The Diviner (golden key)

by Melanie Rawn

  For another, they were too poor to work in gold and silver and costly gemstones. Their talishann were hammered into bronze, brass, and tin, decorated with humble agates and quartzes. They also used paper and various inks. But Qamar did not discover this for quite some time.

  What had not changed was their loathing for anything to do with the al-Ma’aliq, whom they held responsible for what they saw as the perversion of Shagara magic that had caused their fathers and grandfathers to exile themselves rather than countenance it.

  Qamar had no need to be told this. Being an honorable man, he at once proclaimed his own rank and ancestry, and any recounting of his story that asserts otherwise is a lie.

  —HAZZIN AL-JOHARRA, Deeds of Il-Ma’anzuri, 813

  19

  He had absolutely no intention of telling them who he was. The influence of the local language had changed pronunciation, shifted emphasis, and added words to the language spoken by these Shagara, but two generations had not been enough to alter their speech so much that Qamar could not understand and then begin to copy it. Those two generations, however, had also seen the loss of several things and the introduction of several more.

  They had lost knowledge of the specifics of the al-Ma’aliq. Most specifically, the ring that had been Azzad’s and then Alessid’s and was now Qamar’s. Gold, set with a dark tawny topaz carved with the family’s leaf symbol, it would have proclaimed his real name to anyone in Tza’ab Rih. It meant nothing to these people; neither did the al-Gallidh pearl. And so he was able to give them a name they had already surmised might be his. To them he was Qamar Tariq, whose Shagara father and great-grandfather had married into that tribe. This explained his coloring. He gave silent thanks to Acuyib for not making him Haddiyat—for this came only through the female line, and all sons of Shagara women had Shagara as a last name (except for the al-Ma’aliq line, of course; this was another grudge these people had against his family, the replacement of their ancient name), and trying to explain being a Tariq and also gifted was not a thing he felt equal to attempting.

  It was difficult for a naturally gregarious, relentlessly glib young man to be deprived of his most effective arsenal. Long accustomed to talking his way into or out of just about anything, he was canny enough to know that he must keep his mouth shut until he understood much, much more about these Shagara. This meant he had to listen.

  He had never been very good at listening. Neither were these people inclined to give him much to hear. When they spoke to him, it was to give orders or to demand answers to their questions. He meekly followed the first and resisted the second for quite a while by pretending not to comprehend. By the time this gambit could no longer be reasonably employed, he had worked out a story. He’d always been good at that sort of thing, as well, but this was not a fabrication made up on the spot to wiggle out of a belting. This was for his life.

  Qamar knew very well that if they found out who he really was, the best he could hope for was to be sold for ransom, either to the Tza’ab or the Cazdeyyans. Neither had much appeal. His mother would pay whatever was asked, but the humiliation of his capture and the manner in which his part in the battle had ended before it even began made him want to wrap his arms around his head and vanish into one of the dungeons these barbarians were so clever at building. As for the Cazdeyyans—should they be the ones to ransom him, they would either barter with his mother for an even larger ransom or kill him. His death was what he expected the Shagara here would prefer; poor as they obviously were, their loathing for anything al-Ma’aliq would demand his transport back to Joharra in an astonishing number of pieces.

  His plan, such as it was, must be to regain his strength, learn everything he could, and then escape.

  And so he listened, and when instinct told him they would accept his excuse of incomprehensible accents no longer, he answered their questions with what he felt was a rather ingenious story.

  Yes, he was a soldier of the Tza’ab. A cavalry officer, in fact. No insignia of rank? Have a look at these hazziri. They did, covetous and trying to hide it—all that lovely gold and silver, and the gemstones! He was rather surprised that he still wore them, and his rings, but evidently the laws of the dawa’an sheymma still applied, and a patient’s belongings were safe.

  Separated from his troops during the battle, he told them, he had been wounded in the leg, and loss of blood had toppled him from his horse, and he then became nauseated with pain and weakness and heat. And that was when the Shagara had found him.

  So far, so good. What had happened after the battle, they knew better than he. It was the part before that was a bit dodgy.

