Twelve Kings in Sharakhai

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Not quite so simple, my King. They were pirates, driving into Sharakhai after a train of mules bringing grain and liquor to the western harbor, a train they’d been chasing for weeks. They came into the city to complete the slaughter they’d started in the sands. When they came across our path, two of the warriors stopped. They spotted my mother and rode straight toward her. The first of them threw his spear and missed. The second did not. His spear flew true, and my mother’s blood stained the Haddah red until merciful Bakhi led her to the farther fields.”

  Ihsan made a show of shaking his head sadly. “But why?”

  “I never learned. The Maidens and the guard came upon them shortly after and killed them both.” Another truth to leaven the lies.

  “You must have your suspicions.”

  Çeda nodded. “I do. Surely those men were of her tribe, the tribe she left when she brought me to Sharakhai to find a new life. I believe they were honor bound to kill her.”

  It was a rare but not unheard of thing. Those who abandoned their nomadic lifestyles to come to Sharakhai and forge another were sometimes hunted by their tribesmen—sometimes their own family—for the insult. It was a message to those who remained. Honor the old life, such murders said. Never turn your back upon the tribe.

  “And from which tribe did they hail?”

  “I can only assume Masal, for that was the tribe my mother came from.”

  “You cannot recall the marks upon their skin?”

  “It all happened so quickly,” she replied. “I remember only the sound of charging hooves. The shine of the sun off their spears.” It was a well-composed lie. She had avoided contact with anyone who had direct ties to the Masal tribe, so if the Kings ever looked into her past in the pits and in the bazaar, they would detect nothing amiss.

  “Ah, well, you were young.” Ihsan offered her a comforting smile, and then he waved to the crowd. “Such things we understand.” He paused, staring more closely at Çeda’s eyes, her lips, her chin. “And your mother, did she ever tell you who your father was?”

  “Had I known, my Lord King, I would have come far sooner.”

  Ihsan’s eyes lit up while the crowd around them tittered. “And why do you think that was? Surely you would have asked your mother of your father.”

  Why indeed? Çeda should have. And Ahya should have told Çeda so much. Perhaps she meant to. “I did ask, my Lord King, but she refused to speak to me of it. And beat me when I asked too often.”

  “You must have been a willful child.”

  A ripple of chuckles.

  “That I was, my Lord King, and I fear I have only grown worse.”

  The laughter rose, and a smile lit Ihsan’s beautiful face, where the other Kings were little more than a study in stone. “Well,” Ihsan continued, glancing slyly back at his fellow Kings, “of your father, perhaps we’ll never know. There are tales only the desert can tell. Is it not so?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  “Please, there will be time aplenty to discuss your past. For now, let us celebrate the return of one of our own to the fold.” Ihsan turned with a flourish and faced the other Kings. He regarded each, and then rested his gaze upon Kiral. “Should we not?”

  Çeda had no idea what would happen if any of the Kings denied this request, but there was no dissent, and eventually Kiral nodded.

  The Kings remained aloof, but the rest of the gathering welcomed Çeda once more. Ihsan took Çeda’s hand and led her into the crowd, which was now closing in, many smiling and nodding their appreciation. Çeda realized that most were moving as couples. They arranged themselves in a pattern on the floor, with Çeda and Ihsan at their center.

  Ihsan spun her into position and held her hand high, their bodies now close. Ihsan looked at her as if he knew her well, as if there were more he wished to do with her than dance. His hands were soft. His hair gave off the warm and woody scent of myrrh. “Has Zaïde prepared you?” he asked softly so that only she could hear. “Do you know you will be part of a final dance when the day closes?”

  “Zaïde told me, yes.” Ihsan’s eyes. By the gods, he was beautiful.

  The music began. A rebab and a flute and a doudouk played a slow song that touched the roots of Çeda’s soul.

  “You will be given your blade. Did she tell you that? And in the dance you’ll stand across from one chosen from your new hand?”

  “She did.”

