Twelve Kings in Sharakhai

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  They were headed for the blooming fields—the killing fields, as the Maidens sometimes referred to them, a reference to the death sown by the asirim after the gods had transformed them into the vengeful creatures all in Sharakhai knew. Legend had it that the bodies of their enemies had been lain in a great circle around Sharakhai, forming the beds of the blooming fields that gave life to the twisted trees.

  When they’d left Tauriyat at sundown, Çeda had been allowed to choose her path, so she’d chosen to head toward the place where she and Emre had been attacked by the rattlewings, where she’d seen Külasan slip down into the sands. They’d ridden three leagues at least, and Çeda knew they were near. Indeed, when they crested the next dune, Çeda could see the light of their blooms and the telltale shadows of the twisted trees, dark shadows over ochre sand. They continued without a word, the only sound the jingle of tack and the soft thump of hooves plodding through sand. As they rode down the sandy slope and started up the next rise, however, Çeda could hear the drone of the rattlewings as they flitted from flower to flower. Some landed among the branches or on the sandy floor below and made their piercing buzzing sound, a thing that made Çeda’s teeth itch.

  Zaïde led them to a clearing among the adichara. All around them the blue-white blooms were open to the chill desert air. They gave off the faintest glow, a panoply of moons hanging low beneath the stars, the countless children of Rhia and Tulathan. Running beneath them, around them, through them, were the adicharas’ thorny vines, twisting slowly in the breeze.

  “Here,” Zaïde called as she pulled her horse’s reins and dismounted. The others did so as well, with Çeda coming last. The horses, all well trained, remained where they were as the six women stepped onto a plateau of stone and held hands. Melis stood on Çeda’s left, tall Jalize on her right. Sümeya and Kameyl held their hands in turn, and Zaïde, as their Matron, their spiritual guide this night, stood opposite Çeda.

  “Our custom,” Zaïde began, “is for an aspirant to be poisoned and then to choose her adichara bloom, but as you’ve already passed that first test, you will simply go and choose one of the flowers.” She paused as a rattlewing hovered between them and then flew up and over the adichara. “Are you prepared for your vigil?”

  “I am.”

  “Then go. Choose wisely.”

  Çeda looked about the clearing. There were many adichara blooms. With the moons so full and the petals so bright, the subtle movement of the vines made them hypnotic, a fleet upon a stormy sea. Most of the flowers faced the moons, making it difficult to choose, but she found one so full the petals seemed ready to burst from it, as if it were shouting at the gods that it was not afraid.

  You are the one, Çeda decided.

  The bloom was high, up, unreachable, and she didn’t wish to brave the thorns again by trying to maneuver its branch closer, so she pulled her sword from its scabbard and sliced the flower neatly near the top of its stalk. It floated downward and would have been lost among the branches had Çeda not caught it on the flat of her blade and carried it neatly to her waiting hand.

  How strong its scent! It reminded her of nothing so much as her mother placing that last petal beneath her tongue. And for that she was glad. This night of all nights she wanted her mother by her side.

  She carried the flower to Zaïde.

  The old matron nodded—was there a smile on her lips?—and waved for all six of them to kneel. They did, Çeda holding the flower in her lap with both hands, the Maidens’ hands in their laps as well.

  “We bring our sister to this place,” Zaïde intoned.

  And then all five of them, all except Çeda, spoke together. “We leave you in body, but not in spirit.”

  Zaïde reached forward and gathered a fistful of sand. As she allowed it to pour in a thin stream, she spoke loudly and clearly. “Goezhen grant you strength, that you may endure.”

  Then Sümeya gathered sand. It whispered against the stone at her knees as she spoke her own prayer. “Thaash grant you courage, that you may strike at our enemies.”

  Melis approached the ritual with a reverence that Çeda had rarely seen in anyone—whether from Tauriyat or the west end or in the temples. She looked taken by the spirit of the gods, as if she were kneeling before them. “Tulathan grant you insight, that you may judge right from wrong.”

