The Diviner (golden key)

by Melanie Rawn

  The Diviner

  ( Golden Key )

  Melanie Rawn

  The only survivor of royal treachery that eliminates his entire family, Azzad al-Ma'aliq flees to the desert and dedicates himself to vengeance. With the help of the Shagara, a nomadic tribe of powerful magicians, he begins to take his revenge—but at a terrible cost to himself.

  Melanie Rawn

  The Diviner

  For

  Jennifer Roberson

  and

  Kate Elliott

  (and her evil twin, Alis Rasmussen)

  This novel is a prequel to The Golden Key. Although it helps to have read that one before reading this one, it’s not necessary; I hope that I wrote The Diviner in such a way that it makes sense all by itself. If it doesn’t, I have every confidence that you’ll let me know.

  In the barbarian land to the north, the Grijalvas believe that the smearing of paint on canvas is more powerful than the writing of words.

  In Tza’ab Rih, we of the Shagara know that this is not so.

  —ZEIF SHAGARA, Commentaries on the Al-Fansihirro, 1236

  Il-Kadiri

  611-630

  Let me tell you of him.

  Those of you who know of him only from the words of others, you may not believe what I will write. But I heard it from his own lips, and if you think disrespectful some of the things I reveal, be assured that when he spoke to me of his life, he enjoined me to honesty equal to his own whenever I should repeat his tale. Thus I shall spare him as little as he spared himself, and this shall be a faithful telling.

  By Acuyib, the Wonderful and Strange, that which follows is the truth.

  —FERRHAN MUALEEF, Deeds of Il-Kadiri, 654

  1

  The city of Dayira Azreyq breathed softly that night. No one wished to be caught inhaling a particle of the Sheyqa’s air more than was strictly required for survival. Within the shops and houses served by the great reservoir that gave the city its name—Circle of Blue—lovers muffled their sighs, fretful babies were swiftly hushed by nervous fathers, murmurs became whispers as shadows deepened. Those few persons out on the streets walked furtively and said nothing. Those brave enough to speak aloud did so only in their own homes, with faces lowered and eyes downcast. Do not notice me, I am of no importance, I do not exist—and one more night of reprieve was begun.

  But the city was not entirely quiet, at least not in the precincts of the palace. The Sheyqa was in a mood for celebrating, and her guests acceded to the royal requirement for music and laughter and merriment of all kinds.

  Preparations had begun early that morning. In the banqueting hall, with its splendid domed-and-tiled ceiling, white draperies were taken from red silken couches, and massive trays of beaten gold were set on tripods. In the east wing, with its floor-to-ceiling windows shuttered against the scorching sun, musicians tuned their instruments, and dancers were instructed regarding the Sheyqa’s preferences for the evening. In the kitchen, with its vast hearths and staggering array of copper pots, cooks sweated and swore, cajoling the roasts to cook and the breads to rise. In the cellar, with its low stone archways and maze of shelves and cabinets, stewards selected the wines, and servants polished the priceless blue glassware seized more than a century ago from barbarian invaders by the armies of Rimmal Madar. If anyone remembered that those armies had been under the personal command not of Sheyqa Ammara Izzad, the present ruler’s great-grandmother, but of an alMa’aliq, no one mentioned it. Ever.

  By sundown the guests had arrived, and the palace echoed with laughter and music. For all that the city breathed softly, carefully, the Sheyqa was in an excellent mood. Her guests—every adult male of the al-Ma’aliq line—were enjoying themselves. She was enjoying their delusions. She smiled when yet another toast was proclaimed to the power of her eldest son’s loins. Today Acuyib had shown him to be doubly blessed: his sixth wife, Ammineh, and his seventeenth concubine (whose name the Sheyqa could never quite remember) had each given birth, bringing the total number of her children and grandchildren to fifty, her own exact age.

  Her smile didn’t waver as one of the al-Ma’aliq raised his wine cup high in salute to his own daughter, Ammineh, mother of the fiftieth. Sheyqa Nizzira joined in the toast and beamed at the girl’s father as if genuinely celebrating the triumph. After a swallow of sharp dry wine—she loathed this too-strong varietal, but serving it was necessary tonight—she soothed the bitterness from her mouth with a confection of chopped dates, honey, and candied rose petals. She sucked stickiness from her fingers, delicately dipping them in a bowl of scented water before reaching again for the sweets.