  “Young to be an officer,” one of the healers remarked. “Favorite of some sheyqa or sheyqir, are you?”

  “Pretty thing like him? Of course,” said another.

  “When I joined the Riders, an al-Ma’aliq sheyqa gave me these,” he said, quite truthfully, touching the hazziri at his breast and the one depending from his left earlobe. “That was the last time I saw her—or any al-Ma’aliq of Tza’ab Rih.” This was also true; he hadn’t seen his mother since that day, and all his cousins were al-Ma’aliq of Joharra, Granidiya, Ibrayanza, and Qaysh. He wasted no time or wit wondering if he’d ever see any al-Ma’aliq again. “I am loyal to my name, like all the Za’aba Izim.” When they looked blank as he used the term, he said, “The Seven Names. The desert tribes. Surely you have not been so long from home that you’ve forgotten—”

  “This is our home,” snarled the oldest of the healers. “We are now part of this land, and it now belongs to us. And it will never become part of the Tza’ab Empire.”

  “Ayia,” Qamar admitted, “they don’t even know where you are.”

  “And it will stay so.” The old man hesitated, and an odd, reluctant yearning glazed his dark eyes. “I would know what you might tell me of the tribe whose name we share.” Qamar’s surprise made him add, “My grandmother was wife to a Shagara, one of those who first came here. Her name was Omaryya Tariq.”

  Grandmother—? But suddenly Qamar realized that although this man looked old enough to be a grandfather himself, he was not. He never could be. He was Haddiyat and could not be more than 45 years old. Repressing a shudder of pity, he sifted through his brain for whatever he knew about the Tariq. “We remain in the desert, and live according to the traditional ways, making the usual yearly round of camps.” This was pleasing to the healer. Taking his cue, Qamar went on, “And of course we never send any of our people to the court, and we marry mostly with the Tabbor and Ammal—never the al-Ma’aliq!” This the healer liked even better. “In fact, we stay aloof from the larger affairs of Tza’ab Rih, except to contribute the finest soldiers in all the army, as befits our Name.” Tariq meant conqueror. Qamar wondered for a moment if he’d laid it on a bit thick, but the proud smile indicated otherwise. “So I can’t imagine anything is much different since your grandmother left.”

  This was precisely what everyone wanted to hear. It was as if with all the changes they had been compelled to make, all the compromises, the difficult adjustment of staying in one place, the experimentation necessary to continue their arts in this land of strange and exotic plants, they needed to know that the life their grandparents had left behind remained just like the stories that had been told them about their ancestral home.

  Qamar hid his amazement that they knew so little of the history of the last seventy or so years. Then again, they would not want their antecedents known to the local populace and so could not ask much about affairs back home—and the way the old man had declared that this was now their home held a certain defiance. The wicked ways of the al-Ma’aliq had exiled them. Very well; so be it. They were no longer of Tza’ab Rih.

  But they remained Shagara. As Qamar rattled off pleasing little tales of how the Azwadh, the Tabbor, and the Ammal also remained faithful to the traditional ways—his audience was made up of healers who descended from those tribes—his gaze kept flickering to his supposed Tariq kinsman. White hair
, lines, wrinkles; hands cruelly twisted by bone-fever; eyes dimming, muscles more feeble by the day . . . yes, they were still Shagara.

  And so, through his father, was he. The distinctive Shagara coloring Jefar had bequeathed meant these people had let Qamar live. These distant cousins might honor him because of their shared ancestry, but honor and trust were two different things. Once he was recovered enough from his leg wound to rise from his bed and explore the intricate, inconvenient maze of alleys and passages between the stone buildings of their fortress, he was never left alone. One or another golden-skinned, dark-eyed young man shadowed him at all times. He was diverted from the outer walls, not permitted near the innermost fortification. As a Shagara, he was allowed certain liberties. As a cavalry officer of Tza’ab Rih, he was prohibited from taking advantage of them.

