A Veil of Spears

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “You make it your business to know those awakened to the red ways?” Davud felt more watched than ever, and wanted to get the Sparrow talking about himself.

  “I do.” A warbling chuckle came from the spinning device. “I do, indeed. I consider it my calling. What else can you surmise?”

  Davud remembered what Hamzakiir had told him out in the desert, that he should find a mage to learn from before one found him. “I can only guess that you’re hoping to train me. Or at least determine if I’m dangerous to you.” Davud checked the door and the windows again. When he spoke this time, it was in a low voice. “But I have to wonder why you would risk Sukru’s wrath on a gamble such as this.”

  “I no longer fear Sukru. You, however, have plenty of reason to fear the Reaping King. He preys on young magi, and I fear he will one day prey on you.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Though the words came out less confidently than Davud had intended. “Sukru has been helping me since I arrived. He’s helping me to learn the red ways!”

  “Now, yes. But Sukru, as you surely know by now, yearns for the sort of power you already wield. He has some small amount of it himself, but not nearly enough to satisfy his desires. As you grow in your abilities, so will his jealousy grow. No doubt he’s taken your blood already? Likely Anila’s as well?”

  Davud tried to swallow the lump in his throat, as the sinking feeling inside him accelerated.

  The Sparrow laughed. “Your silence is answer enough. He’s one to be careful of, Davud. He has the patience of a butterfly and the anger of a bull.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Because I was once in your position.” The spinning device continued to hum. “Know that there is a place for you here, should you wish it, out from under the watchful gaze of the House of Kings.”

  “I . . . How do I know I can trust you?”

  “How do you know?” The voice was incredulous, affronted, though also affected—the sort of voice actors use. “At great risk to myself, I gave you a sigil that in all likelihood saved your life in the blooming fields. Is it not so?”

  Davud couldn’t deny it, but this was all so strange. And he wasn’t at all sure that the Sparrow’s story was the real one. And there was Anila to consider. If he left, it would mean something terrible for Anila. “I thank you for your offer, truly, but I think it’s best if I remain here.”

  The spinning triangle went silent. It hummed in the air for so long that Davud reached up to touch it. When he did, the finch hopped forward and pecked his hand.

  “Very well,” the voice said as Davud sucked on his knuckle, “but let us speak again, yes? Keep the device secret. It works under starlight. Simply give it a spin, and I shall be there.”

  As the words faded, the triangle lowered toward the table. Davud caught it in his hands as the firefinch flew into the night. The triad’s edges and angles were warm as melted candle wax. Part of him wanted to throw it over the nearby wall so he’d never find it again. But another part wanted to keep it safe, a talisman against a coming storm. The two warred for a time, but then Davud stuffed it away inside his thawb and returned to the palace, feeling watched and vulnerable. His earlier thoughts of having his family visit him vanished like summer rain.

  * * *

  The following day, Davud entered his room to find the patio doors open. Anila was sitting at a table, hunched over as she often was while eating. Except she wasn’t eating. She was bent over a book. And not just any book, but an ancient text on blood magic, a source that had broadened Davud’s understanding of its use, the sigils that guided the magic, and even a bit of history of those who had used it in the service of the Kings of Sharakhai.

  Since returning from Ishmantep he had never seen Anila read. She’d done no more than eat, sleep, and suffer through what had surely become a miserable grind of an existence. But now Davud glimpsed a bit of the old Anila, the woman who was curious and always ready with answers for the collegia masters, or pointed questions that showed a strong mastery of the subject at hand. Davud had thought her thirst for knowledge burned out of her for good, but here she was, reading as intently as ever, though the subject of study sent a chill down Davud’s spine.

  He tried to close the door silently but wasn’t careful enough. It clicked, and Anila’s head lifted. He thought she’d heard him, but realized a moment later he’d been wrong. She was staring at the fig tree on the patio, and he was certain he knew why.