  “I can tell Kameyl to swing the blade more gently if you wish.” Çeda knew little of Kameyl, only that she was one of Sümeya’s hand, and that Zaïde considered her to have one of the best sword arms the Maidens had to offer. “No one would think poorly of you,” Ihsan went on. “There are those who have been gravely wounded. There have even been deaths on the night a young Maiden was given her sword.”

  “I am no stranger to the dance of blades, Eminence. I’ll not disappoint you. Or Kameyl.”

  Ihsan laughed; a more beautiful sound Çeda had rarely heard. “It isn’t me you need to impress. Or Kameyl. As I hear it, the High Blade of the Maidens is ill-pleased with you. It may be time to begin impressing her, rather than giving her reasons to dislike you further.”

  “Dislike puts a rather rosy blush on it. She despises me.”

  “I didn’t wish to be unkind.”

  Çeda laughed. She laughed. What was she doing with this King?

  “You are a rather curious specimen,” Ihsan went on. “Dozens have been killed and hung before the gates for crimes such as yours.”

  And there it was. With those words—hung before the gates—Çeda found herself once more. She remained, however, intent on Ihsan’s every word. She didn’t want him to suspect that anything had changed.

  “I wonder what Zaïde saw in you.”

  “I couldn’t say, my Lord King.”

  Ihsan’s brow pinched, and he lifted her right hand to examine the fresh tattoos and the puckered white wound at its center that had all but ceased to cause her pain. He seemed amused by her response, or by the words now written on her hand, or both. “I’ll have to ask her one day. And Yusam. I expected him to find the heart of a thief in you, but he didn’t, did he?”

  “I rather think we wouldn’t be here talking if he had.”

  He leaned in conspiratorially. “You may be right.” He held her closer as the pace of the music increased. “You’re an unforeseen wonder, Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala, like the bright jewels found within the dull stones of the glittering fields.”

  The glittering fields . . . The wording was similar to the poem in her mother’s book.

  From golden dunes,

  And ancient runes,

  The King of glittering stone;

  By inverted thorn,

  His skin was torn,

  And yet his strength did grow.

  While far afield,

  His love unsealed,

  ’Til Tulathan does loom;

  Then petals’ dust,

  Like lovers’ lust,

  Will draw him toward his tomb.

  Could that be it? The desert tribes all wandered the desert, but each had their ancestral grounds. Could it be as simple as finding the King who came from a place of golden dunes and ancient runes? But who besides the gods and the Kings themselves knew their origins anymore? The Kings had long since hidden the names of their mother tribes.

  The music slowed and stopped, and Çeda bowed to Ihsan. “I hope that bodes well,” she said.

  He smiled and kissed her hand. “We shall see.”

  And with that he turned and walked away.

  There were many more waiting to dance with Çeda. She assented to each with a smile. She saw Ramahd among those dancing, but he never came near her. Perhaps so Juvaan wouldn’t suspect anything when she spoke with him.

  As she danced with various partners—from the wealthy of Sharakhai to
merchants from Mirea and Qaimir, to an impossibly tall jeweler from Kundhun—she couldn’t help but think of Emre. She didn’t want to be here among these people. She wanted to be at home, eating marinated peppers and dipping bread in oil and telling Emre about her day, and listening to his exaggerated tales in turn. In some ways those days felt like yesterday, but in others they were a thousand years away, buried in the past and never to return.

  They’d changed, both of them. They were on a strange course now, two diverging paths, and it made her wonder whether they would ever cross again. Was there room for Emre in her new life? Would Emre want to be a part of it if there were? She supposed it didn’t matter. Not anymore. There was nothing she could do about it, and there was no way she would turn back.

