by Fuad Baloch
“Halt!” shouted Jinan, taking a step toward the magus.
“I need to talk to her,” said Shoki.
She smiled. It was only right that he was here to witness her embrace her destiny. “Approach!”
Shoki’s eyes fell on Kinas’s severed body and he ground to a stop. Nuraya cocked her head to the side, a part of her wondering exactly what he wanted. From the corner of her eye, she saw more figures enter the diwan-e-khas. Maharis, and the two magi who always followed him. The grand vizier. Her mother. And Mona, her eyes darting over to Jinan before finding her.
“C-can you promise me,” said Shoki, his voice cold, distant, “you will restore the Kalb Inquisition the moment you take the throne? That you will not allow magi to be used in affairs of men?”
She stared at him, not believing the words coming out of his mouth. “Who in Rabb’s name are you to demand anything from the sultana? Have you truly forgotten your place, magus?”
Shoki took a half-step forward, then spread his feet slightly apart as if bracing himself. “Will you, or won't you?”
Nuraya was many things, but a liar she wasn’t. “Magus, Ahasan is on the loose. My realm is being devoured on two fronts. Civil war brews in most provincial capitals. If I have to use all the means at my disposal to achieve the greater good, to maintain peace in the realm, I will not hesitate.”
“No matter the cost?”
Her eyes fell on Kinas’s unmoving body. “No matter the cost!”
Shoki inhaled, the scrawny chest heaving. “In t-that case, I cannot allow you to be crowned the sultana.”
Chapter 47
Shoki
There were moments that changed the course of lives, something Shoki had heard many a time before. Only now, as he stood, staring at Nuraya, did that make sense. Shoki blinked, ignoring the lone tear that trickled down his cheek.
Sometimes, one had to do what was right whether or not they wanted to. The realization, when it had come, had stunned him. But the truth wasn’t something he could afford to ignore anymore. Not when the stakes were this high, and the person in front so unwilling to shoulder the responsibility.
Nuraya wasn’t the person to lead Istan, to be the Keeper of the Divide.
“Who are you to dare deny me what rightfully belongs to me?” she growled, her black locks swaying, the bright eyes blazing.
Shoki’s resolve faltered. Who was he indeed to question her? His eye fell upon the tall figure of the grand vizier standing beside a column. As if feeling his gaze, the older man turned around, his lips quivering. Shoki blinked, recalling the same man not too long ago sending him off to a mission to Ghulamia with the inquisitor that had changed the course of his life. Once more, he wondered how life could have turned out. Another part of him wondered what he’d have found had he actually made it to Ghulamia.
Shoki was afraid, his subconscious very aware of the fact and trying its best to lull his thoughts. Then again, words were like arrows—he’d unleashed them and could no longer reclaim them.
“Jinan,” said Nuraya, still standing tall, her shadow falling over the lifeless boy of her brother. “Restrain the magus.”
“With pleasure,” said the bloody siphsalar. Clutching his left side, he marched toward Shoki, a grin on his wide face.
“Halt,” said Shoki, raising a hand toward the mercenary salar. Then, he inclined his chin at the woman he would have to deny for the greater good. “Nuraya…” he began, his voice breaking under the strain of what he had to do. “Foolish as it is, I cannot imagine my life without you.” He chuckled, spreading his hands ruefully. “Hardly the place or time for such confessions, but I want you to know that before I do what I have to.”
Eyes that had been watching him now turned toward her. The siphsalar gaped stupidly at the sultana. The grand vizier, a man who had never been shy to speak his mind in front of the court kept quiet.
“Nuraya,” he tried again. “Aren’t you going to reconsider?”
Even from the distance, Shoki could feel doubt beginning to set in, softening her features, her anger subsiding. Was it possible that she—
A shriek came from behind him. Shoki wheeled around. Queen Aleena screeched, the sound seeming to pierce his eardrums. Shoki stuttered back. The other three magi fanned around her.
“No,” Shoki croaked, seeing Maharis take out the Asghar stone. The magus grinned, then pointed his fingers at the siphsalar’s bloody figure. The air hissed, a rippling force blowing past Shoki.