  He stepped closer, ducked down, and peered through the nearby window. There was the firefinch, and Davud was suddenly and inexplicably concerned that Anila had overheard his conversation with the triangle. The finch was perfectly still. As Anila stood and stepped toward it, it flapped its wings and flew down to a lower branch. It flitted higher, then lower again, then higher once more. It looked frantic, a bird caught in a cage as the cat approaches.

  Anila looked fascinated, as if it were the first time she’d seen a bird in her life. The closer she came to the tree, the more the finch’s movements slowed. As she reached out to grab it, Davud walked quickly onto the patio.

  Anila turned, eyes wide, shivering like a gutter wren caught stealing bread. The bird fluttered up and away, and was soon lost beyond one of the palace’s minarets.

  “What were you doing?” Davud asked.

  Lowering her arm, Anila visibly calmed herself, shuffled past him, and sat at the table, ignoring Davud as she resumed her study.

  He stood opposite her, but she kept her gaze down. The sunlight reflected off her reptilian skin.

  “Anila, what were you doing with that bird?”

  She folded her hands, studiously not looking at Davud. And then she shocked him. She spoke.

  “The next time you wish to know something, Davud, ask me. Not Bela.” Her words were slurred, drunken from the pain and the damage she’d endured.

  For a moment, Davud could think of nothing to say. These were the first words she’d said to him since Ishmantep. “Very well,” he managed, wanting to say so much more.

  She glanced down at the book as if it were her chosen reading for a pleasant Savadi afternoon. She touched one corner and shifted it ever so slightly. “Have you learned anything from the sigils?”

  “What? No. I mean, yes, I have, but nothing to help with . . .” He motioned ineffectually to her form. Gods, how he wished he could sweep her pain away and bring the old Anila back.

  “I don’t mean . . .” She closed her eyes, swallowed once, then tried again. “I only wish to know what Sukru is teaching you.”

  Confused, Davud shook his head. “Why?”

  “Sukru wouldn’t suffer your existence, or mine, if he didn’t think he would get something out of it.” She used that tone of hers, the one that condescended, still stubbornly refusing to look at him. “So you must ask yourself: What does he want?”

  “I don’t care about Sukru. And I don’t care about the book. I only care that you—” He stopped, for she’d raised one hand and closed her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to hear it. “I’m sorry, Anila.”

  “Stop it.”

  Davud pulled the chair out and sat down. “We must speak of what happened.” He reached his hand out to take hers, but she pulled away, clearly pained by the sudden movement.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters!”

  “It’s history, Davud!” Her words echoed off the cold walls of the patio. She spoke slowly at first, but the more she went on, the more her confidence and pace increased. “We were taken by Hamzakiir, nearly turned into those mindless . . . things. Those shamblers. But by the grace of the gods, you saved us both. You tried to deliver us back to Sharakhai. You nearly did, until I forced you to go to Ishmantep, forced you beyond your skills, forced you to use your power before you were ready.” Her eyes were red and wa
tery as she looked at him at last. There was a well of pain there, a small glimpse into what she had lived through. “This happened because of my presumption. This is the punishment the gods have given me for my lack of charity, for ushering you into danger.”

  “Dear Anila.” He found tears coming to his own eyes. He would have taken her hand were it not sure to cause her pain. “You’re wrong. I am a man grown. I could have denied you any time I wished. I wanted those things as much as you did.”

  She stared at him, lost in her sorrow. She blinked away her tears, diamonds over fields of coal. “Dear Davud.” She smiled, then laughed, a bitter echo of their days at the collegia. “Do you not remember those days? You could no more have said no to me than a hyena could sing.”

  Davud wanted to laugh, but he didn’t have it in him. “You were no force of nature, Anila.”

  “Perhaps not, but you were no man. Not then, not yet.” Teeth gritted, she lifted her bandaged arm and ran the back of her fingers along his cheek. “But you’ve changed.”

  “We’ve both changed.”