  Some eight or nine days after he had fully recovered, a hammering rain woke him in the middle of the night. Just as well that it had: Someone was in the tiny cubicle he had been assigned, someone who moved in whispers of wool clothing and bare feet on cold stone. This person had not reckoned on lightning flashes through the high, barred windows. Nor, truthfully, had Qamar. When the sudden, fleeting illumination showed him the long gown and hooded cloak and startled face of a girl, it also showed her a man sitting straight up in bed with a clay candlestick in his hand.

  “Who are you?” Qamar demanded.

  “Singularly unoriginal,” she snapped as night devoured the room once more. An instant later came another crack of lightning, just enough to show her bringing a knife out of her skirt pocket. “I know how to use this,” she warned.

  “I don’t doubt it.” He used the darkness to scramble out of bed, and tripped over his own boots. Her stifled giggle infuriated him. “That was a mistake,” he said, leaped to one side so she could not get a fix on his voice, tossed the candlestick toward a corner to further confuse her, and lunged for where he was sure she would be.

  He grabbed empty air and lost his balance. Fetching up against a wall—hard, bruising his shoulder—he cursed and swung around. The room wasn’t that big; there weren’t that many places to go.

  An abrupt rush of air and the faint squeal of a hinge told him she’d opened the door—which was always locked when he retired for the night—and gone back outside. More noise from the hinges, a stillness in the air—and a metallic rattle that meant she was about to lock him in.

  He grabbed the bars of the grille set at head-height in the door and yanked.

  A moment later he was on his backside on the uncarpeted floor, and brief lightning showed him wildly waving arms and a shocked face beneath hair the color of sand as she staggered into the room. By the time she landed on him, it was pitch black again.

  He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. She was smart enough not to struggle; he was smart enough to pin her elbows to her sides so she couldn’t get at him with that knife. Lying back flat on the flagstones, he tightened his grip.

  “Not that I’m not perfectly charmed by your visit, qarassia,” he said into her ear through a mouthful of her blonde hair, “but was all this stealth really necessary?”

  She called him something unspeakably filthy in the barbarian language—Raffiq Murah’s little translation guide hadn’t included it, but it was a soldier’s obligation to learn how to swear at the enemy in his own language.

  “Acuyib preserve me, such a mouth!”

  “Let go of me!”

  “Tell me why you’re here, and I might consider it.”

  “I’ll scream!”

  “If you haven’t by now, you won’t anytime soon. You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “I had the key, didn’t I?”

  “Stolen or borrowed, it doesn’t matter. Nobody makes a social call in the middle of a rotten night like this one. If your visit was legitimate, or even sanctioned, you wouldn’t be sneaking about with no shoes on. Now, why are you here?”

  “I—I wanted a look at you.”

  He smirked. “To judge for yourself whether or not I’m as handsome as rumors must have it?”

  “To see if you’re really Shagara, like they say you are.”

  “No, sorry, not good enough.” It was increasingly apparent to him that it was a sweet, dainty little bundle he wasn’t quite cuddling. Beneath the bulky skirt and heavy cloak—which was soaked with rain, and getting his nightshirt wet—he could discern a slim body with inspiring curves. “Why are you here?” he asked for a third time.

  “I told you. Let me go before someone hears us.”

  “I’ve been rather hoping someone will. After all, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

  “If I tell you, will you let me go?”

  “Perhaps. If I believe you.”

  She sighed, and relaxed atop him. He didn’t make the mistake of easing his hold; he’d played too many games with too many mistresses to be fooled by that trick. There was a blaze of lightning, and the rain pounded down harder than ever outside, but it was the roll of thunder that made her muscles tense again.

  “I wanted to know if you really are the one I’ve been seeing.”

  “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ve seen you! How do you think they knew where to find you? I saw you, and—”

  “They actually went looking? For me?” He paused as a thought occurred to him. “What’s your name?”

  “Solanna. Solanna Grijalva. And yes, I’m the person you think I am—which is more than can be said for you!”

  He crowed with derisive laughter. “Nonsense, girl! Everyone knows that Solanna Grijalva is a child and quite mad with her visions—”

  “I’m fully seventeen, and I’m not mad! I saw you,” she repeated. “But I wanted to look at you with my own eyes, so I could be sure.”