  Manners. Elegance. Refinement. These her father had drilled into her from babyhood. “Make as much war as you wish, Nizzira my daughter—you will be Sheyqa, and it is your right and your duty. But recall that the warrior who is also cultivated and civilized gains not only the respect but the regard of her people.” He’d been a wise man, her father, never doubting that his only child would emerge victorious in the exquisitely brutal struggle for the Moonrise Throne. Sheyqa Nizzira missed him terribly, and in his memory took every opportunity to show that she was not only a mighty ruler but polished in her person.

  But her father had been wrong about one thing. The objective of a warrior was to gain not respect but fear. This she had done and would continue to do so long as the northern borders of Rimmal Madar were beset by barbarian tribes—with whom the al-Ma’aliq were conspiring. They would deny it if confronted, but Nizzira knew their protestations would be lies. Had she been in their position—formerly powerful, loathing her, and taxed so heavily that they had not the wherewithal to make war unless allied to others—she would have collaborated with the Dread and Mighty Chaydann Il-Mamnoua’a Himself.

  As Nizzira rinsed her fingers yet again, from the corner of her eye she caught an al-Ma’aliq curling his lip. This was one of Ammineh’s brothers, who doubtless had heard her incessant complaints in excruciating detail. The whole family maddened the Sheyqa beyond endurance. Even their name was an arrogance, as if the head of their family—a doddering old imbecile currently lolling on plump cushions and using a dancer’s transparent silk scarf as a bib—could still call himself “king.” The al-Ma’aliq had anciently held a large portion of Rimmal Madar. Ammineh, Nizzira’s eldest son’s sixth wife, not a mere concubine—and she cursed the boy for agreeing to a wedding when a bedding was all he was after—prated endlessly about her ancestry, constantly reminding everyone that her forefathers had been kings back in the days when the title had meant something, when the natural order of women owning and ruling land had been for a shameful time overset by the influence of the western barbarians. To Acuyib’s Glory, that situation had been righted. Men worked, soldiered, farmed, sailed the ships, commanded the caravans, and crafted the goods for which Rimmal Madar was justly famous—but women’s wisdom and women’s logic determined the manner in which such things were done. Women controlled the wealth of the family. And one woman presided over all.

  In a way, the Sheyqa reflected, it was a pity that one or two of the abandoned customs did not still obtain. It would be a lovely thing to relegate the wives and concubines—and even those of her daughters and granddaughters she didn’t much like—to the strictures of the arrareem as it used to be in the old, uncivilized days. Locked away, Ammineh and her ceaseless carping could no longer offend the Sheyqa’s eyes and ears.

  The al-Ma’aliq still ruled their cities and fields and mountain castle like the kings they hadn’t been for generations. They behaved as if Nizzira’s own great-grandmother hadn’t fielded the army that turned back the western barbarians. Her ancestor had safeguarded the al-Ma’aliq and everyone else in a thousand-mile march from the slaughters that ensue
d when Believers in Acuyib’s Glory refused to accept that outrageous Mother-and-Son religion. But the trouble Sheyqa Ammara Izzad encountered in expelling the invaders was but a prelude to getting the pretentious, condescending, deceiving al-Ma’aliq to own up to their agreement: fealty in exchange for protection.

  Aware that she was frowning, the Sheyqa smoothed her expression and scooped up a handful of candied rose petals. The sugary crunch was satisfying and soothed her as if she were still a child—and she was reminded yet again of her father, and how he had doled out candies to munch on when her multitude of half-sisters and cousins had been plotting against her. When she was a child, the sweets had comforted her; when she grew older, reaching for candies had kept her hand from her knife on more than one occasion, and occupying her mouth with chewing had kept her lips from forming regrettable and possibly fatal words.

