A moaning came from within, growing more desperate by the moment, followed by screaming, pounding, and scratching. Faster and more frenzied, as if the girl inside was fighting for her life. Visions of her came, a precocious thing running about the palace, her long hair loose and trailing behind her. Now she was trapped inside a sarcophagus, something other than what she’d been.
Anila continued to whisper, continued to draw lines of frost. Like a quieting sea, the sounds from within quelled.
After long moments, all was silence once more.
“Why?” Davud asked. “Why would you do this to Bela?”
Anila turned to him, her eyes downcast. “I had to know if I had enough power.”
Davud thought of the firefinch. “But to do it to a child!”
“If she could help find Hamzakiir, yes.”
Across the boneyard, Zahndr, his longsword drawn, was running toward them. In that moment, a terrible thought occurred to Davud. “Did you have a hand in killing Bela?”
The shock in her eyes made it clear that he’d crossed a line, but even if Anila hadn’t killed her, she was no longer innocent. The longer he thought on it, the more things fell into place: Zahndr guarding the entrance to the boneyard, Anila being given access to Bela’s tomb. “Sukru asked you to do it.”
Anila turned angry. “Of course he did, and stop looking at me like that. You know how he craves magic. That’s why you’re here, and that’s why he let me remain when he found out about”—she stared down at her hands—“this.”
When Davud had spoken to the mage using the triangle, he’d been told much the same thing about Sukru’s hunger for power. But to sacrifice a child . . . “What does he want you to do?”
“Say nothing more to him!” Zahndr said as he reached the crypt. His face screwed up in annoyance, he reached forward and took Davud by the arm.
Davud raised the palm of his right hand and drew a sigil for obfuscate and bind and fauna. And then a thing most strange happened. One moment, he felt the spell consuming Zahndr—it wrapped around him like gossamer—but then it was shunted into marble beneath their feet, lost like so much water on parched earth.
“Sukru would likely never forgive me if I take his latest sorcerer from him.” Zahndr brandished his sword while gripping Davud’s arm to the point of pain. “But I won’t shed a tear if you force me to spill your blood over all this pretty marble.”
“I . . .”
“We’re leaving now,” Zahndr said.
When Anila said nothing, Davud allowed himself to be taken away. As Zahndr led him forcibly along the boneyard’s well-tended paths, he looked back only once to find Anila standing in the sepulcher, watching the sarcophagus with an expression he could only interpret as satisfaction or hunger.
Or both, Davud thought.
* * *
In his room, Davud rushed to the bureau and retrieved the golden triangle. He went swiftly to the patio, where the stars were fading with the coming dawn. Don’t fail me, he said to the glittering field, I have need of you.
Sitting at the small table, he gave the triangle a spin. It fluttered like a dying moth, then fell to the mosaic tabletop with a jingle.
“Please,” Davud whispered, and gave it another spin.
This time, it twisted in the air, bobbled, and remained spinning above the table’s colorful surface. It lifted reluctantly until it was eye level. For long moments he heard nothing but its whirring.
“Hello?” Davud said.
“I’ll admit,” came the Sparrow’s voice, “I never thought to hear from you again. I’m pleased. Have you had the wisdom to heed my warnings?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. You said I could come to you. That you would protect me.”
“And I meant it.”
“Could you protect Anila as well?”
“Your friend from the collegia?”
“Yes. She has power, like me. And Sukru is using her.”
“For what purpose?
“I don’t know. I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”
“I do not meddle directly in Sukru’s affairs if I can avoid it. He has little talent in the red ways, but he has devices and artifacts he hoards like a desert wyrm, that I would have no wish to run afoul of. But,” he said before Davud could reply, “I’ve learned that she has power, and that it is distinctly different from yours.”
Davud stared at the spinning triangle, haunted by the sound of Bela fighting to escape her tomb. If Anila were willing to do that to a child, what else might she do? “She is not gifted in the red ways as we are. Her arts are dark as the night.” He told the Sparrow about the missing page from Sukru’s book, the one that dealt with death. Then described what had happened with the finch, finishing with Bela’s story.
“Your Anila is a disciple of Bakhi,” the Sparrow said. “A necromancer. There have been rumors that the high priest of Bakhi’s temple is one himself, albeit weak, but there has not been another for generations. It is said that those who’ve stepped into the gateway to the farther fields and returned to our world gain such powers. And that the more time they spent in that state so near to death, the more powerful they become. How long was Anila so?”
A vision came of Anila, lying on the sand in Ishmantep, a cold fog rolling off her in waves. “A long while.”
“It’s dangerous,” the Sparrow went on. “The more they draw upon the ties that bind this world to the next, the closer they come to the farther fields. Most die within a year.”
Within a year . . . “She could stop, though, and she would live?”
“Perhaps, but you must know that they are drawn toward death like moths to flame. The call of the farther fields is strong. No doubt this is true for Anila as well. No doubt there’s some great desire keeping her from giving into it as well. There always is.”
Davud thought on it. “She wants Hamzakiir’s head.”
