Beyond the Black Door

by A. M. Strickland

  It was strange to think that my mother’s actions could lead to someone’s death, though it didn’t scare me as much as it should have. It made her business even more fascinating, like dark things often were to me. Of course that death wouldn’t be her fault, but the Twilight Guild could certainly choose whom they sold information to and try to avoid it. They sounded shadowier in purpose than a mere blacksmith, and not only because of their name. “The guild would never hurt you or force you to do anything you didn’t want to do, right?”

  “I joined them of my own free will, and they have never hurt me. But one would be wise to never cross them.” She paused, smiling ruefully. “And to remain valuable.”

  “So they’re not dangerous?”

  “That depends. They have been around for centuries, with hundreds if not thousands of members. No one except their leader—whose identity is always a secret—knows how many, or how deeply they are seeded in this land, but I know they have members in the lowest levels of society up to the highest. No such organization could have clean hands. Take the clergy, another ancient organization. Are Heshara’s priests and priestesses dangerous? To some people, yes, others no. They reveal a soul’s deepest secrets for the king, for better or worse. They’ve brought both fortune and death down on people’s heads with that knowledge. They’ve hunted down unlicensed soulwalkers and allowed them to be burned at the stake in years past, but they’ve also healed people’s souls and long served the moon goddess. I love Heshara and her worship, and yet her servants are a danger to me.”

  It wasn’t only the sun god and his searing gaze that seemed frightening now. As a soulwalker, I’d always prayed to Heshara first, most comforted by the thought not only of the goddess of night and souls but of a mother figure watching over me. And yet, just as there were many faces to the moon, Heshara, with her pale visage half-shadowed by her curtain of starlit black hair, seemed to have other, darker sides as well.

  As did my mother.

  “So you’re saying the Twilight Guild isn’t dangerous to you?” I asked.

  My mother smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “They need me. I’m one of their best harvesters of secrets. They—even Hallan—think it’s because of my skill as a pleasure artist, but as you might have guessed, it’s also because I can soulwalk.”

  I could hardly breathe. To make a living off curiosity, exploration, and soulwalking, turning a dangerous liability into a profitable blessing … it seemed like a dream.

  My dream now. And maybe not mine alone.

  “Is Razim planning to join the guild?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “He already has,” my mother said with a slight frown. “He’s young but determined. And Hallan allowed it.” She sounded as if she wouldn’t have.

  “Can … can I?” I stammered.

  She hesitated. “Someday, perhaps, which is why I wanted to speak to you about this now. It would affect the course of your studies both in the waking and sleeping realms. There are tricks in both worlds to sussing out secrets. But…”

  My forehead furrowed. “But what?”

  “You realize, Kamai, that either Hallan’s path into the Twilight Guild as a courtier, or mine as a courtesan and a soulwalker, would require you to sleep with people.”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it. And opened it again. “But what about Razim? He doesn’t want to sleep with people, either. He’s just pretending if he says he does. That’s why—”

  “He’s studying music to perform as a courtier, I know, hoping it will stir up emotions and trust and perhaps secrets on its own. That is another path, but only time will tell if he can make it worthwhile to the guild. Perhaps they see something else of value in him,” she muttered half to herself, staring off in thought for a moment before blinking back at me. “But for you, as a soulwalker, there really is only one way.”

  She was right. I’d just been thinking myself that the time for sleeping under windows and beds was drawing to a close. I would have to start sleeping in beds.

  “But I don’t want to force you down this path,” my mother said quickly, earnestly. “While you are still young, I want you to think long and hard about it. Especially since I haven’t seen you noticing boys, or girls, very much. That might come later, but I want this to be your decision. Until then and, needless to say, until you’re older, I won’t begin any of your training.”

  I wanted to say yes immediately, but … she was right. I hadn’t noticed anyone in that way. Sure, Razim was handsome and I wanted to explore his soul, but I didn’t feel the desire that he had in his eyes when he looked at me. And yet maybe that would come later, as my mother had said.