  Ayia, but she had out-plotted them all. Her mother’s five other husbands and their vile offspring were either dead or rendered so insignificant as to be effectively dead. This was the truest test of a sheyqa: that she should prevail in the end over every other female of her bloodline with any claim to the throne—for what use was a ruler against outside enemies if she could not defeat those inside her own palace? It was a father’s job to keep his daughters safe until they were old enough to put to good use his advice and his years of subtle scheming and the alliances he had carefully nurtured. Nizzira’s father had been a brilliant man, but she had also been a genuinely gifted student. Proof: She was Sheyqa of Rimmal Madar. In her hands was all the power—and all the attendant worries. Most of these worries were named al-Ma’aliq.

  Nizzira’s great-grandmother had personally assembled the troops that had subdued the al-Ma’aliq after the invaders were expelled; her grandfather, acting on behalf of his elderly mother, had been compelled to do it again; Nizzira’s mother had been criminally remiss in not setting them back on their silk-covered asses for good and all. Now one of their arrogant, chattering daughters had given Nizzira her fiftieth descendant, and for this she was supposed to be grateful. All the indolent girl had to do was sit around sipping mint tea and gossiping while she swelled up like a hippopotamus and eventually, after a few grunts and groans and a disgusting bloody mess, push out an infant—while all the time Nizzira was managing the dauntingly varied affairs of an entire nation.

  And now Ammineh’s male relations lounged near the Sheyqa’s couch, eating the Sheyqa’s food and drinking the Sheyqa’s wine, as if the new baby were in any way of their form or making. The infant looked nothing like the al-Ma’aliq. She had Nizzira’s luxuriant black hair, her long-lidded dark eyes, her noble nose, her clever mouth. The only contamination was in the chin—square and stubborn like Ammineh’s, not rounded and cleft like the Sheyqa’s own. But perhaps that would change in time.

  Even if it didn’t, there would be nobody around to compare the child to. The al-Ma’aliq were attending their final banquet, down to the last man. As for their complacent wives . . . and as for their other pestilential daughters . . . and as for every one of their unruly little brats . . .

  They would be taken care of, too.

  The Sheyqa dipped her fingertips in the bowl of scented water and smiled. Yes, she was in a mood for celebrating, and the proud, stupid alMa’aliq were happy to oblige.

  Why, Azzad al-Ma’aliq asked himself for the thousandth time, were women so expensive? And not just in the cost of trinkets, either. They demanded a man’s time and exhausted his patience, not to mention his energy. They required so much attention. And thoughtfulness. And conversation.

  And money, he thought ruefully, patting the folds of green and gold silk wound around his waist, where until an hour ago a fabulous pearl necklace had been concealed. It was now somewhere in the rubbish heap behind Ashiyah’s house. Instead of squealing with delight at the gift, she’d thrown it out her bedroom window.

  The idea had been for Ashiyah to undress him—slowly if she liked, quickly if that was her mood; he was always generous and accommodating, wasn’t he?—and discover his latest gift, and then—

  But that hadn’t happened. She’d come at him spitting and clawing, furious that he was late. A hundred women in Rimmal Madar would have waited years just for a smile from the latest handsome al-Ma’aliq male in a long line of handsome al-Ma’aliq males, and yet Ashiyah had behaved as if a paltry couple of hours was sufficient reason to rip his face to shreds.

  He’d backed off, desperately groping for the pearls hidden in his gold-and-green striped sash. For just an instant the ploy succeeded; covetous joy sparked hotter than anger in her magnificent eyes when she saw the jewels.

  Then she seized the necklace and tried to strangle him with it.

  Between his knees, Khamsin heaved an almost human sigh. Azzad patted the stallion’s arching black neck. “Do you think you need to tell me I’m a fool? Believe me, it’s nothing I haven’t told myself a thousand times. But she is spectacularly beautiful. And it would infuriate her husband spectacularly if he ever caught us!”

  The vexing Ozmin had in recent months been Azzad’s guide through the bureaucratic snarl of the Sheyqa’s tax collectors. It was the al-Ma’aliq’s contention that their lands were being singled out for heavier tribute than usual, and Za’avedra el-Ibrafidia al-Ma’aliq—in futile hopes of rousing her second son to anything even vaguely resembling familial responsibility—assigned Azzad the disagreeable duty of untangling (which meant bribing) enough functionaries to support a protest in the law courts. Absurd, of course; everyone knew it was the Sheyqa who had ordered the extra taxes, and only the Sheyqa would have any say in easing them. Not for the first time, Azzad joined his relations in cursing the ancestor who had thought it expedient to make a bond of defense with a woman everyone had fully expected to die in battle against the heathen—or to be murdered by one of her own lethal siblings in their quest for family dominance.

