A Veil of Spears

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Suddenly all of Çeda’s worries over what to do with Ishaq vanished like winter fog. “Can you wait here a moment?” she asked Salsanna and Leorah.

  Confused, they both nodded.

  Çeda ran toward the pavilion. The elders turned to look at her, Macide, Hamid, Shal’alara and the rest, but Çeda ignored them, focusing squarely on Ishaq. “There’s something I would show you, my shaikh,” she said breathlessly. “Please.”

  Ishaq looked to the others. “Very well, but it will have to wait until the morning.”

  “Tomorrow will be too late,” Çeda said. “It must be now.” She motioned to Leorah and Salsanna, both burning orange under the brilliance of the western sky. “Please.”

  Ishaq paused, working his mouth, as he often seemed to do when he was annoyed. “Very well.”

  Çeda led him away from the others, feeling their stares at her back. She ignored them, and brought Ishaq toward the skiff resting near the stern of Leorah’s ship. She motioned to Leorah and Salsanna as she went. “Come.”

  Soon all four of them had boarded the skiff and were sailing out to the edge of the standing stones. When they stopped, most of the stones were behind them, leaving the desert to sprawl ahead of them.

  Çeda could not see Kerim, but she could feel him, sitting out there, cloaked in the gathering darkness. I know your mind, child of Ahyanesh. Do not ask it of me. I cannot.

  We have no choice, she said to him. Fates willing, I’ll be leaving soon, and I cannot take you with me.

  A stab of fear. A spark of sadness. You would abandon me?

  Never. I will return, but I must leave you with the children of those who survived Beht Ihman. Come, Kerim, take Salsanna’s hand. Take the hand of the one you blooded.

  Using the same tone—calm but forceful—Çeda turned to Salsanna and said, “I’ve brought you here to bond with Kerim.”

  There was no hiding the look of repulsion and shock on Salsanna’s scarred face. Leorah, however, seemed suddenly eager, and Ishaq was unreadable.

  “Bond?” The note of fear in Salsanna’s voice was plain. “I will not bond with it.”

  “Do not call him it in my hearing again,” Çeda said. “And yes. You must bond with him that he may know you, and through you, the others in our tribe.”

  Salsanna looked between Leorah and Ishaq, waiting for either to object. When neither did, she said, “You cannot leave him.”

  “I cannot take him with me.” Çeda met Ishaq’s gaze. “If I am to go, by your leave, and with your help, then Kerim must remain here. You were right the other day. His presence anywhere near Sharakhai will alert them to my presence. And it’s long past time that we learn more about the asirim, and the asirim us.”

  Salsanna looked as if she was about to speak, but she fell silent as Leorah gripped her wrist.

  Ishaq’s gaze drifted from Çeda to Leorah to Salsanna. His only response was to give one sharp nod, an acknowledgment that Çeda may try, and that Salsanna should as well.

  “Go on,” Leorah said, “draw him near.”

  Salsanna seemed unsure, even scared, while in the desert, Kerim’s anger flared. Nalamae’s grace, he said, I bled for you.

  I bled for you as well. And would do so again gladly if my pain would set you free.

  Doubt grew inside him like a cancer. I will die for your sake if you but take me back to Sharakhai.

  It’s too dangerous, Kerim, for both of us.

  His wail broke the still silence of the desert, driving a spear of ice through her heart. Please don’t leave me, he begged.

  She knew he would feel betrayed by her demand, but she hadn’t understood the depths of it until now. After centuries with the other asirim, souls who’d suffered the same fate, he was terrified of being alone.

  Don’t you see? she said to him. You won’t be alone.

  But Kerim wasn’t listening. He was drowning in his own emotions. She had to finish this quickly, before he lost faith in her. She had to make him wake and see the others, or she’d be condemning him to death.

  She faced Salsanna now. She might be willing to try for Ishaq’s sake, maybe even Leorah’s, but that wasn’t enough. She had to believe, or this would never work. “He can protect you,” Çeda said to her, “even as you protect him. For the first time since Beht Ihman, he can heal.”