  “And you chose the blackest hours of a rainy night to do it?”

  “Eiha, you’re the one who’s mad! Do you think I have any more freedom within these walls than you do? Didn’t you hear my name? Grijalva! The Shagara despise me as much as they do you!”

  Qamar considered. Although it was quite nice, having an armful of girl again, the chill stone floor was not being kind to his backbone. He sat up, still holding her fast, but allowed her to turn so that she was seated between his thighs with her back pressed to his chest. Her head, he noted, fit just beneath his chin.“There, that’s better. Why should they despise you? Religious disputes?”

  “So you believe the story Princess Baetrizia put around, do you? She thinks my visions and voices are visitations by the Mother.”

  “And you did nothing to disabuse her of this notion, did you? Quite the rise, from humble peasant to confidant of royalty!”

  “You know nothing about it!”

  “The fact remains that you were a guest of the simple-minded Baetrizia for quite some time. How did you come to be a guest of the Shagara?”

  “I’m here on purpose! Which is more than can be said for you!”

  Ayia, she had him there. What puzzled him was why, if she was here in his room clandestinely, during all their conversation she had not troubled to lower her voice. Although he knew himself to be the only occupant of this particular floor (the third) of the building, and the clattering rain and rumbling thunder and occasional crash of lightning were admittedly very loud, surely someone ought to have heard their voices by now. “Did you drug or bribe your way in?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Having nothing but your delightful self to offer—and you really don’t seem that sort of girl—it must have been drugs.”

  Grudgingly, she said, “I have trouble sleeping sometimes. They’re very good with medicines, you know. The Shagara won’t fight, but they sent healers to tend our soldiers.”

  So that much at least of Shagara capabilities was generally known. Interesting, that the imperative to use their healing gifts in service to others remained so strong. He nodded, his lips tickled by her wildly curling hair. “You did come here on purpos
e, then. You want the Tza’ab out of your country, and you thought you could convince the Shagara to help you do it.” By the way she stiffened—and not in response to thunder—and then sagged against him, he knew he was right. Smarter than a seventeen-year-old girl; his mother would be so proud. “You might as well explain all of it,” he invited, “in as much detail as whatever you used on the guards will allow.”

  “Only about an hour,” she confessed. “Eiha, what do you want to know?”

  “That lazy old king of Cazdeyya not moving fast enough for you, I take it? And you know what the Shagara can do by way of potions and—and things.” How much did she know? “Poor qarassia, aren’t you aware of their history? They left my country because gr—greater men than they used Shagara knowledge in ways they didn’t approve!” He’d almost said great-grandfather.

  “And thus they hate you Tza’ab almost as much as we do. In the end, we’ll make common cause and throw you out. You don’t belong here!”

  “The land belongs to us now. You might as well accept it.”

  “You don’t belong here, and you never will! Just because your troops march all over a country doesn’t mean you own it. Land belongs to the people who belong to it.”

  This notion sounded vaguely familiar. He was distracted from chasing it down inside his head by her sudden wriggle to get free. To his surprise—and hers, to judge by her gasp—he let her go.

  “The rain has slacked,” he said as he got to his feet in the darkness. “And it’s been nearly an hour, hasn’t it? You’d better lock me in. If you’ll forgive me, I’ll wait until you’re outside before giving you back your knife.”

  “Whoever you are, you’re certainly a fool. An open door, sleeping guards—and you ask to be locked up again!”

  “An open door, sleeping guards, and an entire fortress filled with many, many more guards between me and freedom. How far do you think I’d get?”

  “How did I get here?” she taunted.

  “Ayia, you are here, so why don’t you have that look at me that you say you want so much?” He went to the corner where he’d thrown the candlestick, not surprised to find it in pieces. The candle was still intact, and he groped on his bedside table for flint. “I warn you, I’m not looking my best. I need my hair trimmed by someone who actually knows how, and a nightshirt isn’t the most flattering of garments.” He struck her knife against the flint and the candlewick ignited. Turning toward the door, he smiled.