  But I was beginning to doubt.

  She sensed my hesitation. “If you don’t want to answer now, it’s okay. And if you never want to do this at all, I understand completely. Maybe it’s even best…” She trailed off, glancing to the side, as if keeping a lookout for something.

  The black door.

  I didn’t want to stay away from souls. I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to do something so exciting as spying to learn people’s secrets. And I wouldn’t let myself admit that I didn’t want to stay away from the black door, either.

  And if sleeping with people was the path …

  My mother patted my knee. “I’ll leave you to think on it.” She stifled a yawn. “I’m going to get some sleep. Feel free to explore, just remember—”

  “No touching or moving anything, I know.”

  She smiled, stood up, and vanished.

  There would be no touching souls, probably not until I was okay with touching bodies, I guessed. My studies in the sleeping realm had likely come to a halt until my mother was sure I could go down this path.

  I grimaced and stood, turning angrily away from the room that I couldn’t really explore. But the walls leaned in close …

  And I couldn’t help that my arm brushed against the black door. It had appeared right next to me this time. Almost as if it wanted me to bump into it.

  When I did, something tickled my skin, like an exhalation. A whisper. Without thinking, I put my ear to the smooth surface, since I could have sworn I’d heard something.

  It was like putting my cheek to someone’s chest. There was the same warmth, the aliveness, thrumming through it like a heartbeat. My scalp prickled, my hair stirring with what felt like a breath.

  “… Kamai.”

  If the night wind could whisper, this would have been its voice. There was no doubt about what I’d heard. I threw myself back, crashing into the opposite wall and banging my head. I stared at the door, wild-eyed, and it once again seemed to stare back at me. For a moment, my face was reflected in the sheen of the gleaming surface.

  It knew me. But I didn’t know it. For once, the part of me that wanted to was overwhelmed by fear.

  I didn’t care about the secrets held by this darker soul, or what my mother would think about me leaving so soon. I tore open the other door, to the outside, to my body, to safe familiarity, and hurtled through it.

  * * *

  I was sixteen when I yelled at the door.

  I was in my bed, and a girl, Ciari, was propped on her elbows above me, her long dark hair curtaining our faces. She was kissing me.

  And I was … trying … to kiss her back. I couldn’t silence the buzzing in my head. Not a pleasurable buzz, but more like an agitated hive of bees. I couldn’t think. There was only the hum of wrongness. It wasn’t helping my technique.

  Not that I’d been taught much, either by my mother or Razim or anyone else. To be fair, I hadn’t asked.

  I told myself again that I wanted this, but I couldn’t silence the rising scream inside of me. The no. I’d long thought Ciari was beautiful, and I even had the urge to be near her, but as soon as she’d started kissing me, as soon as I started even imagining going beyond kissing with her, I lost interest. More than that: I wanted to run the other way. The solid posts and silk sheets of my bed, glowing softly in t
he spicy candlelit air, no longer felt like a hand cradling me in safety, but one offering me up, exposing me, and Heshara’s statue with its secret smile, gracing my bedside stand, seemed to know something I didn’t.

  Ciari pulled away, her lips glistening. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, fine,” I said, a little breathlessly, following her gaze down along my body to my fists, which were crumpling the satin skirt of my lace-trimmed nightgown.

  I want this.

  No, I don’t. But I want to soulwalk, to join the Twilight Guild, and this is how I do it. Be brave.

  Ciari took one of my hands. I managed to unclench it.

  “Have you never done this before? With a girl?” she asked, tracing my fingers with a lovely gentleness that made me shiver.

  She thought I feared something new. She didn’t know I feared something I didn’t want, had never wanted, and might never want.

  “No. Not with a boy or girl,” I admitted, a blush flaring up in my face. “But I like both.”