  Çeda reached out Kerim, giving him the love for the family she’d never known but had dreamed about since she was young. Come to me, child of Deniz, cousin to Sehid-Alaz. These people are your blood. Our tribe is reborn.

  Reborn, Kerim scoffed. Our tribe will be reborn only when the asirim are freed and the Kings have paid for their misdeeds.

  Then let me go, Çeda replied. Let me do just that.

  Her next words she spoke aloud, for they were meant for all of them: Kerim, Salsanna, Leorah, and Ishaq. “It won’t be chains you forge this day, but bonds to one another’s hearts. It will make us all stronger.” She took Salsanna’s hands in hers. Salsanna, to Çeda’s great relief, did nothing to stop her. “Let him heal. Let him see what life is like in your desert, the one so different from the one he’s known. Let him hear the laugh of a child. Let him hear the songs written when he walked the earth a man, and those that have been written since. Let him remember his own joys, his own loves, even as you revel in yours.”

  Kerim didn’t want to return to Sharakhai. Not truly. He was only scared of Çeda’s leaving. And Salsanna, for her part, was a woman who deeply revered the thirteenth tribe; she simply had yet to recognize Kerim as part of it. Both of them seemed to understand these things, for in that moment Salsanna’s grip softened, and Kerim’s reluctance began to melt.

  Çeda’s heart sang to see it, but they were not yet done. She held out her hand to Leorah, motioning to the locket around her neck. “A petal, Leorah, if you please.”

  Leorah’s eyes flitted to Salsanna as her hands went to her throat and opened the locket. From it she retrieved a petal, which glowed blue-white in the last light of sunset. She handed it to Çeda, and Çeda stood before Salsanna. “Open your mouth.”

  Salsanna did, and Çeda placed the petal beneath her tongue.

  Çeda’s awareness of Salsanna blossomed, as it no doubt did for Kerim as well. Kerim crept closer as Çeda, Leorah, and Ishaq stepped away, leaving Salsanna to wait alone as Kerim crawled from the darkness. His breath came in broken fragments. His body tilted sideways, as if he were moving against some unseen current.

  Tears streamed down Salsanna’s face as she fell to her knees and held out her hand. Kerim came nearer, but it seemed a bridge too far to take her hand. Like a man lost and weary after days in the desert, he collapsed against the sand and clutched himself. Salsanna touched his shoulder, then knelt by his side and pulled him up until she was embracing him. For all the world she looked like a mother consoling a child who’d grown fearful of the night.

  Çeda felt her own bond with Kerim slipping away. His thoughts became muted. His emotions dimmed. Soon he was little more than a distant presence, a figure in the fog.

  Taking both Leorah’s and Ishaq’s hands, Çeda moved farther away, leaving the two of them in peace. When they reached the skiff, Çeda turned to Ishaq. “You let my mother go when it was her will to journey to Sharakhai and carry out a mission she believed in. I am the result of that decision. Your decision, grandfather. Everything your daughter did led to me, to this day. Everything she did is pointing me back toward Sharakhai. I would go, but I would have your blessing before I do.”

  To her surprise, Ishaq, this legend of the desert, a man who seemed made of stone, seemed unsure of himself. He swallowed. He looked to Leorah, and then the scene that was playing out between Salsanna and Kerim.

  “We’ve only just met.” There were tears in his eyes.

  “I know,” Çeda said. “And we’ll meet again.” She took his hands in hers and kissed both his cheeks. “If t
he fates are kind, we’ll meet again.”

  He looked at her as though she were a lovable fool. “The fates are not kind.”

  “No, but they cannot be this cruel.”

  Lifting his hands and gripping her head, Ishaq kissed her cheeks. “Go to Sharakhai, granddaughter. See if the asirim can be freed. See if the Maidens can be turned. Find the truth of my daughter’s journey the night before she died. You’ll do this for me?”

  “I will.” Çeda’s tears flowed freely now. She released Ishaq’s hands and took a deep breath, wiping her eyes with the palms of her hands. “I have one last request.” She removed Mesut’s bracelet from her left hand and held it out to Leorah. “Take this. Become its guardian until I return. Learn whatever you can about it, for there are more here we must care for.”