  It took Kameyl several moments before she followed with a devotion of her own. “Yerinde grant you foresight, even in times of darkness, for only with this will you see the true path.”

  And last came Jalize. “Bakhi grant you joy in this calling, for in it there is righteousness.”

  Çeda would have expected them to perform this ceremony half-heartedly at best, but all of them spoke their prayers with reverence, even Kameyl and Sümeya, which Çeda could only assume meant that they placed more weight on the ceremony than they did on their disdain for Çeda.

  It was Çeda’s turn. She knew the words but had difficulty speaking them. She reached down and gathered a handful of sand, mindful of the pledge she’d made so long ago to the Kings: to come for them, to kill them all. “Rhia grant me the will to act, for only in this will I protect Sharakhai from those who would harm her.” The words tasted bitter, because of the Kings but also because she felt the gods had abandoned her long ago.

  “May the gods will it,” Zaïde said.

  “May the gods will it,” Çeda and the other Maidens repeated.

  Çeda remained on her knees while the others stood, one by one, each of them in turn kissing the crown of her head and walking back to the horses. Zaïde came last. She squatted down and held Çeda by the shoulders. “No matter what you may think, you’ve done well. Husamettín believes in you. Yusam and Ihsan as well. The others will watch you closely, for you are a jewel freshly plucked from the sand, but they will come to trust you in time.”

  “And the other Maidens?”

  Zaïde shrugged. “After this last test, they will accept you.”

  “Yet they will never love me.”

  “Love is an overvalued thing. Gain their respect and be satisfied with that. It will carry you much farther than love.”

  Çeda wasn’t so sure, but she nodded.

  “Take all of the petals, but pace yourself—not too many at once—and make your way back to Sharakhai when you’re ready.”

  No sooner had she said those words than a wailing spread across the desert.

  Zaïde turned toward the sound. “They’ve awakened late.” She stood and kissed Çeda’s head. “It’s a good sign, Çeda. Surely they waited for your arrival, so they can greet you properly.” As she walked away, Çeda thought she heard another whispered prayer. It was difficult to make out, so soft were her words, but Çeda would swear she’d said, Please, Nalamae, guide her.

  They rode away single file over the sand, down the slope and up to the next dune. As they crested the ridge, another wail came, nearer this time. And then the Maidens were gone, and Çeda was left alone with the vibrant flower still cupped in her hands.

  She plucked the first of the petals and, instead of placing it beneath her tongue, chewed and swallowed it. The scent of the adichara filled her lungs as the taste of the bloom infused her with an energy that felt like the first time she’d ever been given a petal. Surely it was only her nerves. She was not nearly so confident about the asirim accepting her as she had been while speaking with Emre in the relative safety of Tauriyat, far from the blooming fields.

  She swallowed and took another petal as more wails filled the night. Zaïde had said to pace herself, but she didn’t want to. Why should she? If these somehow summoned the asirim, then she would summon more of them. She refused to allow fear into her heart. She would look upon them and learn from them, perhaps even summon the very one who had kissed her, the King of these twisted creatures. She ate three petals. Four.

  She could feel every part of her body now, both inside a
nd out. Five petals, then six.

  A high-pitched ringing filled her ears, but she could still hear the asirim trudging through the night.

  The adichara began to move and shift. The branches twisted, pulling back as dark forms crawled up from beneath them. The asirim, she realized with shock. The trees’ spiny limbs lifted them, the poisoned thorns digging deep into their skin before setting them on their feet. Many of the asirim seemed weak, unable to easily support themselves, like diseased dogs about to collapse under their own weight. And by the gods she could feel them.

  Zaïde said this would happen. And this was why she’d been brought here, to the blooming fields, so that she would be imprinted upon the asirim and on the adichara as well. Indeed, as the adichara waved, she felt their movement. Like a nervous churning in her gut, the asirim made themselves known to her. She could feel not only the ones that were near, but the others in the blooming fields to the south and north, and beyond.