  She ate sparingly, tasting cumin-spiced flatbread and a spicy bean paste that reminded her of long days in the desert, and a drink of honey and lemons and rosewater that made her mouth water even while she drank it. She marveled at the sheer variety of food, but more than this, at the amount of it. The waste. People on the streets had so little. In the bazaar there were treats and delicacies brought from far and wide, but they cost so much, few in the west end ever sampled them unless they managed to tuck some up a sleeve. But here was antelope and lizard and tortoise from the far reaches of the Shangazi, roast boar and venison from the humid forests of Qaimir, quail and pheasant and some massive flightless bird—if the tales were to be believed—from the plains of Mirea. Dozens more meats and vegetables cooked in a hundred combinations. There was so much it could never be eaten, not even by the host that was gathered here this night. Such a sickening waste.

  The light through the windows above was turning a deeper shade of orange. Sunset neared, and soon she would receive her sword and dance with Kameyl. She looked for Ramahd again, thinking she might need to go to him if he wouldn’t come to her, but he was gone. She strode easily through each of the four patios around the great hall, talking lightly with those who approached, but she never saw him.

  She bided her time in the great hall because it gave her a chance to wander and watch for Juvaan Xin-Lei. She hoped he would come to her, and she sent him glances from time to time, inviting him to do so. Their eyes met once or twice, but he never approached, and when sunset arrived her chance would be lost. When it was clear Ramahd would not return, and that Juvaan apparently had little interest in speaking to her on his own, she walked straight for him. He and several other richly dressed men were in conversation, but they stopped and turned to face her when she drew close. Juvaan had the same soft features of the other men, but with his bone-white skin he stood apart. Next to his countrymen he looked thin, though she wouldn’t go so far as to call him sickly, and there was a confidence in the set of his chin and shoulders that gave her pause, as might a wild dog, no matter how sleek its coat.

  Çeda bowed. “I wonder whether the envoy of Queen Alansal has time for a dance.”

  Juvaan’s eyes were of the palest blue, like the glacial ice Çeda had once seen packed in hay in the bazaar. He looked at her with something akin to amusement, but there was more—annoyance that he’d been interrupted, or at her presumption. He was a man used to setting rules that others followed.

  He looked as though he were about to give his regrets, so she spoke over him. “Did you know, my Lord, that we’ve seen one another before?”

  Juvaan bowed his head, granting her the statement, but doing so with a quizzical look on his face. “I regret to say that we have not.”

  “We have,” Çeda replied, smiling coyly, “but I forgive you your forgetfulness.”

  Juvaan looked perturbed, but also curious. “I would certainly remember you.”

  “I’m making light, my Lord.” Çeda’s smile was just the right blend of humor and deference. “Of course you would remember”—she made a flourish with the skirt of her dress—“had I been dressed like this.” She leaned in and spoke softly. “But I wasn’t. That day, I wore a white battle skirt, with an iron mask across my face.”

  Juvaan’s eyes narrowed. He glanced at the men standing next to him, and then, without another word, took Çeda by the arm and strode away. He released her when they were distant enough that their words would be lost in the din of the great hall. “You are the White Wolf?”

  She stepped back and bowed, but kept his eye, as she might with an opponent before the start of a bout. It felt strange to make this confession, especially to a complete stranger, but she’d thought long and hard about what Ramahd had said, and she’d decided he was right. She would never enter the pits again, so why not use this opportunity to get into Juvaan’s good graces?

  Juvaan shook his head ruefully. “A pit fighter turned Maiden. In all her years, has Sharakhai ever seen such a thing?”

  “I believe I am the first.”

  “I would think so,” Juvaan replied. “And it makes me wonder what you were doing in that pit, and why you’ve sought me out now.”

  And now it came to it. Çeda hadn’t been sure how she was going to convince Juvaan to tell her anything. She knew Ramahd wanted something from him. She just had no idea what. But Çeda wanted something from Juvaan too, and the only way to get it, barring violence, was to give him something he wanted.

  “I went to that pit looking for you.”

  “And why would you have done that?”

  “Because the man who was to deliver your canister to Macide on the night of Beht Zha’ir was waylaid. I found him, and saved your precious package.”