“If even half the stories I’ve heard of what he did to the collegia scholars are true, I’ve no doubt you’re right. It might drive anyone to do what she’s doing now.”
“Is that what Sukru wants then? Hamzakiir’s death?”
“Who can say? Sukru may align himself with Kiral, but he has other purposes.”
“Such as?”
“As I said, I steer well wide of Sukru and his interests. Now, we have little time left.” Indeed, the triangle was slowing, a top ready to topple.
“Will you shelter her?” Davud asked again. He heard the sounds of the palace’s drawbridge being lowered, the rattle of chain, followed by a boom.
The triangle faltered. He thought it would fail altogether, cutting off the Sparrow’s answer, but then . . . “It’s more dangerous, but yes, I could manage it. I would enjoy speaking with her.”
“How?” Davud rushed, relief tingling along his limbs. “How can I do it?”
“Summon the sigil for passage and doorway and cast it on the triangle.”
“Only when the stars are bright?”
But it was too late. The triangle spun and clattered against the table, in dawn’s light a perfect, bright triangle against the oddly shaped tesserae beneath.
Chapter 33
IGNORING THE PERSISTENT PAIN in his ankles and knees, King Onur tread over the rocky ground. Dust demons swirled over the flat, slowly rising landscape. The sun was lowering, casting dark shadows beneath the scrub brush as he headed steadily closer to the rusty face of a grand escarpment. It ran like a ribbon into the distance, and separated the near portion of the desert from a plateau above, a place choked with yew trees. Little grew along the ground below. Bushes fought for life beneath the harsh desert sun. Ironweed and desert thistle grew in the gullies. The differences were so stark it looked as though the elder gods had granted fertile soil above while ceding the land below to the hunger of the desert.
A crack ran down the esca
rpment’s stone face. High above it was thin and difficult to see, but the lower it went, the wider the gap became, creating a natural cavern at ground level. Onur couldn’t yet discern the size of it—the scale of this place made it difficult considering how far away he was—but as his heavy footsteps bore him closer, he realized how massive it was. A bloody cathedral could fit inside of it. And who knew how far back it went? Its depths were lost to darkness.
He stared into the shadows as he came closer, clutching a large fire opal in his left hand. It was the most important of the prizes he’d won in his battle against Tribe Masal, a legendary artifact of Tribe Salmük, his familial tribe. He’d heard stories of it from his grandfather when he was young. He’d asked about it the one and only time he’d been taken by his father to visit his tribe in the desert. Most had refused to speak of it, but a waif of a girl had admitted to seeing it with her own eyes.
“Then why won’t they admit it?” Onur, ten summers or so at the time, had asked her.
“Because you’re from the city.”
That one admission had done more to wake him to the realities of tribal life versus life in the city than anything in the hundreds of years since.
He’d hoped to find the gem hidden away when he’d come from Sharakhai to take up his role as shaikh. That he hadn’t found it was no great surprise. He was only pleased that they were relatively certain who’d stolen it away: Tribe Masal, which was precisely why he’d chosen them as the first of his conquests.
When he judged he’d come close enough to the gap in the stone, he stopped and held the opal before him. It had been a long while since he’d been afraid. Truly afraid. It felt good. Made him feel alive. Fear would make his triumph here, and all that followed, feel that much more satisfying.
The sun’s rays threw orange and red and ochre against the stone’s surface. It was a pretty thing—even he would admit that—but it was so much more than a simple jewel. It was one of the greatest treasures ever offered up by the Great Mother.
“I call upon you, Yerinde. Goddess of love. Crucible of desire. Heed my words, for your servant has need.”
It grated to name himself a servant, but he recognized it for what it was: a sign of how long he’d been a King of Sharakhai. Give any man all he might wish for for centuries, and he would see the world the same way as Onur did: as though everything he laid his eyes on was his to command. It was an attitude that served him well when he’d reached the camp of Tribe Salmük, and again when he’d spoken to the survivors of his battle with Tribe Masal. Project an air of inevitability, of invincibility, and soon enough everyone falls into line.
He was no fool, though. With the gods he must take care. They were invincible, where he only pretended to be.
“I call upon you, Yerinde.” He held the stone higher. “Too long has it been since we spoke.”
The desert wind soughed through the dried bushes. Sand picked up, swirling in graceful curves before distending and fading altogether.
“I call upon you,” he said a third time, and threw the stone far ahead.
It landed in a patch of sand and lay there, unmoving, the desert around it uncaring. But then the wind picked up. The sand around the stone lifted. For the span of a breath it twisted in the air, a thing alive, and then it fell, the sand billowing outward. In the center of the cloud now stood a woman. She was naked, but as Onur watched, black insects the size of children’s teeth scuttled up from the sand. They lifted into the air, creating a new sort of cloud, this one dark, iridescent, growing ever tighter around her frame. The insects landed on her skin, covering her arms, her legs, her chest and stomach. It looked as though she were wearing a dress that moved like a plague of termites.
Her loose black hair became wind-tossed, obscuring her face for a moment, but as the wind died, it fell in long waves down her back. She stared with violet eyes at the stone, which was now pinched between her thumb and forefinger. It looked small in her hands, which in turn made Onur feel small. He didn’t like the feeling.