  She nodded. “We may both be forces of nature yet.”

  Davud didn’t like the way she’d said that, as if she’d stop at nothing for revenge.

  “So,” she said, motioning to the book again, “what have you found?”

  “I . . . Anila, I don’t think sharing this is a good idea.”

  The small glimmer of hope in her face vanished. “Why not?”

  “The King shared this with me so that I could help him, but if he knew you were reading it—”

  “He gave it to you knowing full well we’re sharing this room.”

  He stepped over, picked up the book, and held it to his chest. “Concentrate on getting better, Anila. On the day you can return to your family.”

  “I don’t want to. I want to bring Hamzakiir to justice.”

  As he stepped away, she stood. From the look of pain and concentration on her face, it was clear how much that small movement cost her.

  “Sukru has summoned me. I’ll send for Kaelira to tend to your wounds today.”

  “I want to help,” she said. It was a command, from a woman of Goldenhill accustomed to being obeyed.

  “I can’t allow it,” he said, walking through the patio doors, back into the room. “I won’t.”

  “You won’t allow it?” she cried as he reached their chamber door. “You owe me this, Davud! You owe it to me!”

  I owe you much, Davud thought as he opened the door and left, but not this.

  Chapter 20

  ÇEDA SAT WITH ISHAQ and Leorah inside a pavilion. The floor was layered with a host of riotously colored carpets. The smell of cook fires filled the space as the entrance’s flaps blew lazily in the warm desert wind. Ishaq sat opposite her. Leorah’s bent form was cradled in a nest of pillows to Çeda’s left. On the low wooden table between them was one glass of araq each and a shisha with four tubes snaking out from it. Only Leorah was drawing from her tube, producing swirls of smoke that twisted their way up toward the vent. With it came the scents of sunburnt stone, aging leather, and fragrant rosewood.

  Ishaq raised his drink high. Leorah did the same, followed by Çeda, and the three of them downed a healthy swallow of the sweet, biting araq.

  He then motioned to the empty place on his left. “Would that your mother could have joined us,” he said to Çeda. “Four generations sitting side by side is a rare thing indeed.”

  Çeda didn’t know what to say. It would have been sweet, but had Ahya still been alive, the four of them would almost certainly not be here in the desert, drinking araq in a pavilion. Still, she raised her glass to the empty place and took another swallow.

  “Let us speak plainly,” Ishaq said. “Our tribe is in dire straights. Onur has fled to the desert to raise an army of his own. Hamzakiir is peeling away support among the Twelve Tribes. Malasan prepares to march west and cross the mountains to the desert. Qaimir and Mirea have both been biding their time, but their queens will not sit idly by, especially if Malasan allows a single one of their soldiers to set foot in the desert. The Kings have been wounded but are prepared to bring war to the desert unless we are given up to them. If we don’t take care, it will be a culling like we’ve not seen since Beht Ihman.”

  Like a northern mountain dragon, Leorah breathed smoke into the air between them. “You would speak of war and murder before we’ve had the chance to hear Çeda’s tale?”

  “It is part and parcel of Çeda’s tale, and hers is but one piece of the grand tapestry we all weave.” Ishaq regarded Çeda with a seriousness that reminded her of Kiral, the King of Kings. “I’ve been told much about you and Sharakhai, but I would hear it from you. I would know how you became a Maiden and how you slew King Külaşan.”

  Çeda was deathly tired of being questioned by men like her grandfather and being given so little in return. So it had been with Osman. Then with the Kings—especially King Yusam. And again with Onur here in the desert only days before. She’d be damned before she let it happen again.

  “Tell me where Emre is first.”

  Ishaq stared at her, his brow pinching. For long moments words failed him. “Great things are afoot, and you would ask me of the boy you grew up with?”

  Çeda took an olive from the platter set between them and chewed. A low rumbling sound filled the pavilion. Ishaq, his face turning red, gave Leorah an indignant stare. Leorah was oblivious, however, her body heaving as a cascade of throaty, rolling laughs escaped her.