  Leorah looked scared to touch it, but then she reached out both hands and took it in hers. Slipping the bracelet over her wrist, she looked at Çeda with wonder in her eyes. “By Nalamae’s grace, child.”

  “What?” Çeda said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.

  “When Ahya left for Sharakhai, she went to make a child with one of the Kings. We dreamed of that child becoming a weapon, being their ruin. But if Ahya could see you now, she would see you are no weapon, but a mirror through which we can see our very soul.”

  “I’m no such thing.”

  “Ah . . .” Leorah waddled forward and took Çeda into an embrace. “But that’s the thing about mirrors. They’re unable to witness their own reflections.”

  Chapter 25

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, many of the Khiyanat ships were taking to the wind. All flew new pennants atop their mainmasts, a white mountain on a blue field.

  “Tauriyat?” Çeda asked Dardzada, though the shape of the mountain wasn’t quite right.

  “No,” he replied gruffly. “It’s Arasal.”

  “Why Mount Arasal?”

  Arasal was the source of the aqueduct that fed Sharakhai’s reservoirs, and so was viewed as a giver of life in the city. Knowing Ishaq, however, a man who prized symbolism, there would be more to it than that.

  “After Beht Ihman, the surviving members of our tribe fled to a valley beneath that peak. They used to meet there in the depths of summer. For a time they thought themselves safe, but days later they were set upon by the asirim.” Dardzada’s perpetual frown deepened. “Few escaped the slaughter.”

  Çeda stared at the pennants as the ships sailed farther away, feeling renewed anger at the Kings but also a rekindling of pride. How fragile those days must have been, and yet some few escaped to carry their story through the pages of time.

  As the ships dwindled in the distance, Çeda marveled at what Ishaq had managed to accomplish. Even as the Kings had stepped up their attacks in Sharakhai, Ishaq had faced a coup from within. Hamzakiir, using guile or blood magic or both, had siphoned off support from those who’d provided Ishaq not only with the coin he needed to wage his war against the Kings, but also the supplies, skill, and labor. But Ishaq had not been idle in the years leading up to that struggle. He’d foreseen trouble, even if he hadn’t known what form it would take. He’d secreted away dozens of ships in desert caches, each of which had been loaded with essential supplies. Those ships were now being used to draw the tribe together and sustain them as more came out of hiding. Slowly but surely, the tribe was finding its footing.

  Later in the day, Çeda was preparing the skiff Salsanna had used to rescue her and Kerim from the tower. She’d said her farewells to Ishaq, Macide, Leorah, and Salsanna. She had yet to visit Emre, however. Or Dardzada.

  But lo and behold, as she hoisted the last jug of water over the side, she saw Dardzada approaching with a bag over his shoulder. The sand shifted beneath his feet, giving him an odd gait. He looked like a bloody heron out of water. In a strange bit of timing, Emre emerged from Ishaq’s tent and began following him. And right behind Emre came the huge man they called Frail Lemi, who had a vaguely worried, almost puppy-like look on his face. When Emre noticed him he stopped and raised his hands. Çeda couldn’t hear what he was saying, but when he was done Frail Lemi nodded and remained where he was, watching as Emre quickened his pace, so that by the time Dardzada reached the skiff, Emre was right there beside him.

  For a moment the three of them were awkward as mismatched teacups. Emre and Dardzada simply stared at Çeda, or more to the point, were pointedly not staring at one another. Last night, after agreeing to her request, Ishaq had promised to send someone with her. She knew she needed the help, but . . .

  “Goezhen’s pendulous balls, you’re not both coming with me, are you?”

  Emre looked sidelong at Dardzada.

  Dardzada laughed that deep, biting laugh of his, the one Emre used to hate so much. If the look on Emre’s face was any indicator, time had done nothing to temper the feeling. “You think Ishaq would let someone like Emre accompany you?”

  Çeda stared at him. “So you’re to join me?”

  “Does that present a problem?”

  “I . . .” Çeda shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t—”

  “Breath of the desert, girl, spit it out.”

  “The journey will be taxing,” Çeda said. “Wouldn’t you rather—?”