  But Sheyqa Nizzira’s great-grandmother had not died, and the oath remained binding, and here they all were: sworn to the descendant of an arrogant bitch from some obscure southern tribe whom Acuyib had inexplicably blessed in war.

  “At least I don’t have it as bad as Ammineh,” he muttered. The stallion’s ears twitched, but Azzad’s tone indicated nothing more than the usual complaining, so Khamsin ignored him. “She has to sleep with the son of that miserable barghoutz. For a little while, I slept with Ashiyah.”

  Not that Ashiyah’s whisperings on his behalf when she summoned her husband to share her pillows had done the al-Ma’aliq any good. Azzad hadn’t courted Ashiyah only for her usefulness—though had she been skinny and plain instead of sumptuously beautiful, he simply would have closed his eyes or told her that making love in the dark was so much more sensuous. Ayia, memories of her bed would have to sustain him until the next luscious lady presented herself to his fastidious notice. He wondered with a sudden grin who he could bestow his favors on to infuriate Ashiyah most when she heard of it.

  He rode through the dark streets toward home, paying no attention to his surroundings. He didn’t need to; Khamsin was familiar with this route. Azzad’s nose identified the streets for him without his being fully aware of it. The stench of tanneries and butcher shops. The softly tantalizing scents from bakeries in Ayyash Sharyah. The tang of dinner spices wafting silently down from upstairs living quarters in Zoqalo Zaffiha, where from dawn until dark the hammers of brass and bronze and tin workers clanged. The long narrow alley where the stink of dye vats and wet wool was bearable only by daylight, and only because of the eyes’ delight in the rainbow shanks hung from balcony to balcony overhead to dry. All workshops were shut up tight now, all streets and squares deserted. No one called out invitations to see or sample various wares, so Azzad was left alone with his thoughts.

  Khamsin picked his way along the dirt and cobbles toward home while Azzad dreamed of Beit Ma’aliq’s cool fountains, and fruits plucked ripe from the trees, and an evening spent listening to his sisters sing. The girls were of an age now to be of
use to an older brother. Perhaps, he mused, fingers toying with the fine bronze wire tassels on the reins, now that they were almost marriageable, some of their prettier friends might be amenable to a dalliance....

  He could see his mother’s face even now: stern, implacable, her dark eyes knowing every wayward thought in his head, and a single word on her lips as sharp as the silver needle that was her family’s name and crest: No. Whatever women he amused himself with, none of them could be of rank or wealth.

  Then again, Za’avedra el-Ibrafidia might turn a blind eye to such an association, in the way of mothers who knew their sons. If he compromised a nobleman’s daughter, he would be forced to wed her. The very thought made him shudder. Getting married. Fathering children. Living a settled life. Doing something useful for the family—something unutterably boring. Staying with one woman for the rest of his life, or at least until her parents were dead. No, when he married—if he married—it would be to a girl with no relations whatsoever, not a single woman or man of her family alive anywhere to trouble him on her behalf when he wanted a little variety in his bed. Azzad considered it grossly unfair that only a sheyqa and her immediate family were permitted more than one spouse, the justification being that from them sprang the strength of the nation in the form of strong daughters and sons.

  He snorted. Of all the descendants that Sheyqa Nizzira and her sons and daughters had produced so far, Azzad had heard very little to recommend any of them. Fifty of them now; he’d heard this morning that his cousin Ammineh had given birth to a daughter, and—

  “Fifty! Acuyib save me! The celebration feast!”

  Khamsin didn’t bother to swing an ear around this time, but when Azzad hauled back on the reins, the stallion snorted and pranced a few steps in protest. He wanted his stall and his evening feed, Azzad knew—but all the al-Ma’aliq had been invited to the palace tonight to celebrate Ammineh’s little girl, and in anticipating an evening with Ashiyah, the royal command had completely slipped his mind.