by Sabaa Tahir
My movement catches the man’s attention and he meets my stare. Beneath the silver mask, his pale blue eyes spark a desperate sort of fury. He hates what is being done to him as much as I do.
Which means that even though he is a Martial and a Mask to boot, he could be an ally.
I nod to my hands and, very slowly, spell out my question. Have you ever broken free?
For nearly a minute, he does not so much as twitch. Then he nods, once.
But the jinn turns, eyes on the Mask as if sensing his internal rebellion. She narrows her eyes and he jerks his head forward like a puppet, lips sealed tight.
We ride for hours without stopping, the only sound the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves and my own ragged breathing. The animals eat away at the miles more swiftly than is natural, aided no doubt by the jinns’ inborn skill with the wind. Every now and then, distant Martial drums beat a message. I try to make sense of them, but despite the Blood Shrike’s attempts to teach me how to understand them, I can only make out a few words. Sadh. Enemy. South.
The jinn cares as little for us as she would for a pack of animals. When we stop, she orders me to relieve myself behind a boulder, as if I am a hound she is walking. But my body obeys her and I burn with shame. And hatred.
That first night, we camp at a tiny oasis. She adjusts my chains and lashes me to a date palm.
“You will not consider escaping, girl.” She turns to the Mask. “Novius, is it? You will keep your men away from her, feed her, and see to any wounds. Rub a salve into her wrists for the chafing. You will not speak to each other. You will not set her free or aid in her escape.” At Novius’s nod, the jinn disappears into the desert.
Mask Novius does as he’s told, and when I try to capture his attention again, he looks furtively out at the dark, before focusing in on my hands.
Where to? I spell out.
Novius shakes his head. Either he cannot respond, or he does not wish to. I try again.
Weaknesses?
The Mask glances over my shoulder. Swiftly, he spells out:
Pride. Anger. Weakest at noon.
That aligns with what Elias said about the jinn being strongest at night. I consider my chains. The jinn wears the key around her neck. But other than its strange luster, the lock appears as any other.
Lock picks? I ask. Elias taught me to pick locks when he, Darin, and I were raiding Martial ghost wagons and freeing Scholars. I haven’t practiced in months, but Elias insisted it was like learning to swim. Once you know how, you never forget. He also said Masks always carry a set of picks.
But Novius only looks away.
At midnight, when the soldiers are sleeping and Novius has taken up a watch, the jinn materializes out of the desert and sits beside me. The moonlight tinges the flames of her eyes blue, and there is an emptiness there that makes me shrink back.
“Tell me of yourself, girl.” She settles herself just out of reach. “I allow you to speak.”
At first, I try to keep my mouth closed. But she presses her lips together and the compulsion to talk is overwhelming. Small truths, Laia, I tell myself. Don’t give anything away.
“My name is Laia of Serra,” I say. “I am nineteen years old. I have a brother—”
The jinn waves my words away. “Tell me about your magic.”
“I can disappear.”
“When did you encounter this magic? Where did it come from?”
“A year and a half ago,” I say. “When Martials broke into my home and I was trying to escape them. I didn’t realize I had it.” I pause, for I cannot say the magic came from Rehmat. The creature seemed adamant that its existence not be revealed.
“I—I thought I got it from an efrit I encountered when I was escaping Serra—”
The jinn’s jaw tightens. “Efrits,” she says. “Traitors and thieves. No efrit should have bestowed power upon you.”
I relax marginally—and far too soon.
“What of the darkness within?” She leans forward. “When is the first time you felt that?”
I lick my lips. Rehmat? But the creature cannot risk appearing. It made that clear.
My silence has irked the jinn. “Speak!”
“The first time was near Kauf Prison,” I say. “After I gave the Nightbringer my armlet.”
“Our armlet,” she informs me, a tightly leashed wrath stiffening her shoulders. “The Star was never yours, human.”