  As she swallowed the seventh petal, then the eighth, the first of the asirim approached. Their presence filled her like strong drink, making her swoon, threatening to overwhelm her. When she shook her head from side to side, the light from the moons, stars, and blooms trailed across her vision like children’s streamers, making her dizzier still. But she continued to do the one thing—the only thing—that was necessary. The petals. She ate the petals, one by one, until they were gone. Thirteen in all.

  The asirim stood more upright now. They shambled less, took on a more feral gait, as if they’d thrown off the effects of their slumber and had remembered their true nature. Or their hunger.

  Some shuffled off into the desert toward Sharakhai, perhaps called to perform their duty by Sukru. But many more remained, and in silent concert they closed in around Çeda.

  She felt the familiar fear she’d always felt for the asirim—a child’s fear of the dark, of the unknown and the unknowable. But seeing them like this, these poor creatures crawling up from the sand like a host of beetles, she felt more pity than fear. Pity, and a curiosity that had been born long ago, from somewhere deep inside her. Her jaw chattered, as if she were cold. But she wasn’t cold. She was a furnace.

  “Come,” she told them. “I wish to look upon you.”

  Were the tales of the Kings true? That these were the men, women, and children who had sacrificed themselves on Beht Ihman. The whispers—whispers hidden between and among the many, many stories Davud had given her—spoke of betrayal, spoke of these men and women being chosen because they had been the weakest of the twelve tribes.

  The asirim gathered around, more and more of them coming close, until Çeda was totally surrounded. If they wished to kill her, to rend her flesh and devour her, well, there was little she could do about it now. They were so close she could see the wrinkles in their blackened skin, the stains upon their yellowed teeth. Their bodies were so emaciated their tendons stood out like rigging in a sandstorm. They cowered as if they expected her to strike them, yet they unfolded their cadaverous arms and probed her shoulders, her cheeks through her black veil, even her head through her black turban.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  One of them—a tall man once, but now a bent and broken thing with a hunched back and a twisted neck—touched her sword hand and turned it over to examine her palm. He pressed the meat of her thumb, tracing the words and designs that Zaïde had imprinted there. There was pain from the poisoned wound, but the effect of the petals was so strong she hardly felt it. And then the asir began to whisper, though the words were too soft for her to understand. The whispering spread, the others picking up the sound, and soon she was surrounded by a susurrus that blended hypnotically with the muffled clatter of the swaying branches and the hum of the rattlewings. It made the night dreamlike. She even thought she heard Saliah’s chimes among the sounds.

  The current of the petals was taking her, she realized, a thing she had to stop. “Speak to me!” she called to them, to any who might respond. “Tell me what you’re saying!”

  The nearest of them cringed at her words, but they otherwise ignored her. The lone asir continued his inspection of her tattoo. He ran one finger directly over the wound, bringing a stronger pain that sharpened the world around her in a more effective way than anything she had managed so far.

  “I saw your King once,” Çeda said to him, breathing sharply as he pressed the wound harder. It was a sweet pain, a grounding pain. “He spoke to me. Rest will he ’neath twisted tree . . .”

  The asir looked up at her then, his eyes going wide, his expression, his very manner, filled with sorrow and fright.

  “You know those words, don’t you?” Çeda said. “Rest will he ’neath twisted tree ’til death by scion’s hand. By Nalamae’s tears, and godly fears, shall kindred reach dark land. That’s you, isn’t it? The kindred.”

  And then he said a word she could understand. It came out breathy, raspy, from an instrument that saw little use, she was sure. It was barely a word at all, but she recognized it, for she had just spoken it herself. “Kiiinnndred,” he said.

  “Do you wish for release? Is that what the poem means?”

  “Releeeeaaaaasssse . . .”

  “From whom? The Kings of Sharakhai?”