Jinan howled, a pig being slaughtered. Shoki turned around again, legs buckling under his weight. The mercenary salar grew silent suddenly. Then fixing his gaze over Shoki, he advanced toward him. Each step, the man grew, the wounds on his arms and chest stitching themselves back, blood that was dripping, drying up.
“Attack him!” shouted Queen Aleena, an arm gesticulating wildly toward Shoki. The ground shook. Maharis grinned, even as he stepped away to let the other magus come forward. Urnal pointed at the vaulted ceilings and thunder rumbled. Lopas closed his eyes, his arms pointing toward the ceremonial maces and swords hanging on the far walls.
For an instant, time seemed to slow down. Shoki swallowed. He, an orphan who didn’t even know his real parents, stood against magi, and an irate sultana, in diwan-e-khas, the very center of the great Istani realm.
In that moment, more than anything, he hated kismet that had pitted him opposite the woman he loved.
Something smashed into Shoki with a force that set him flying. He crashed against a marble pillar, the wind knocked out of him. Lances of pain shot through his body as he tried to gulp in air. Growling, Jinan lunged for him once more, taller even than the giant who had accompanied them outside Algaria.
Still grimacing, Shoki looked around. He couldn’t see either Lopas or Urnal. The queen was still screaming, the piercing notes almost sounding like a lament in a tongue Shoki had never heard before.
Nuraya, Sultana of the Istani realm, kinslayer, stood motionless on the dais, an arm draped over the Peacock Throne. When their eyes met, she didn’t flinch, staring at him evenly.
His heart sank.
Whether or not she was beginning to have doubts, she’d made her choice. Even if that had been made for her by the queen. Her mind made up, she wouldn’t back down now.
He’d been foolish in thinking there could ever be anything between the two of them, naive for thinking she would change her mind even after how she’d used the magi as a weapon.
It was all too late now.
Out of choices, Shoki took in a long breath, then closing his eye, sought jadu. A hot-cold current ran down his spine and he shivered. He reached forward, his fingers aching for the slimy material. He was tired, his mind unable to muster the requisite strength to grasp the abominable force.
Anger flared through him, so alien and unrecognizable, it seemed to overwhelm him, distracting him from what he needed to do.
Not his anger.
The queen’s. Her attempt at throwing him off.
No!
The queen’s attempt didn’t work. Instead of pushing jadu away, the anger seemed to awaken the stubborn streak within him he’d known all his life. Ironic that in the very end, the only reason he would succeed in embracing jadu was because he refused to back down.
His mind grew blank, ensconcing him within the void, granting him the otherworldly sight.
“Support her!” hissed the voice in his ear. “She is going to set us free. Reunite the broken halves into the whole they are meant to be.”
Anger, crimson pillars as tall as minarets, rose all around him, pressed in. Shaking his head, Shoki fought both the voice and queen’s assaults.
Something thrashed into him. In the silence of the void, he acknowledged it dimly, aware of it as one might recognize a buzzing fly.
The void shattered. Jadu, the filthy, sweet magic slipped through his grasp.
No!
Shoki seized jadu again, this time with a force that set his body thrumming.
; He saw the world come alive again. Brighter, more vivid this time. To his right, loomed the unnatural giant. Shoki could peer past the physical dimensions, look into the siphsalar’s heart within despite the spell Maharis had put on him. Jinan’s heart was a thing twisted with contradictions—hatred and admiration for Nuraya resisting a budding love for Mona, lifelong tendencies he’d developed in his life as a mercenary raging against loyalty he had begun to develop.
Bewitched as the siphsalar was, Shoki could also hear his silent cries for help.
Could he not do something to help the siphsalar?
Shoki hesitated, seeing the gnarled forces work within Jinan, his mind measuring, weighing their potential. Shoki exhaled. Then, with the flick of an arm, he imposed his will, swapping the bitter conflicts in the siphsalar’s breast with the ancient splendor of the tapestries that hung on the walls.
A terribly inefficient swap.