  “Goezhen’s sweet kiss,” he said, “what are you laughing at?”

  The sound built even higher. It was loud and sonorous and infectious. “Oh, my dear son—” It took a moment more for her laughs to subside, and even then, her shoulders continued to shake. “And you thought you were free of Ahya’s stubbornness when she left for Sharakhai.”

  She laughed again, louder than before. Çeda did as well. She wasn’t even sure why. After a moment, Ishaq’s stormy look faded, then a smile cracked his features, and then he too was laughing, though it sounded more rueful than Leorah’s full-throated, tent-filling mirth.

  “If the gods are kind,” Ishaq began with a regal bow of his head toward Çeda, “Emre is on his way here along with the few who remained in Sharakhai.”

  Now this was surprising news. “You’re abandoning the city?”

  She thought Ishaq might deny it, but he shrugged, as if admitting it was something he would never have considered years before. “The Host is patient . . . The Kings have thrown their lot in with Hamzakiir. Better to leave and see what the Kings will do with a man who wishes to rule Sharakhai alone.”

  “And if they let Hamzakiir take up his father’s crown?”

  “It would be like inviting an adder into their midst. Sooner or later he’ll try to sink his fangs into them. And if Hamzakiir does take up his father Külaşan’s crown, he will have forfeited his support in the desert to us. None of those aiding him now would openly support a King of Sharakhai.”

  “You’re assuming he hasn’t ensorcelled them in some way.”

  “He may have,” Ishaq said, “but it cannot last. Such power fades over time, and would leave the tribes even more eager for revenge. Either way, their power will be returned to us. And if he continues his fight against the Kings, they will have no choice but to focus on him, which will allow us to heal in the desert.”

  “Will Macide and the others arrive soon?”

  Ishaq nodded. “In a few days. No more than a week.”

  Please deliver Emre safely, Çeda prayed. “And what then?”

  Ishaq knocked back the last of his drink, then poured for all three of them. “That depends greatly on what we learn from them”—he paused before setting the green bottle down with a thump—“and you.”

  Çeda tipped her head, an acknowledgment that it was time to tell her tale. She covered it in br
oad strokes at first, from the kiss Sehid-Alaz had given her in the canal when she’d gone to save Emre, to the poems hidden in her mother’s book and her visit with Saliah in the desert, to the fight with the Blade Maiden in the fields after the adichara had pierced her thumb. She told them of Dardzada delivering her to the House of Maidens, how Zaïde had saved her, how she’d felt the asirim in the blooming fields on the night she’d killed Külaşan the Wandering King. Ishaq and Leorah both interrupted at times, looking for clarifications or a deepening of their knowledge, so it was some time before she finished, up to and including the harrowing events on the Night of Endless Swords, her flight into the desert, and her time in Onur’s camp.

  Ishaq seemed to peer through the far wall of the pavilion. “You can truly feel the asir?”

  Kerim was far out in the desert, cowering, listening to this conversation as if he were a part of it, as if he could speak and his voice might be heard. I am your voice, she told him. He was too embarrassed to reply—he felt as if he’d been caught with his hand in her purse—but she could feel the gratitude within him as well.

  “His name is Kerim,” she said, “and yes, I can.”

  With his drink, Ishaq motioned to Çeda’s left wrist, where Mesut’s bracelet lay. “There as well?”

  She ran her fingers over the polished onyx stone. “Yes, but only distantly, as if we’re parted by a thick curtain.”

  “And now you’ve come here,” Leorah said, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes.

  “Yes”—she took a deep breath, preparing to voice the thought she’d been wrestling with—“but I can’t stay long.” She faced Ishaq squarely. “I would return to Sharakhai, grandfather, and I could use help when I arrive. I need people I can trust, for food, weapons, or places to hide as I make plans.”