  I liked the look of both. Both had the potential to make me want to draw nearer. But when I did … there was nothing. I had a complete lack of that desire to get even closer—and less clothed—which everyone around me seemed to have. That was more embarrassing to me, a much deeper secret, than my lack of experience.

  Ciari grinned, and it was an evil, beautiful thing. “I can teach you how.”

  It was as if she were talking about how to feel what she felt, rather than how to have sex, and I wanted to believe she could. “Okay,” I whispered.

  She leaned in to kiss me again. This time, her hand reached down and started gliding up my leg, lifting my nightgown, seeking …

  My hand shot out before I could help it. “Don’t,” I gasped, panicked, against her lips, and I tore my own lips away and flung my head to the side. Horror at what I had done flooded me, and I glanced back at her with wide eyes. “Sorry, I…”

  Ciari rolled off me. “It’s okay,” she said, though she was clearly disappointed. She sat up and smoothed the front of her nightgown over a lovely pair of breasts. Not lovely enough, apparently, for me. Nothing was ever enough. “We are just supposed to be playing cards anyway, and then going to bed, while our mothers and Hallan have their fun.”

  She sounded very much like she wanted to be having that sort of fun too. We’d been playing cards downstairs earlier, whiling away the time as Razim made eyes at the both of us, but Ciari only had eyes for me. We’d gone upstairs early, giggling, leaving Razim flushed and frustrated, but I had ruined it.

  I felt ruined. Broken. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. At least, I knew what made me a disappointment to Ciari and my mother—and myself. My lack of sexual desire was all too obvious. But I didn’t know why I was this way.

  Afterward, Ciari and I hardly spoke, beyond what was required for another uninspired round of Gods and Kings. It didn’t help my mood or hers that I beat her. Afterward, she rolled over on my silken bed cover and snuffed out the candle.

  I wanted to soulwalk, but it took me a while to fall asleep lying next to Ciari. Being in bed with another person was supposed to make it easier to use my talent, not harder. Yet another thing I was failing at this night.

  I eventually ended up in Ciari’s nehym. It was a stone house, small but nice enough, tidy with rich wood accents. I didn’t pause to look around, because the black door stood across from me, and it drew all my suddenly furious attention.

  “What do you want?” I shouted at it before I really knew what I was saying. Before I realized what I actually wanted to say:

  What do I want?

  No one was apparently the answer.

  I knew what it wanted anyway. My mother had warned me long ago, and I had felt it every time I had seen it since.

  It was my evening for thwarting desires. I didn’t open it, and, strangely, I felt nearly as regretful in denying the black door as I had Ciari.

  * * *

  I was seventeen when the door gave me a gift.

  One late afternoon, my mother called me into the sitting room. She’d been pacing there all day, and laughing less and less for months while the faint lines in her lovely face deepened.

  “Kamai,” she said, taking my shoulders, which were no longer lower than hers. I was expecting her to comment, like usual, on the fact that my dress was too dark for the sunny, dry season, making me look morbid instead of appealing, but it was far more serious than that. “I can’t explain everything, but you must listen to me. If something happens before I can get you away from here, go to your father, in the capital. His name is Jidras Numa, and he won’t like it, but he’ll take you in. You may not like it either, but it’s the only place that will be safe.”

  “Wait, what?” I wanted to reel back, but my mother’s grip kept me rooted. She’d never told me anything about my father. I hadn’t even known that she knew who he was. “Why now?”

  For a second I thought it was because I was failing her so badly. There had been no awakening of my desire, which was making it harder and harder for me to get near enough to anyone to soulwalk—harder and harder to follow my mother into the Twilight Guild. If I could have made myself more like her—so beautiful and beguiling and knowing—not only would I discover the world’s dark secrets for myself, but maybe I wouldn’t feel broken anymore. Maybe I could make her proud.

  But desire wasn’t something I could study and learn to feel, just like my soul wasn’t something I could search for and discover.