Pain burst through Shoki as the world darkened, the high chairs beside him crumbling to dust. Distantly, he heard the siphsalar smash into something hard in the distance, the floor shuddering underneath. Shoki staggered to his feet and dragged himself forward. The jadu was running out, his mind losing control. If he wasn’t careful, there would no escaping what was coming his way.
Sheets of icy cold numbness fell over him. He shook his head, aware of the numbness seeping through him even through the void. He inclined his head. Instead of the vaulted ceiling, his eye fell upon a hurricane twisting in the vast space, bolts of lightning dancing within it. Even as he watched, two of the bolts intertwined with each other a moment before they fell on him.
Shoki screamed. The pain was so immense he lost hold of his jadu, snapping back once more into the mundane world of the common men.
Again, he tried to seize his well. Failed.
The queen was still screaming, arms raised high in the air as if appealing to some unseen god. Shoki looked up at the queen. She was calling someone. Neither the gods of Atishi nor the Unseen deity of the Husalmin though. Beings who had been whispering to him before?
Was she really just a Jaman magus who could store and later impose her own feelings on others? If so, how had she seen him in the void before?
The queen waved her arm toward him. Shoki flew in the air, rising, rising until he floated fifty feet high. He screamed, limbs thrashing uselessly over the grand courtroom, the other magi gathering around Queen Aleena. Dimly, he saw Mona run toward Jinan beside a smashed pillar.
“Mother, stop!” Nuraya shouted.
The queen cackled, raised her arms once more. Shoki rose even higher. At the whooshing sounds overhead, he looked up and shrieked in terror. A roiling sea of lightning bolts and hurricane gusts was waiting for him.
He had to access his well, seize jadu if there was any hope of him ever stopping Nuraya. Lightning crackled, a thick bolt shooting down inches from his body. He heard the voices once more, screaming, shouting at him to give up, to join the queen.
He shook his head, anger rising in his chest at the forces that had been so set on stopping him at every juncture of his life. “Enough!” he shouted back. “I will not back away!”
For a moment, the voices fell silent. Then, they laughed as if taking some macabre delight in his protestations.
His anger faded, leaving terror in its wake. Doubts filled him once more, and an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Who was he to involve himself in matters so beyond his station anyway?
The voices trailed away, the world growing dark. Shoki shouted, fearing the approach of death.
The queen screeched, and Shoki fell, the cords holding him up severed without warning.
He fell with a thud, breath catching in his chest. In throes of pain, he reached out, and slippery as it was, got hold of jadu once more.
The Shahi Qilla floated underneath him. An island of molten lava and glittering gold, its spires rising so high in the sky he couldn’t see their tops. Beneath it, calm, blue waves lapped up against a sandy beach. Shoki inclined his head toward the heavens and screamed. A darkness, greater than any he had ever seen, ever imagined was descending, its tendrils reaching out toward the Shahi Qilla, toward the vile Divide it housed within its bosom.
A bright green force struck the darkness from within the Shahi Qilla, so swift as to be almost impossible to spy from the naked eye. Shoki blinked, then leaned forward, even as voices cried out in pain.
He saw the blackness of the Divide. And something within it.
A dark black stone, silvery veins running through its egg-like shape. Or, formerly a white stone that over time had been coated with the vile, black texture?
Again and again the dark tendrils approached, only to be swatted away.
Shoki screamed, ghostly limbs flailing as if trying to get away from it all. The Shahi Qilla swiveled and he caught sight of the person who floated on the other side.
“You can join us,” cooed Queen Aleena, her delicate features perfectly poised. “Let us break open the stone together, unite the worlds like they are meant to be.”
He blinked, feeling his gut tighten. She was an Ajeeb magus. One like him. That explained the colorless aura he had seen around her, and the surprising variety of powers. Worse, she was a magus who knew how these powers worked far better than him.
“Let’s break the stone together,” she said once more.
Shoki stuttered forward, his thoughts muddled, confused.
He looked down at the calm ocean underneath. “What… is going to happen to them all?”
At the sound of a snarl, he bolted up. The queen glowered, her patience at an end, a volcano ready to burst.
