A Veil of Spears

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Husamettín advanced, Night’s Kiss held at the ready. “There is much in my life to be ashamed of, Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala, but not this.”

  Çeda met his first swing with River’s Daughter. She controlled her swings, controlled her breathing, controlled her heart. She had long since felt Husamettín’s heartbeat, as well as the Maidens’, but the moment she tried to use it against him, he sidestepped her. Again and again she tried, but he was like a silverscale slipping through water. He seemed content not to press that advantage against her, though.

  For aching minutes, the sound of their swordplay filled the air. They moved easily over the sand, the Maidens retreating to give them space to fight, but always keeping themselves between Çeda and the adichara trees, cutting off any possible escape.

  She rained blow after blow on Husamettín’s defenses, but he blocked them all, moving with the power, speed, and agility she’d grown accustomed to seeing from him during morning prayers in the House of Maidens. Then he unleashed a blinding series of moves, each of which struck River’s Daughter harder. The last left him with an opening that he used to bring his blade flat against the side of her head.

  She remembered tilting sideways, her turban flying free. She remembered trying to right herself, her body refusing to comply. Then she struck the sand, and the desert went dark.

  Chapter 37

  ÇEDA WOKE TO DARKNESS and the smell of mold. She lay on cold stone. Somewhere, water dripped. It tapped like rainwater from a roof long after the storm had passed. Her limbs numb and tingling, she rolled over and saw a dim circle of light, little more than a puff of stardust against the utter blackness. Along the floor was a thin line of similar light. A door, she realized, with light shining through a window and a gap below.

  She wanted to investigate, but oh how her body ached, especially her head, which felt like a quarry stone being hammered to pieces, blow after merciless blow.

  Husamettín. The desert.

  It all returned in a rush, along with a conviction that Melis would never believe her. Nor Sümeya nor Kameyl nor any other Maiden. All the tales the asirim had shared with her would now be seen as lies.

  A short while later, Çeda felt more than heard a presence. She tried to reach out for a heartbeat, but the pain in her head spiked so badly that for a while she could do nothing but lie there and hold her head to keep it from bursting. When the pain had passed, she lifted her head and stared at the round window. There were two stripes of black where the bars would surely be. Was it darker than before? She couldn’t tell.

  “Hello?” she called weakly.

  There was no reply, and soon she was sure she’d been mistaken.

  More time passed, and then a clink sounded in the darkness. She heard a scuffing outside the cell door, and then a soft glow flooded the hallway outside, coming from the left. A jingling of keys came nearer. As did heavy footsteps. The yellow light grew, then stabbed harshly through the window. Keys clinked, the door swung open, and light came crashing into the room, bringing with it pain and an unwelcome image of molten glass being doused in water.

  “Leave us,” came a deep voice. Husamettín’s.

  The gaoler’s footsteps shuffled away. When Çeda cracked her eyes open she saw Husamettín sitting on a bench along the far wall near the door. The lantern was near his feet. It seemed strange to her that the door remained open.

  Husamettín was staring at her as if she were an oddity, a new prisoner he hadn’t realized was here. From somewhere inside his black khalat he retrieved a flask wrapped in leather. He unscrewed the cap and held it out to her. “It will help with your pain.” When she made no move to take it, he shrugged and tipped his head back, the liquor gurgling as it poured from the flask’s mouth into his. He bared his teeth while swallowing it.

  “I considered ending your life in the desert,” he said, screwing the cap back on and stuffing the flask inside his clothes.

  “Why—” Çeda paused as a new wave of pain and nausea overcame her. She spoke more softly. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because there are things I wish to know. And because, once I’m satisfied, there is the matter of justice to consider.”

  Çeda pushed herself onto her hands and knees, refusing to lie before this man any longer. But gods, the pain. Spittle flew through her clenched teeth as she fought to control it, but how could she? It was lancing through her body in a dozen places, none worse than her head. “Justice?” She managed to roll back until she was leaning against the wall opposite Husamettín. Finally the pain began to subside. “For what? Killing men who accepted gifts from the gods and used them to murder an entire people? If you wish to deliver justice for that, I’ll gladly accept it.”

  “You admit it then?” Husamettín’s hands were on his knees, his back stiff. He stared at her like Bakhi incarnate, weighing her before leading her to the farther fields. “That you took the lives of Mesut and Külaşan?”

  “With joy pouring from my heart.”

  He looked at her with mild surprise—perhaps he’d been expecting a different answer—but there was also a low-burning anger there as well. “You had help, and I want their names. Those in the Al’Afwa Khadar and any others hidden within the House of Maidens.”

  “I acted alone.”

  Husamettín shook his head. “Come. A child would realize that you had help. Share their names, and I can guarantee that you’ll be treated with no undue cruelty. Do not, and I’ll hand you over to Cahil.”

  Çeda debated whether she should tell Husamettín about Zaïde and Ihsan, how the two of them had been working against the interests of the others. Might it create a rift between the Kings that would help tear them down, no matter what it meant for her? Perhaps. But Husamettín would not stop with only two names. He’d want more. Dardzada. Emre. Macide. Even old Yanca in Çeda’s old neighborhood of Roseridge would suffer if they learned of her, and the chances of that increased the more Çeda said.

  “Was Melis involved?” Husamettín asked. “Was Sümeya?”

  “You have so little confidence in my sister Maidens?”