At the edge of the clearing, Novius turns and looks at us for a long moment. His hands fall to his scim, and the jinn swings her attention toward him. Almost immediately, he twists back around, his spine pulled unnaturally upright. Pride, he’d told me when I asked for the jinn’s weaknesses. Anger.
I try to memorize her movements, the play of emotion in her body. If the Nightbringer sent her after me, she must be close to him. But there is something about her that’s barely restrained. A volatile hatred for us that she’s not bothering to hide.
“Has the darkness within ever spoken to you?”
“Why—why would it speak to me?” When she doesn’t respond, I go on. “What is it? Did the efrits put it in me?”
“I ask the questions, girl,” she says. “Can you summon the darkness?”
I am thankful then that Rehmat has not responded to my appeals, because I can answer honestly. “No,” I say. “I could summon my magic if you took off these chains.”
The jinn smiles the way a hyena grins at its prey before it tears out its throat. “What good would that do you?” she says. “Even without the chains, your magic is weak. I would feel your presence, and hunt you as easily as a Mask hunts a wounded Scholar child.”
The image is a cruel one and I glare at her. She snorts dismissively.
“Bah, your knowledge wouldn’t fill a wight’s thimble. But no matter. In two nights, we will be in Aish. The Meherya will open you up. Dig the truth out of that weak mind of yours. And it will hurt, girl.”
“Please.” I let a bit of desperation enter my voice; I have an idea. “Don’t take me to him. Let me go. I will not attack you, I swear it. I would not harm you or kill you or use steel or summer rain against you—”
“Harm!” She laughs, but with that same cold fury. “Kill? Can a worm hurt a wolf, or an ant kill an eagle? We do not fear summer rain, and no blade forged by human or efrit, wight or ghul or wraith, nor any object of this world may kill us, rat. We are old creatures now, not soft and open as we were before. No matter how badly you want us to die, we cannot.”
She sits back, attempting composure. But her body trembles and she purses her lips. I consider what she said. It is not true. It is not true because—
“You will forget the words I just spoke.”
My mind blurs, and I find I am staring at the jinn, bewildered. She said something, I think. Something important. But the words slip away like sand through my fingers. Remember, some part of me screams. You must remember! Your life depends on it. Thousands of lives depend on it!
“You—” I put a hand to my temple. “You said something—”
“Sleep now, girl,” the jinn whispers. “Dream of death.”
As she rises, darkness closes over me. Mother walks through my nightmares. Father. Lis. Nan. Pop. Izzi. Remember, they say. You must remember.
But I cannot.
XXI: The Soul Catcher
Leaving the Waiting Place used to anger Mauth. But once he joined with me, he loosened the leash. Which is useful now, for Tribe Nasur trades in Aish, well south of the Waiting Place’s border. Their Fakira, Aubarit, is one I trust completely. She may know something about the rot plaguing the forest.
As I windwalk, a howling gale sweeps through the long stretches of parched land, peppered with dirt devils and the occasional dust storm. The last time I dealt with weather this unnatural, the Nightbringer was behind it. I have no doubt that he and his ilk ar
e behind this too. Only a day after I set out, I must take shelter.
It’s been years since I traveled with a caravan, so I force myself to sift through my recollections of the Blood Shrike. We had plenty of hidey-holes out here when we were Fivers. One memory stands out: she dared me to burgle a massive pot of rice pudding bubbling in the middle of a Tribal camp. It was a stupid dare, but we were hungry and it smelled good. We escaped the Tribesmen who came after us only through sheer luck; we stumbled on a nearby cave and hid for three days.
As I make for that same cave now, I think about how, to this day, I’ve never tasted anything as good as that rice pudding. It’s sweeter because you almost died stealing it, Helene said, grinning as we stuffed our faces. Makes you appreciate every bite.
The cave was near a massive escarpment several hours north of Aish, and I’m relieved to find that not only is it still there, but that the stream nearby runs high. I don’t like being stuck—I don’t like anything that will keep me from carrying out my duty. But at least I won’t suffer from thirst.