Shoki knew what he had to do.
One connection he had to make that only he could make. After all, who knew an Ajeeb magus better than another?
He sought himself, the very essence that roiled within him, one he shared with her, then began gathering it around and round itself. The queen screamed. He didn’t stop, continuing to leech them both of their power.
Grabbing the immense potential that united them both, he smashed it against the jagged edges of the island upon which the Shahi Qilla stood.
Pain bloomed within Shoki, but even in that impossible moment, a part of him took delight in hearing her scream.
Chapter 48
Nuraya
“Mother, that’s enough!” Nuraya screamed, her fingers clenched so tight she felt blood swell up. The queen ignored her, still screaming in that haunting tone that set Nuraya’s teeth chattering.
She had to do something. But what? Chewing on her lip, for once she was truly helpless as these magi, these abominations tore up the very heart of the Istani Sultanate.
Jinan, or the monster that he had once been, stirred in the corner. He seemed to have shrunk since Maharis had stepped away, the stone no longer giving him as much power as he’d needed. Jinan’s features were swollen, almost unrecognizable. Color drained from his face, her siphsalar blabbered to himself, a babe still with a preternatural strength.
Mona whimpered beside him, clutching the massive hands with her tiny ones, her chest heaving, tears streaking her face.
Nuraya caught the fleeting glimpse of the tall, ancient grand vizier watching the proceedings at the far corner, his eyes cold, icy.
All five magi hadn’t moved for long minutes. Even Shoki, who now lay unmoving on the ground. Trembling with rage, Nuraya clasped her jaw shut.
She was the daughter of the Iron Sultan. No one could ignore her. Not even her mother.
Nuraya stepped down from the dais, leaving the Peacock Throne behind her. The lifeless body of her brother lay in front, his blood beginning to dry around him. Keeping her chin high, she stepped around his lifeblood, her eyes focused firmly on the woman she could hardly recognize as her mother.
Each step, her anger and fury rose.
They were all agents pursuing their own agendas, none of them devoted to her cause or her need to right the wrongs she saw everywhere. Even her mother, the one person who should ha
ve been on her side, seemed to be moved by reasons she couldn’t divine. It had to end. Now.
“Mother, step away!” she shouted.
Once more, she got no reply.
Queen Aleena’s face was red like a ripe apple, a thick vein throbbing on her forehead. Though she still screamed, the voice carried something else as well now. Something visceral, raw, that Nuraya could feel seeping into her bones.
As she took another step forward, she heard Shoki scream. The same instant, her mother grew quiet, her eyes still shut. Her body jerked for an instant, a terrible spasm traveling from her feet to the head and then back again. She howled, spreading her arms.
The diwan-e-khas shook, a puny birdcage in the throes of a hurricane.
Lighting crackled, shouts rose, furniture smashed, ceremonial swords and halberds set against the distant walls flew as if flung by unseen warriors.
Someone cried out. A long, painful, shriek, chilling Nuraya to the core.
Nuraya jerked her head to the side. Jinan was caressing Mona’s cheeks, his head bent over her face. Nuraya blinked and began to turn away. Then, she saw blood pooling under the large hand, leaking from a gash to Mona’s side, growing redder by the second.
“No!” she howled, feeling her center slip.
Jinan removed his hand. One of the ceremonial swords had pierced Mona’s chest, pinning her to the ground.
“No!” Nuraya shouted.
Murderous rage rising within her, Nuraya turned to face her mother. The queen whimpered and the diwan-e-khas stopped shaking. An instant later, she screamed in pain, her anguished cries not unlike a pig being flayed alive. Then, her claws rose to her face, began gouging at her eyes, even as she continued to howl. A few feet from her, Shoki’s body convulsed, his eyes also shut.
Maharis shuffled forward, a hand thrust forward. He looked feeble, emaciated. “Step back, girl!” he shouted. “This is beyond us all.”
She slapped his hand away. “You go too far, magus.” Maharis sputtered something, but she shoved him out of her way. The other two magi turned to her. The stones they had been carrying had lost their color, becoming transparent.