the name as she lay on the bed of the dray, but if that were so, she remembered none of it. And she couldn’t simply ask. It’d be the height of foolishness to tip her hand before knowing this woman better. She would wait and learn more, give Zaïde time to speak of it of her own accord.

  “I’m to be brought to the King soon, am I not?”

  Zaïde’s eyebrows rose as she began rewrapping Çeda’s hand with another, shorter bandage, which only covered her thumb and wrist. “I see a bird has been whispering in your ear.”

  “It’s true, then?”

  “Yes, it’s true, though we’ll wait until you’re stronger, but when you go, he’ll decide if you are worthy for this House.”

  “I thought you already had.”

  Zaïde grunted noncommittally as she bound the bandage snugly. “I am
among many who may choose a candidate, including the Kings themselves, but it is Yusam who judges an aspirant’s fitness for service.”

  “I was told something more,” Çeda said, taking her hand back at last.

  “Go on.”

  “The blood of Kings runs through my veins, does it not?”

  Zaïde nodded. “I saw this on your palms, yes.”

  Strangely, the confirmation lifted Çeda’s heart, not because she wished to be the blood of Kings, but because she’d risked so much on the presumption that it was true. “Then please,” Çeda said, “do you know which King is my father?”

  “Did your mother never tell you?”

  Çeda shook her head.

  Zaïde’s eyebrows rose. “But surely she told you that you were the blood of Kings?”

  Çeda cast her gaze downward, embarrassed.

  “Well, forgive me, child, but how am I to know these things if you do not?”

  Çeda displayed her palms. “I only thought . . .”

  “I can tell much from a hand, but not that.” Throughout the conversation, Zaïde had been calm, but now her face grew hard, her eyes piercing. Her eyes were a beautiful hazel, but there was a dangerous quality to them, like a snake hidden among tall grasses. “Tell me, Çedamihn, who was your mother. Why did she not say you were the daughter of a King?”

  “In truth? She cared for me in her own way, but she was a gutter wren. She came to the city from the desert and lived in the western quarter. I don’t know why she hid it from me. Perhaps because of her past in the desert. Maybe she wished to protect me from the burden of knowing I was of royal blood while we lived in squalor.”

  “The King would have made recompense. Seen to your needs.”

  Çeda shrugged. “My mother was a proud woman.”

  At this, Zaïde smiled wryly. “I know of pride, young dove.” And then a bitter laugh escaped her. “We are the oldest and dearest of friends.”

  Zaïde retrieved the lantern from the bedside table. She looked up and around her, as if to indicate the whole of the House of Maidens. “I was born here, Çedamihn. I served the Kings for years with my blade, and for many more with my skill and insight. I’ve grown to recognize the daughters of Tauriyat before I even lay eyes on their palms. You were one such. There was no denying it. The lines of fate the gods have drawn on your palms only verified what I already knew. Believe me when I say King Yusam will see the same. He is far more gifted than I in the Sight. So do not worry. Do not fret. The Jade-eyed King will embrace you and the House of Maidens will take you in. You will serve the Kings themselves. Isn’t that better than where you’ve been?”

  “Yes,” Çeda said. “There is no higher honor.”

  “Of course.” Zaïde shuffled to the foot of Çeda’s bed, the lantern’s light sending the shadows to swaying around the room. “Now sleep. Rest your bones and your soul. We have days yet before we take you to King Yusam’s palace, and believe me, you’ll want to gather your strength before you meet with him.”

  THE BLUE HERON OF QAIMIR sailed the Shangazi. The winds were strange this day, the dunes larger and more rolling than Ramahd had seen in a long while, an ill portent for the coming eve. He’d said as much to Meryam as they’d departed Sharakhai, but she’d merely scoffed.

  “The dunes are the least of our worries,” she’d said.

  She’d promised him that they would reach their destination by end of day, but with the sun now hanging over the western mountains like a burning copper coin, Ramahd was unconvinced. He called Dana’il to the wheel, handed over the piloting duties, then headed toward the prow where Meryam stood. As he strode toward her, he heard a thumping belowdecks, as of someone stomping on the floorboards or kicking at the walls. He ignored the sound, as did the crew, who moved smartly about the ship, preparing her for battle—winding the ballistae, both fore and aft, stringing bows and readying quivers of arrows, which were then hung from pegs around the ship. The preparations were necessary, at least according to Meryam, who had given Ramahd strict instructions at dawn.

  “Now will you tell me where we’re headed?” he asked Meryam. “And why we’ve brought our captive all this way?”

  Meryam’s skeletal hands gripped the gunwales to steady herself. She wore a bright yellow dress with an ivory scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth to ward against the windblown sand. She turned to him as the ship tipped and headed down the far side of the dune. She seemed annoyed by his question, but not to any great degree, and suddenly she reminded him of Yasmine so strongly he nearly cried for the anguish it caused. Meryam, though, had long grown weary of comparisons to Yasmine.