  “Don’t waste your breath,” Dardzada broke in. “Believe me, I’d let you go on this fool mission alone, but Ishaq has ordered it, so I’m going.” With that, he hoisted the bag over the side of the skiff and stared at her, as if he expected her to set sail and leave on the spot.

  He’ll be a chain around my ankles. But what could she do about it now? She should have pressed Ishaq last night. She might have argued against Dardzada then, but not now, not with the entire camp already packing up to sail.

  She turned to Emre. “And you?”

  He waved at a distant cutter. “I’m leaving today on the mission to Tribe Kadri. To see if we can stop Shaikh Mihir from joining hands with Onur.”

  “Time grows short,” Dardzada said, his hand on the gunwale.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Çeda snapped. “Wait.” She led Emre away with Dardzada watching her and Frail Lemi watching Emre. She couldn’t help it. If felt so awkward that a laugh burst from her.

  “Stop it, Çeda.” He looked hurt. “These are dangerous days.”

  “Yes, but for the first time since my mother died, I feel hopeful, Emre.”

  He seemed to lighten at that. “Hopeful . . .” He said it with furrowed brow, then gave her that unbalanced smile of his. “I just hope the Blade Maidens don’t string you up too high.”

  “I hope Onur doesn’t crush you like a rattlewing.”

  “He’ll have to catch me first. By the time he’s lumbered after me, I’ll have stuck him three times on that fat arse of his with his own spear.”

  Çeda laughed as she stepped in and embraced him, taking care not to put pressure on his still-tender ribs. “Take care, Emre.”

  “And you.”

  As he headed back toward camp she kicked a massive spray of sand over his back. He turned, mouth agape as he shook the sand from his hair and his clothes. He laughed and kicked sand back at her. But Çeda was already skipping away and escaped the confrontation unscathed. Both chuckling, they went their separate ways. Near the skiff, Dardzada rolled his eyes.

  * * *

  “Ishaq said you hope to find the sliver trove,” Dardzada said the first night of their voyage. He was sitting on a stone, paring the skin off a juicy cactus leaf. The yellow-green peelings fell to the sand between his feet.

  “Or at least, learn more about it.” Çeda sat across from him, a fire crackling softly between them. “I think your instincts were right. I think my mother believed in the trove, and I think she went to find it.”

  Dardzada shrugged. “My instincts also tell me it was a trap. Are you going to believe that part too?”

  “I’m not discounting it. But I want kno
w more about what happened to her that night. I want to retrace her steps before going to the House of Maidens.”

  “You don’t know where her path led her.”

  “I think I do.” She pulled Ahya’s letter from her pouch, and handed it to Dardzada. As he read it by the firelight, she continued, “When I came to you in your apothecary, you said she’d found a mirage.”

  Finishing the letter, Dardzada stared into the fire, perhaps lost in memories. “She told me she’d gone to find it in the whispers, but that she found only a mirage.”

  She motioned to the letter. “And there it says she was preparing to go to the mount, and that she hoped to uncover more treasures. I think the silver trove might not be silver at all. I think it might be the poems recited on Tauriyat. The silver might refer to Tulathan herself.”

  Dardzada’s body drew inward while his face soured. It was what he did while worrying at a problem. “Tulathan . . .”

  “Yes. And if it’s true, then I want to begin my search there, at the site of the ritual.”

  “If it’s true . . .”

  “Yes, if, but it makes sense. It would explain why my mother risked so much to go there. It might also explain why she returned as she did, perhaps under the command of King Ihsan.” She paused a moment. “I want to go there on Beht Zha’ir.”

  To her surprise, Dardzada didn’t immediately try to deny her. “Why not the night before, as your mother did?”

  “It’s likely I won’t have this chance again, and whatever the Kings are trying to hide is because of Beht Zha’ir, so I think it’s best if go then, don’t you?”

  He slid the knife over the cactus with a practiced hand. As a peel flew into the fire and sizzled, he shrugged his stocky shoulders. “I suppose if it was a trap it’s likely been sprung. I can’t imagine the Kings will be sitting there every night, waiting for someone to show up. But you’re forgetting one rather important thing.”