A Veil of Spears

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  When she reached the fourth floor, the topmost story, she pulled out a pair of woolen socks and slipped them over her boots. Silently, she slipped through the archway that led to her old apartments. Just inside was a communal sitting room, and an area with a central hearth that doubled as a cooking space. A table with chairs sat in one corner.

  She made her way slowly but steadily down the lefthand hallway, which led to Sümeya’s, Kameyl’s, and Melis’s rooms. All three were light sleepers, but Çeda took care to make no sound and, fortunately, Melis’s room was first. She peered through the beaded curtain. It was too dark to see her, but Çeda could hear Melis’s soft breathing. Light snoring came from the next room, Kameyl’s. She heard nothing from the doorway at the end of the hall. It was too far to hear Sümeya’s breathing, but that worked in both directions. Sümeya was the lightest sleeper of them all.

  With movements slow as the dunes, Çeda parted the beaded curtain. The beads clacked softly as she inched into the room. Once she was past them, she listened to Melis’s breathing with one hand on River’s Daughter, ready to draw it if need be. She heard no change, however, as she took out the folded note she’d prepared before coming to the city. With the utmost care, she slipped it into the small leather bag halfway up the shelf near the window. It was the one that kept Melis’s toiletries: her scented soap, her pumice stone, the sheaf of frayed twigs she used to clean her teeth. It was the safest place Çeda could think of and there was no other reasonable way to speak to Melis in private and share what she knew. Of all the Maidens, Melis was the likeliest to believe her. The very thought of Melis doing as Çeda asked seemed preposterous now that she was here, but what was there to do about it anymore?

  After tucking the note away, she reversed her steps, parted the curtain, and slipped back toward the entrance. Only when she’d reached the doorway did she begin to breathe easier. She’d just pulled the woolen socks from her boots and stepped out from the apartments when she came face to face with another Maiden.

  Sümeya.

  Çeda was already in motion. She used her foot and forward momentum not to debilitate, but to shove Sümeya as hard as she could. Sümeya expelled a breathy whoosh as she was propelled backward. She gasped for air as Çeda sprinted in the opposite direction.

  “Assassin!” Sümeya bellowed, then whistled the call to bring the barracks to arms.

  Çeda heard Sümeya give chase, but she dared not look back. Soon she reached the end of the covered walkway. There, she launched herself up to the mudbrick railing and through the air toward the opposite barracks. She bounded against the rough exterior, leaping back toward the building she’d just leapt from. She nearly missed the lip of the roof, but once she had it, she slipped over the top. Below, she heard Sümeya’s grunt as she leapt from the same railing.

  Çeda had not gone five strides before Sümeya landed on the roof behind her. She sprinted hard after Çeda, giving another piercing whistle. Enemy. Moving west.

  Çeda sprinted to the corner of the roof and leapt for another building. Below, she spotted three dark shapes rushing for the curtain wall that separated the House of Maidens from the city.

  As she ran, Çeda spread her awareness. On the wall to her left, more Maidens ran toward her position, hoping to cut her off. To her right, one Maiden had stopped, a bowstring drawn to her ear. Çeda felt for the Maiden’s heartbeat, felt her outward breath, and ducked and rolled as the arrow was released. The arrow whizzed overhead, biting into the roof on Çeda’s left.

  Çeda was up again in a flash, but Sümeya was close now, and Çeda could feel her searching for Çeda’s heart, hoping to make her stumble, or at the very least distract her. But she’d been caught off guard by Çeda’s sudden appearance, and Çeda had been prepared for this. It was child’s play to elude Sümeya.

  As Çeda neared the edge of the barracks, five Maidens were converging on the curtain wall as the Maiden on the wall drew another arrow. She aimed, waiting for Çeda to land.