I start a small fire just outside the cave and take in my reflection in the stream—my face, hair, and clothes are all a pale, sand-blasted beige.
“You might well be one of us, Banu al-Mauth,” a deep voice says. “Though we would not be fool enough to ride winds such as these.”
A diaphanous figure steps into the firelight. At first, I am confused, for despite its shape, it cannot possibly be human.
“Rowan Goldgale,” the figure says. “We have met before.”
I recognize the name. “Yes,” I say. “You tried to murder my friend and me during the Trials. Now you and your fellow sand efrits are burning Tribal wagons and ransacking villages.”
“All are actions we have been forced to take.” Rowan steps closer, and I look behind him, wondering if he’s brought his marauding fellows with him. But he shakes his sandy head.
“I come alone, Banu al-Mauth, in humility and sincerity, in the hopes that you might hear my plea.”
I bid him sit and he crosses his legs on the floor of the cave, his form growing solid enough that I can make out a beak-like nose and thin lips.
“The Nightbringer moves against the human world.” As Rowan speaks, he gestures. The sand on my face, hair, and clothes drifts into a cloud, dropping into a neat pile, leaving me looking marginally more human. “He has enslaved my kind and sworn us to silence, but his plans—”
The king of the sand efrits shudders and I lean forward. Efrits have always struck me as having a sort of malicious mischievousness. But Rowan couldn’t be more serious.
Human world. I think of Laia, of the Blood Shrike, and my curiosity gets the better of me.
“What are his plans? He’s already killing at will.”
“My vows prevent me from sharing his plans, but—”
“That’s convenient,” I say. “Then why mention them?”
“Because my people read the desert winds as the Augurs read their dreams. They see a great commander who—”
“Do they see anything about the Waiting Place?” I ask. Rowan appears taken aback. I suppose kings rarely get interrupted.
“There is rot in the forest and I need to know why. Do your wind prophecies mention it?”
“Nay, Banu al-Mauth. But—”
“If you have nothing to tell me about the Nightbringer’s plans or the Waiting Place,” I say, “then I’m uninterested in what you saw.” I stand, and the efrit, startled, rises as well.
“Please, Banu al-Mauth. You are destined for more than this—”
“Don’t make me sing, Rowan.” I think of a tune someone crooned to me long ago. Efrit, efrit of the sand, a song is more than he can stand. “I have a rubbish voice. Like a cat getting strangled.”
“You will wish—”
“Lady Cassia Slaughter was a wrinkled old hag,” I sing, “but it’s said that her daughter was a mighty fine sha—”
The foul little sea shanty is the first song that comes to me, and before I finish the verse, Rowan howls and disappears, leaving only a cloud of dust in his wake.
When the cave is silent again, I turn to my dinner. The efrit was likely a ruse sent by the Nightbringer to distract me from my mission. The creatures cannot be trusted. It was efrits, after all, who tried to kill the Shrike and me during the Trials. Efrits who burned down Shaeva’s cabin.
Still I feel uneasy. What if Rowan wasn’t a ruse? What if I should have heard him out?
For a long time, I do not sleep. I sit by the fire, carving shapes into Laia’s armlet. When I lay my head down, Mauth’s magic finally stirs and smooths the unease away. By the time I wake, the efrit and his warning are forgotten.
* * *
«««
I reach Aish the next night, well after sunset. I haven’t been here in years—not long ago it was nothing but a seasonal trading post built around an oasis. But since I came here as a Blackcliff Fiver, Aish has burgeoned into a permanent settlement.
Like most Tribal cities, its population is fluid. But the Commandant’s assault on Sadh has swelled the city with refugees. The whitewashed buildings, built three and four stories high, are lined with archers. The many gates are flung open, each more crowded than the last with some people seeking shelter and others fleeing.
North of the walls, the Nasur encampment is in disarray. A steady stream of wounded trickles in—mostly women and children—all speaking of the fall of the city of Sadh.
“The Martials take no slaves, nor prisoners,” a white-haired woman tells the Nasur Kehanni. “They just kill.”