  All I had was the black door, and I could never open it. I couldn’t feel the proper things I should have felt, and the one forbidden thing I shouldn’t have wanted was what I craved most.

  Maybe she was casting me away because I truly was broken.

  Reading my face, she said, “Kamai, my sweetness, it’s not you. I’ve done something I might regret.”

  “What have you done?”

  She smiled faintly. “I fell in love.” The smile vanished, replaced by steel. “Forget everything I’ve told you about the Twilight Guild. Forgive me—I wasn’t entirely honest with you, for reasons I can’t explain right now. They are bad. They are dangerous to you and me. Very. And whatever you do, don’t trust any of their members. Not even Razim. Stay away from him. If anything terrible happens, they’re all responsible.”

  I could have laughed, if not for how grave and urgent she sounded. At nineteen, Razim was moody and withdrawn, but not dangerous. Then again, I didn’t know quite what role he had played for the guild in recent years, since I hadn’t been able to join them and learn for myself. “What about Hallan?” I asked, breathless.

  Her softer smile returned, and suddenly I knew whom she had fallen in love with after all these years. “He won’t be the problem, in any case. But stay away from Razim. Now go, pack only what you might need!”

  “Wait, right this moment? What about you?”

  “I have places I can hide, if…” She didn’t finish, and I got the sick suspicion her sentence would have ended with if I make it.

  “Come with me!” I said. “I’m sure my father will hide you as well!”

  She shook her head ruefully. “I doubt that very much. In any case, I can’t follow you right now, Kamai, because I’ll only put you in greater danger.”

  My mother no longer held me in place—in fact, she was trying to steer me away from her—but I kept my feet planted. “I’m not leaving without you!”

  The steel returned to my mother’s voice and I flinched away from it. “You will do as I say. Go pack. And don’t panic; we have some time before they make their move.”

  As it happened, she was wrong.

  A short while later, a little after sunset, someone pounded on the front doors of our villa. I’d been gathering my things in my bedroom in a haze of disbelief, unsure this was actually happening. When I heard the noise, I leapt up to peer downstairs through the crack of my door.

  My mother glanced up in my direction. “Don’t let them in!” she shouted at the servants hurry
ing toward the commotion.

  The pounding turned to hammering. The doors shuddered on their hinges.

  “Stay hidden, Kamai … and run!” Those were the only words my mother had time to spare for me. I didn’t run. I couldn’t. “You there,” she continued to the servants, “bar the doors! Arm yourselves with whatever you can!”

  She herself seized an ornate ax from a plaque on the wall. It was nearly too heavy for her, the tip gouging the floor, but she managed to heave it upright. I cast about for some weapon of my own, but my room held only soft things. In the meantime, Zadhi and another servant were dragging a heavy chair to block the entrance.

  None of our efforts mattered. A group of men wearing soldiers’ uniforms kicked in the doors. Before my mother could do more than clumsily swing her ax, which they deflected easily, they slit the servants’ throats in the candlelit entryway, faster than I could follow the line of their daggers. Zadhi, who I’d known most of my life, fell gurgling and choking on her own blood.

  And then, there, in the front room, without any ceremony, one of them ran my mother through with a sword.

  The blade entered underneath the front of her rib cage and came out, red, from between her shoulders. Her eyes widened, beautiful lips parting, and she made a sound like a strangled cough. But when her attacker lowered his sword, she was silent as she slid off and fell to the ground, her own weapon slipping from limp fingers.

  My knees hit my bedroom floor at the same time. I choked on a scream, my agony silent, just like my mother’s. She wouldn’t have wanted me to draw attention to myself, but my silence was less for survival’s sake and more because I was paralyzed by the sight below me. All I could see was her blood, soaking into a pale blue rug and pooling on the white tile beneath her. Her limbs jerked, and yet her eyes were sightless. A piercing keen rose in my ears, but only in my head—the scream I hadn’t released.