  Çeda withdrew a packet from inside her dress, one she had prepared herself under Dardzada’s strict guidance. She squeezed it hard, heard the crunch as the glass vial within broke and released its liquid contents into the powder surrounding it. Fixing the placement of the wall and battlements in her mind, Çeda threw it for all she was worth, then leapt from the barracks. The packet struck, and the area around it was consumed in a billowing black cloud.

  Çeda flew through open air and was swallowed by it. She landed. Felt something bite into her shin. Heard the arrow skitter somewhere off to her left. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she felt her way into a crenelation and leapt blindly.

  She knew these buildings well. She’d walked them many times on guard duty. She knew the pattern of streets and buildings that lay ahead, some of the oldest in Sharakhai. So she landed easily on the nearest of the buildings and rolled away, finally emerging from the dense black fog created by the packet. She threw another. The smoke billowed as two sets of footsteps thumped along the rooftop behind her.

  “Blood traitor! You’ll not escape! Not this time!”

  Gods, it was Kameyl. Çeda glanced back and saw her arm snap forward. A throwing knife spun through the air, glinting in the moonlight. Çeda tried to dodge, but it bit deeply, piercing her shoulder through the armor of her dress. The knife clattered against the clay tiles as she entered the second cloud.

  Making as little noise as possible, she dropped from the edge of the roof. She landed hard, tweaking her ankle as she rolled. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she headed toward an alley that led in drunken fashion toward the temple district.

  As the bells in the House of Maidens continued to ring, she heard someone drop behind her. Heard the flutter of cloth as someone flew through the air and landed on the building above her as well. Sümeya and Kameyl, one running high, the other low. Çeda ran for all she was worth, but Kameyl was catching up.

  She drew River’s Daughter, knowing she couldn’t outrun her. Kameyl was too strong, too fast. Çeda had just reached the end of the alley, where it emptied onto Raven Road. She’d decided on this escape path days ago; thankfully, she was still on it. She waited until the last possible moment, then spun and met Kameyl’s shamshir with her own. The two of them traded several blinding blows, each searching for a quick advantage over the other. Çeda felt Kameyl reaching for her heart, but this had never been Kameyl’s gift. Çeda thwarted her, turned the advantage against Kameyl and pressed on her heart, but Kameyl was so strong she powered through it, sending blow after blow against Çeda’s defenses.

  The tide was turning against her, and now Çeda heard someone drop to the ground behind her. Sümeya. Çeda quickly retreated, ducking a blow from Sümeya, rolling away and coming up while blocking a downward chop from Kameyl.

  She maneuvered over the cobblestone street, trying to keep one of them between her and the other, but they were so used to working with one another, they foiled her at every turn.

  She tried to turn the tables on them, to take the offense, but they gave her no chance. It was all she could do to fend off their blades.

  Behind Kameyl and Sümeya, more Blade Maidens were dropping to the street. And then Çeda heard heavy footsteps pounding along the street behind her. Much heavier than any Maiden would make, and the heartbeat was loud and strong, almost ox-like.

  Sümeya broke away, raising her free hand to the newcomer. “Halt, by order of the Kings!”

  Kameyl, meanwhile, unleashed a series of moves that were too fast and powerful for Çeda to match. “For murdering Mesut, my father—” Kameyl called.

  Çeda’s sword was driven aside as Kameyl’s foot came up in a swift roundhouse kick that took Çeda on the side of her head.

  “—you will die a thousand deaths—”

  Çeda stumbled, barely defending against a hammer-like blow.

  “—and I swear I’ll be there to witness them all.”

&nbs
p; The heavy footsteps were close. Çeda turned to see a bulky form wrapped in a voluminous thawb throw something at Kameyl.

  Kameyl warded her free arm before her. Something struck her hand in a burst of bright light. A series of small explosions pounded the air and the street brightened. Çeda felt them all. They shook her insides. They rattled her bones.

  She was supposed to have closed her eyes, but she’d forgotten, and now she was dizzy and blinded. She scrabbled away, finding it hard to find her balance. Dardzada’s strong hands lifted her, helped her to stumble onward. The world kept tilting in odd ways, making her nauseous. Dardzada kept her upright, though, kept her moving steadily away from the Maidens.