  At this many of the asirim wailed. They reared back and released their anguish up and into the uncaring skies. Çeda felt their call along her skin, felt it in her bones and in the beating of her heart.

  “Tell me,” Çeda urged them. “Tell me what they did.”

  But they would not, they would only wail, longer and harder.

  The one who held her hand, however, was silent. He trailed a thick, blackened nail over the designs enwrought within the tattoo. He was doing so in several spots over and over. Still holding her wrist, he knelt and began to trace bits of the design into the sand before her. As the mark filled in, it seemed to draw the world in around it. Like a form resolving from the dark, the mark became known to her, and she gasped, her free hand moving unbidden to her throat.

  By the gods who walk the earth, the asir was drawing the very mark that had been carved into the skin of her mother’s forehead, the sign whose meaning had escaped her these many years.

  But how could they have known?

  The asir stopped partway through and flexed his hand as if the mere act of drawing the sign pained him, but then he continued and finished it at last, whereupon he released her and bowed to the symbol, as did all of the others.

  A low moan escaped her as sorrow filled her heart. To look upon that sign again . . . It had caused so much pain, and yet the asirim treated it with reverence. She was just about to ask them why when she heard movement, and a fresh whispering among the asirim. Off to her right, they were parting, making way for another. For one who wore a crown.

  “Sehid-Alaz,” Çeda whispered, voicing the name Saliah had given when she described this poor creature.

  He strode beneath the dual moons like a wounded man, perhaps, but a man still filled with pride, a man who refused to bend to the will of the Kings, or even the will of the gods. But the effort wore on him; she could see it in the tremor in his shoulders, the way he strained to keep his head high.

  When he came to stand before her at last, the others stepped away, giving them space. As one, the asirim bowed to him.

  The King held his hand out to Çeda. She understood that he too wished to look at the design, so she gave her hand to him and stood. But instead of examining her tattoo, he took several deep breaths, as if he were preparing himself for something. “Give me thine name,” he said in a voice as old as the desert itself.

  “I am Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala.”

  Then he turned her with unyielding strength and grabbed the hilt of her sword. He pulled it free, lifting the ebon blade to the night sky as the asirim wailed.

  Using the sword, he drew another sign in the sand, several feet away from the first. It was
the ancient sign for shaikh. In a circle around it, he drew twelve marks in the sand.

  “Twelve shaikhs,” Çeda said. “The leaders of the tribes.”

  The King shook his head and drew another sign beneath the first, the ancient symbol for Sharakhai.

  “The Twelve Kings.”

  The King put his finger over Çeda’s mouth and shook his head, pointing up to the twin moons.

  They would hear, he was saying. The gods would hear, and perhaps warn the Kings, so keep this conversation in secret. He drew a thirteenth mark near the signs around the Kings. A thirteenth King. He pressed his palm to his chest. And finally he drew a line from the mark of the last King to the sign that had been left on her mother’s forehead as a warning.

  There had been thirteen tribes. And these gathered souls were what remained. The lost tribe. The asirim were all that was left of the thirteenth tribe.

  Suddenly the term killing fields took on a whole new meaning, for as surely as the desert was dry, the Twelve Kings had condemned the lost tribe to this fate. Çeda didn’t know how, or why, but that much was clear.

  She also knew that her mother was one of them. And so am I. I am my mother’s daughter, and these are my people.

  The Kings carved the sign into Ahya’s skin as a warning to others of the tribe who hoped to come for them. She stared at the tattoo, at the hidden symbols the asir had traced with the yellowed nail of his forefinger. They were plain as day now. How had she not noticed them before? She knelt and traced her finger lovingly over every line the asir had made, making it stand out even more. It reminded her so much of her mother that tears came unbidden. But as they slipped down her cheeks, she realized there was an undeniable feeling of release as well. She’d buried this for so long—her mother’s death, her search for vengeance, her will to put an end to the cruelty of the Kings. To now share it, even in this one small way, this terrible, strange, unexpected way, made her feel as though she wasn’t alone.