Briefly, I wonder if Laia ever arrived here. She was headed for Aish. You’re here for Aubarit, Soul Catcher. Not Laia.
Tribe Nasur is not the only one taking refuge north of the city gates. I recognize the green and gold wagons of Tribe Nur, and the green and silver of Tribe Saif. As I survey the vast encampment, searching for the Fakira’s wagon, a familiar, dark-haired figure hurries past.
She holds two injured children, and at the sight of her, I nearly call out. I should know her from my own memories, but instead it is the memories Cain gave me of Laia and Helene and Keris that tell me who she is.
Mamie Rila. My adoptive mother.
She hands the children over to a Tribal healer and hurries back the way she came. Then, quite suddenly, she stops short. Tentatively, she searches the darkness.
“E-Elias?”
“Banu al-Mauth now, Mamie Rila.” I emerge into the light.
She stiffens and bows her head. “Of course.” Her voice is low, but it cannot hide her bitterness. “Why are you here, Banu al-Mauth?”
“I must speak with Aubarit Ara-Nasur.”
She considers for a moment, then nods. “If any here see you . . .” She sighs. “They will think you are here to help. Come.”
Mamie avoids the chaotic center of the camp and heads to the outer circle of wagons. The warriors of Tribe Nasur stand guard in the empty spaces, glaring out at the dark, waiting perhaps for the shine of a Martial blade, or worse, the swift-moving flames that herald approaching jinn.
“There.” Mamie nods past the guards, to a wagon nestled in the shadows of Aish’s wall.
“Thank you.” I leave her, slipping past Tribe Nasur guards and toward Aubarit’s wagon. Multicolored lamps twinkle brightly within, and when I rap on the door, it opens almost immediately.
“Banu al-Mauth!”
Aubarit holds a shroud in her hands, upon which she has sewn the geometric patterns of her tribe, traditional for a burial. She drops into a curtsy, flustered at my sudden arrival, and moves aside to let me in. “Forgive me, I did not know—”
“Sit, Fakira.” I take salt from the bowl beside her door and put it to my lips. “Be at ease.”
She sits at the edge of her bench, fingers twisted deeply within the shroud, the exact opposite of “at ease.”
“Aubarit, I need to know if you—”
“Before you begin, Banu al-Mauth,” the girl says, “you must forgive us. There have been so many dead—but there are not enough Fakirs. You must be inundated, but the war—”
“How many dead since yesterday?”
“We’ve buried two dozen,” she whispers. “I was only able to do rites for half. The rest—their souls were already gone. I—I did not want to send you so many—”
The import of her words turns my blood to ice.
“The Waiting Place doesn’t have too many ghosts, Fakira,” I say. “It has too few. I passed only a dozen ghosts in the last week. I thought you and the other Fakirs had passed on those killed in Keris Veturia’s assault. But if you only did the rites for half, and if the other Fakirs are similarly inundated, then there should be hundreds of ghosts pouring into the Waiting Place.”
The Fakira nearly drops the shroud, her fear palpable. “The wall—”
“It holds. The ghosts are not escaping into the human world. If what you say is true, they are not arriving at all. Those who do enter don’t wish to move on. Not because of the suffering they endured in life, but because they fear what lies on the other side.”
A brief terror shines in Aubarit’s eyes, but I don’t have time for her fear. “They speak of a great maelstrom,” I say. “A hunger that wishes to devour them. What do the Mysteries say of this maelstrom? This hunger?”
Aubarit’s dark skin pales, her sprinkling of freckles standing out starkly. “I have heard of no maelstrom in the Mysteries. There is the Sumandar a Dhuka, the Sea of Suffering—”
“What is that?”
“I—I—”
At Blackcliff, our Centurions would slap us when we were too gripped by fear to carry out an order. Now I understand why.
“Speak, Fakira!”
“And though the Sea of Suffering churns, ever restless, verily does Mauth preside, a bulwark against its hunger.”