  When they had run several streets, Çeda heard Sümeya call, “There! Down there! Find them!”

  That was when Dardzada led her down a set of stairs to a cellar door. He opened it soundlessly, led Çeda inside, then closed and barred the door. After picking up a loaded crossbow leaning against the wall and pointing it toward the door, he waited, listening for sounds of pursuit.

  Çeda vomited on the cellar floor.

  “Be quiet!” Dardzada hissed.

  The sound of footsteps grew stronger. Then a hushed conversation. Finally, thank the gods, the sounds faded.

  Dardzada led her to the rear of the cellar, where a set of stairs led up. Instead of taking them, however, he went beneath them, where a false wall led to a small room stocked with food and water, enough to last for days. Two pallets lay ready at the far side of the small space.

  “We’re going to get to know this room well, aren’t we?”

  Dardzada pointed to the door with the crossbow. “It’s that or take our chances out there.”

  “This will do nicely.”

  Chapter 31

  KING IHSAN LEAFED THROUGH the journal he’d been reading these past many days. It was Yusam’s, and almost a decade old. Like so many of his entries, there were notes from more recent times, visions that Yusam cross-referenced and embellished, or sometimes thoughts that had occurred to him years later.

  The Moonless Host, trapped in the city, this entry read. Dozens. Macide Ishaq’ava among them. Perhaps his father as well. Several hands of Maidens give chase along the quay or perhaps on the sand of the Northern Harbor—the vision was unclear here. They capture or kill all but Macide and a young scarab, handsome with striking eyes and a black beard. The two of them escape on a skiff.

  Beside it was a diamond shape, which indicated that this entry was a recurrence. Below that was written: Seen again, yet this time they are borne from the city on the wings of an old gray gull. Each note had numbers, cross-referencing the year, volume number, and page where the full entries to the related visions could be found.

  Ihsan shoved the journal away. “You were nothing if not organized,” he said softly.

  Perhaps that was what drove him to distraction, and would have driven him mad if he’d lived. Ihsan had seen it in him in recent years, how flighty he’d become, how difficult it was for him to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. As useful as the notes and cross-references were, maybe if he’d relaxed his vision a bit and let the larger, more important things come to him, he’d still be alive.

  After downing a healthy swallow of cucumber-infused water, he pulled the journal closer and again worked his way forward. The vision of the skirmish in the northern harbor had been mentioned in another entry about a battle in the desert, which had leapt to another, a particularly vivid vision from the mere. Yusam always noted these sorts of visions, those he felt were of the greatest import to the Kings and Sharakhai, with a mark beside the entries, and then duplicated them in special journals. Most of his journals were backed with mundane leather, but these were robin’s egg blue, and so had come to be known as the Blue Journals.

  This particular vision was of a Blade Maiden who stood in a mountain fastness. Many were held up in that fortress. An army, too large to defend against, despite the fortress’s stout walls, approached along the valley. The Maiden—and here Yusam noted that the woman may only have been dressed as a Maiden, then further clarified in the margins that perhaps she had once been a Maiden, along with a cross-reference to yet another journal. This possible Maiden spoke with a tall woman with plaited blonde hair holding a yew staff. Nalamae? was scribbled below it.

  “Save us,” the Maiden said.

  “If I do, all we’ve done may fade into the desert.”

  “We have need now,” the Maiden replied. “Too many will die if we do not act.”

  And here Yusam did something rare. He was often clinical in his descriptions, but there were times when he felt something—emotions, even memories—from those in the visions. He wrote that the woman had experienced deep sorrow, even fear. She was desperate, as if she knew her fate and would meet it to protect those she loved.

  A thing that feels familiar, Yusam had written in the margins, and put a mark beside it with yet another cross-reference. What it was that felt familiar he never said. The simple feeling of desperation? The cross-reference, a journal written only months ago, was one Ihsan had yet to read.