  She’s gone, Meryam would say. All that remains is taking payment in kind for her and Rehann’s deaths.

  “All will become clear soon.” She glanced sternward, then swung her gaze back to the horizon ahead, a vista of rolling dunes with a jagged line of mountains in the distance.

  He moved to stand by her side. “I trust you, Meryam, but I deserve to know. So do the men.”

  The ship navigated several more dunes—hull creaking, runners shushing beneath them—before Meryam spoke. “After my father took my form, and the two of you spoke, I whispered a name to you. Do you remember it?”

  Of course he remembered it. “Hamzakiir.”

  “You asked me who he was.”

  “And you refused to tell me.”

  “For good reason. I needed to consider our options.”

  “And what are they, our options?”

  She tugged her ivory scarf down, revealing her gaunt cheeks, her drawn lips. “May I tell you a story first?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “We always have choices, Ramahd.”

  Ramahd closed his eyes. There were days, he had to admit, that he wanted to throttle her. “Tell me your bloody tale if you must. Just be quick about it.”

  “How many times have I told you to value patience? It is a luxury not always afforded by the gods, and when it is available you should savor it, for one never knows when the world will turn.”

  He stared at her, pleading silently for her to go on, knowing that if he said anything now he might send her off on another infernal sermon.

  “Nearly a century ago,” Meryam began, “Külasan, the Wandering King, had a son. His name was Hamzakiir, a clever child who grew into an inquisitive young man. As many of the first-born do, Hamzakiir learned from the other Kings, among them Ihsan, who sent him to neighboring lands to learn of their ways. Hamzakiir visited Qaimir—many times, in fact—and King Beyaz learned Hamzakiir was studying what was then our sole domain.”

  “Blood magic,” Ramahd said.

  “Just so,” Meryam replied. “He was learning from back-alley magi, picking up the crudest and filthiest uses for blood. King Beyaz invited him to dinner to speak of this, which had been the young mage’s plan all along—to bring himself to Beyaz’s attention and into his good graces. He did so, and Beyaz, hoping to gain an ally in the House of Kings, trained Hamzakiir in the proper use of blood. Hamzakiir learned well. Very well, in fact. But no one realized, for he was careful to hide his growing abilities. He became stronger than the masters who taught him, stronger than Beyaz, the strongest magi in Qaimir at the time.

  “The Wandering King’s son returned home some years later, and he continued his experiments there, as his father eventually discovered. The experiments had grown grotesque. Things unseen by the Kings of Sharakhai. He’d killed dozens of men and women, each taken secretly and brought to his manse for slow and careful experimentation. His father, Külasan, asked that he stop. He did not. Then Kiral, the King of Kings, demanded it. And again, Hamzakiir opposed their will. At last, the Kings held council, and decided the time had come to force the issue. They moved against him in his manse, and Hamzakiir fled, but not before injuring the Kings and Maidens who came for him. He drew the blood of the Kings and killed thr
ee Maidens, all unforgivable crimes. So he fled to Qaimir.

  “Qaimir and Sharakhai had long been at odds, and King Beyaz saw a rare opportunity in Hamzakiir: the chance to seize the Amber Jewel from the Kings who had ruled it for so long. If he could convince Hamzakiir, and give him the support to lead an attack, he could place the young blood mage on the throne and rule the desert from afar. Hamzakiir agreed, though whether or not he would have stood by this arrangement, we’ll never know.

  “He raised an army by treating with the man who was then the leader of the Al’Afwa Khadar, Macide’s grandfather, Kirhan. Hamzakiir joined his newly bought forces with Qaimir and together they marched on Sharakhai. But the Kings have not ruled for four hundred years without reason. With the asirim and the Maidens and the Silver Spears at their command—not to mention their own considerable might—they crushed the forces of Qaimir and the Al’Afwa Khadar before Hamzakiir could strike. They marched into the heart of our homeland, preparing to take Almadan itself, and would have succeeded had our allies, the Malasan, not marched into the desert and threatened Sharakhai itself.”

  Ramahd thought back through the tedious history lessons of his youth. “I don’t recall Hamzakiir’s name ever being mentioned among the texts I’ve read.”

  Meryam blinked away dust from a sudden gust of wind, then pointed to a dark patch of land that lay just starboard of their current heading. “One point starboard!” she called to Dana’il, then glanced at Ramahd with an unreadable expression. “I’m not surprised. It isn’t a secret, exactly, but it isn’t shared widely, either. We are at relative peace with Sharakhai and have been for generations. The last thing we need is for the memory of Hamzakiir to sour our relationship with the Kings, or worse, for the Kings to think we hatched this plot to begin with. You can understand, knowing this, why my father treads so carefully.”

  “Understanding and accepting are two different things.”

  “Granted,” Meryam replied.

  “What happened to Hamzakiir, in the war?”