  Juvaan’s eyes had held a touch of sly amusement a moment ago, but now they hardened to such a degree that Çeda tensed, ready to dodge if he thought to strike her. Two of the courtiers he had been speaking with approached. They looked perturbed, surely due to whatever business Çeda had interrupted, but they stopped when they saw Juvaan’s look and then walked away at a dismissive wave from him. As Juvaan turned back to Çeda, his eyes passed over the seven remaining Kings on the dais, along the far side of the room. He was worried. Very worried.

  “No one knows except me. Not even the messenger,” Çeda went on. “You’ve covered your tracks well, but I’ve made out your scent in Sharakhai since, in the attack on the House of Maidens, for example.”

  “I don’t know where you’ve come by these fool notions, but I tell you this. It would be best if you forgot about them, and this conversation, immediately.”

  He tried to turn away, but Çeda grabbed his arm. “I tell you these things because I want to help.”

  Juvaan stared at her hand upon his wrist. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Then perhaps I am wrong, but this I tell you true, if I were right, then what sort of ally might I be?”

  Before Juvaan could respond, the crowd began to murmur, many of them looking Çeda’s way. Then they parted, stepping away from a ray of light that shone down from the top of the dome above. Sunset was upon them. Some contrivance set into the top of the dome was capturing the light, sending it down upon the floor. It was time for Çeda to dance.

  “Think on it,” she said as she released Juvaan. And with that she walked away, for the King of Swords was standing ready at one end of the makeshift arena.

  THOSE IN THE CROWD nearest Çeda clapped. Others whistled. But they all retreated, giving her space to walk to the center of the room where the column of light shone upon a mosaic of two moons, split by a spear head.

  As Çeda neared the center of the open space, Husamettín pulled the ebon sword from his belt, scabbard and all. When Çeda came within a few paces of the King, he nodded to her and said, “Are you prepared to enter the service of the Kings?”

  “I am, my Lord King.”

  “Then come. Take your blade.” As Çeda stepped forward, he pulled the sword from its scabbard and held it high. Near the base of the blade, etched into the dark steel just above the guard, was a pattern of reeds along the banks of a river. The steel itself was a
sight to behold. It was very dark, nearly black, with a wavy pattern running along its length. The blade held a sheen that turned dull at its sharpened edge. The hilt was wrapped in the finest leather, and held the pattern of a vine with thorns running along it. The pommel was shaped like the closed bud of one of the adichara blooms.

  “Her name is River’s Daughter,” Husamettín said. “She was worn by seven others before you, among them Rasel, Scourge of the Black Veils, and Gelasira, the Savior of Ishmantep. May she bring you calm in the face of battle.” With a speed and ease that showed just how comfortable the King of Swords was with a weapon in his hands, he sheathed River’s Daughter and held it out for Çeda.

  She accepted it, noticing the pulsing in the meat of her thumb, where the adichara poison still resided. She also saw the beating of Husamettín’s heart in the veins of his neck. The two of them matched, she realized. Matched exactly, as if the gods had linked them in some way. He took her head with both hands and kissed her forehead with warm lips—an act infinitely more sickening than the kiss from the asir. She could feel the rush of his blood, the pulsing warmth within him, and all she wanted to do was pull the ebon blade from its scabbard and draw it across his throat. She wanted to see his lifeblood spilled, as her mother’s had been.

  Her right hand squeezed the fine leather straps along the sword’s grip. She felt the muscles of her arm drawing on the blade. She could do it. She could kill him. And perhaps one other if she were fast enough.

  But then Husamettín looked more closely at her, seeing something in her eyes. He held her shoulders at arm’s length. “Calm yourself, child. The dance will be over soon enough.” As if she were an untested child to be cowed by the mere crossing of blades.

  A Blade Maiden in a black dress stepped to his side. A veil covered her face, but Çeda knew this was Kameyl. Husamettín stepped away and motioned for Kameyl to take her place. Then he returned to the dais and sat on his throne with the other Kings. All twelve of them now watched closely, their attention rapt.