  He jotted the date down on the slip of paper he kept, noting all the journals he needed to retrieve from Yusam’s palace. It was enough, he decided. He had nearly twenty more journals to find and bring back with him. He ordered his vizir, Tolovan, to prepare his carriage and was soon trundling over King’s Road to the hall of records below Yusam’s palace. An hour later he reached the anteroom outside the archives, where shelf upon shelf of ancient texts and manuscripts were kept. Sitting at the desk, looking a bit haggard, was Yusam’s daughter, Lienn, who’d been indispensable in teaching Ihsan Yusam’s idiosyncrasies and helping to find related visions that he hadn’t cross-referenced. Lienn had read every journal, most more than once, and many a dozen times or more, especially the Blue Journals.

  “Are you well?” Ihsan asked her.

  “Yes, Excellence. It’s—” She smiled, visibly calming herself. “How may I serve?”

  He slid the paper across the desk. “Here’s what I’ll need today.”

  Lienn’s gray-green eyes narrowed as she squinted through her narrow spectacles. She began to frown as her finger trailed down the list; the lower her finger went, the deeper the frown became. “My apologies, my Lord King, but I cannot bring these to you.”

  “Oh?”

  Lienn was neither young nor easily cowed, but she looked now like a woman who’d been brought before the Kings for the first time. “They’ve already been taken.”

  Ihsan was irritated, but a growing sense of dread quickly replaced it. There were only a handful of reasons why Lienn would be acting this way. “Who took them?”

  When she spoke, she gave him the very answer he feared. “The King of Kings,” she said. “He arrived an hour ago, and his Spears took them away.”

  “These journals?” Ihsan said, pointing to the list.

  “These and a hundred more.”

  “A hundred?”

  Lienn looked chagrined. “And all of the Blue Journals.”

  For a moment Ihsan was speechless. Part of him was furious, but another part actually admired Kiral’s boldness. It was exactly what Ihsan would have done in his place. “Kiral came for them himself?”

  Her eyes wandered to the archway behind Ihsan. “He did.”

  Ihsan turned to see Kiral’s square frame approaching from the archives. Behind him, several servants were wheeling a cart with dozens of leatherbound journals similar to the ones Ihsan had been reading these past many weeks. Their spines were stamped with Yusam’s seal: the sun rising above the horizon, rays of sunlight spreading over the sky.

  Curse you for a fool, Ihsan. If Kiral has come himself then he’s stumbled onto something, a trail similar to my own. Perhaps the very same one.

  He nearly laughed at the irony of it all. He’d thought of doing exactly wha
t Kiral was doing now—order a goodly portion of the archive to be brought to his palace—but he hadn’t wanted to draw attention to his activities. That was why he’d informed the other Kings he was reading the journals; hiding it would only make them wonder what was so important, but admit it to their faces and they’d think nothing of it. It had worked, too. He’d had weeks of unrestricted access thus far, and little reason to think it wouldn’t continue. Until today. He’d been a fool to think he was the only one hoping to mine Yusam’s visions for glimpses of the future.

  “Ihsan,” Kiral said.

  “Kiral.” He motioned to the retreating carts. “I didn’t take you for a man who enjoyed such fanciful narratives. I warn you, the story wanders, and the characters seem a bit shallow.”

  Kiral looked like he was teasing a canker inside his cheek. “You have more of Yusam’s journals at your palace?”

  Always to the point. It was his most grating aspect. “One or two.”

  “Twenty-seven,” Kiral shot back.

  Lienn must have told him.

  “I had hoped to learn more from them than I have.” Behind Kiral, another cart trundled out from the archives and headed for the exit.

  “What have you learned so far?”

  “That I would have gone mad had I been gifted with a mere.”

  Kiral sucked his teeth. “This has always been the trouble with you. The jackals could be storming the walls, and you would rain quips down upon them.”

  “What is life without humor?”