She turned the opal this way and that, the sunlight continuing to play across its surface. Many years has it been since I’ve seen the eye of dragons.
“I’ve found it that I might use it to further your glory.”
Yerinde lifted her gaze to stare at Onur. My glory? Not thine own?
“I have no wish for glory.”
The goddess stepped closer, the winged insects lifting, littering the air around her, then settling once more. What is it then that fills your heart?
“The journey toward justice.”
Justice? Yerinde’s smile was like mulled wine, like golden honey freshly poured. And when has the King of Spears sought for justice save for himself?
“Others will be served if I succeed. What matter that I might be served as well?”
Her head swiveled until she was staring at the flame-filled jewel between her fingers. And this will give it to you?
“It will be a start.”
She turned to him, stepped nearer. Onur could smell something on the wind. Something floral and ancient, redolent of the elder gods. Or perhaps the farther fields. What would be thy wish were I to grant thee the whole of the desert?
A quip was there on his lips, but the words died on his tongue. Those eyes. They were deep and knowing, and yet aroused him to the point that he could hardly think. In four hundred years they hadn’t changed in the least. And now they demanded truth from him.
He found it, buried deep inside him, a thing he’d hardly admitted to himself since well before leaving Sharakhai for the desert. “I would wipe away all that you’ve done,” he said at last, “you and the other gods.”
Her violet eyes twinkled. And then?
“And then I would give myself back to the desert.”
Yerinde reared her head back and laughed. It was a sound that filled the desert, that played off the face of the cliff in the distance, returning to him changed, mingling with the fresh peals that shook her frame. When at last her laughter faded, Yerinde blinked, and a tear fell from her eye. Golden and glinting it fell on the fire opal. With it came a sense of something ancient awakening, a thing that had been hidden from the world but now returned, a titan the elder gods had thought dead before they’d departed these shores.
Very well, Yerinde said, then held the opal out for him to take.
For a moment, he couldn’t move. He almost laughed. He’d lived for more than four centuries, well longer than any man had a right to live. He stood before a god who was offering him all he sought, and yet he wondered, as he had those many years ago on Tauriyat, why? Why did the gods enjoy their games so much? What was it they sought in the end?
He wanted to ask her a question of his own. What would be your wish were you granted the whole of the world? But as he stared at the jewel, he decided he didn’t much care what her answer would be. He took it from her open hand, feeling a warmth that hadn’t been there before.
The wind kicked up, blowing dust and sand into his face. When he’d blinked it away, Yerinde was gone, the desert clear for leagues around.
Holding the jewel tight, he continued toward the cavern. The same thing he’d felt before was there, deep in the shadows.
Come, he willed. Come, and let the light of the desert shine on you once more.
As he came within several hundred paces, he felt a rumbling in the earth beneath his feet. Dust coughed from the entrance.
No, smoke. A dense cloud of smoke.
Shadows shifted. And he saw within the deeper darkness two glinting slits. Eyes that opened wide, spying him, their centers a complex weave of colors that were very much like the oranges and yellows of the opal.
Relishing the fear now coursing through his veins, as well as the sheer potential of what he was about to do, Onur continued toward it, the pain in his knees and ankles all but forgotten.
* * *
L
ater, as Onur the King of Sloth left the cavern, a woman watched. She stood in the open wearing simple, roughspun clothes that blended well with the hard landscape. She was distant enough that it would be difficult for the King of Spears to discern her form. The few times his eyes scanned the desert in her direction, a gust of sand would lift, obscuring her further until he’d looked away.
She held a weathered staff with a gnarled head. The staff’s butt against the sand, she pressed the head to her ear and listened to the rhythms of the world. They’d been altered by the events that had just taken place, and now it was up to her to discern them.
She felt a deeper power in the cavern Onur had just exited. She felt the eyes of the desert gods on it as well, which prevented her from going there to learn more. She sensed satisfaction in Onur’s heavy tread. Smelled the faint scents of vetiver and sweetgrass and burning amber, all telltale signs of Yerinde. The breathing of the beast Onur had awakened rumbled in her chest. She felt an echo of each breath.
As Onur regained his skiff and began sailing away, the sour feeling in her gut intensified. It was her own indecision, she knew. That and the impossible choices that lay ahead. There was danger along any path she chose, so which was the right one?
The skiff grew smaller and smaller as she watched Onur chart a course not only for himself but for the Great Mother as well. She knew she must do the same.
As the skiff was lost to the horizon, the woman’s form turned to sand, a crumbling column the wind soon ravaged and flung across the land.
Chapter 34
WHEN RAMAHD RETURNED to the Qaimiri embassy house, he expected Meryam would be there, poring over the sigils he’d gathered over the past few days. He’d spent the morning collecting the last of them by going along the city’s outer wall and making charcoal rubbings from those foundation stones containing sigils. There were forty-seven in all, an attempt on the part of the Kings to protect their city from the ehrekh and other strange children of Goezhen.
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