  “Sister Maidens,” Husamettín sneered.

  Çeda shrugged. “They were once.”

  “No one is above suspicion. So I ask again, did any of the Maidens in your hand know?”

  She found it strange that he would ask of Sümeya, his own daughter. She was First Warden of the Blade Maidens and was fiercely loyal to the House of Kings.

  “I acted alone. None of the Maidens knew my purpose. They mistrusted me from the beginning, but when Yusam vouched for me—”

  “And me.” The King’s face was so placid she couldn’t tell how much anger he was harboring behind it.

  “And you . . . After that, they fell in line. They tested my loyalty now and again, but little more than that.”

  “And yet the very same night you killed Külaşan, a group of scarabs stole into the catacombs of his palace and stole Hamzakiir away. You would have me believe that was a chance encounter?”

  “It was, though I won’t deny it helped to distract King Külaşan.”

  The muscles along his jaw worked, only for a moment, but for a man like Husamettín it was an admission of rage. He turned his head toward the door and whistled sharply, a sound that drove waves of pain through Çeda. “There’s more I might have asked,” he said with a calm that gave her chills, “but I see you’re in no mood to be forthright.”

  Somewhere far away a door opened. Footsteps neared. Chains clanked. There are two approaching, she realized. One set of footsteps was crisp upon the stone. The other shuffled along. She heard a wheezing breath as well and knew long before the gaoler entered the cell that an asir was being led to her, and yet she couldn’t sense it.

  The asir crawled by the stocky man’s side like an obedient hound, a collar around its neck. A chain trailed from the collar to the gaoler’s hand, but the gaoler ha
rdly seemed to need it. The most sickening thing wasn’t that the asir remained close to the gaoler; it was that it seemed uncomfortable unless it was near him. It had none of the irrepressible anger Çeda had grown accustomed to feeling from the asirim—not for the gaoler or Husamettín, in any case. Its attitude toward Çeda was completely different.

  As it sat with its hands between its legs, its eyes roamed her body. The look was akin to what men did from time to time, except the asir didn’t want sex. It wanted her flesh. It wanted to devour her.

  But it seemed to be waiting for something. Just what it was waiting for Çeda wasn’t sure until Husamettín crouched by the asir’s side, touched his hand to the wrinkled landscape of its bald head, and said, “Break her.”

  The asir leaned forward, its eyes locked on Çeda’s. Its lips pulled back, revealing a ruin of teeth. A terrible presence grew. Like a flash flood, pressure built quickly in her mind. She was already in pain, but now it was a pure agony. She put her hands to her forehead, hoping to press away the pain, but it did nothing. She pounded the stones with her hands, harder, harder, writhing as the asir tore its way deeper inside her mind.

  Stop! she called. Blood of my blood, please stop!

  It didn’t. And then, through the pain, she had a vision of her mother. Ahya was leading Çeda by the hand into Dardzada’s apothecary. It was the night she’d left Çeda there and gone to the House of Kings.

  The asir, she realized. It was searching for memories as Husamettín had bid him.

  No! Çeda cried. I beg of you, don’t take these from me!

  But it cared nothing for her protests. She couldn’t even feel it, not as she could feel nearly every asir she’d come across so far. This one was more like a beast. Single-minded. Driven by the hand that fed it. How long might it have suffered? Decades? A century? Had this poor creature been Husamettín’s ever since Beht Ihman?

  Another vision came, of Çeda accepting a mission, a shade, from Osman. She saw Emre joining her. The two of them trading secrets when Tariq gave them their separate destinations.

  Stop!

  * * *

  Crouched on her rooftop, she waits for Emre’s return.

  She knows he won’t, so she takes a petal, lifting it from her mother’s locket and placing it under her tongue. How it fills her with power. With pain. With worry. The memories mix with reality as the asir digs ever deeper.

  She runs the streets on Beht Zha’ir. The city lies quiet, a mighty beast in slumber. She finds Emre in the canals, wounded. They maneuver up the old tree and back to the streets. Emre falls unconscious.

  And she sees it. An asir. She’d hoped in those days never to see one, never thought to stand before one. She waits, petrified, as it nears and whispers long-forgotten words into her ear. Rest will he ’neath twisted tree.

  The asir takes her head in its dry hands and places a kiss on her forehead, its lips so warm it repulses her.

  There is another presence nearby. She feels herself, Husamettín’s hound, and one more. But where? She turns and looks around the street, which now stands empty.

  She blinks.

  * * *

  She was back in Husamettín’s dungeon.

  But the presence . . . It was still there and growing. She recognized it and wondered if her memory had somehow summoned him. Sehid-Alaz.

  He was near, though exactly where, Çeda couldn’t say. He seemed to be all around her, attacking the asir, Husamettín’s hound.

  Çeda’s breath came in great gasps. Sweat gathered along her brow, on her palms and the backs of her arms. Only a short distance away, close enough to touch, Husamettín’s asir rolled across the cell as she’d done only a short while ago. It scraped at the stones with fingers raw and bleeding. Streaks of black blood were left across the floor in strange, sickening patterns.

  And then the asir stopped and lay still, its eyes staring into Çeda’s.

  I’m sorry, Çeda said.

  The asir did not reply. Dark blood dripped from its nose. Its mouth worked as if it were trying to speak. She hadn’t realized how young it was. This was a child whose whole life had been stolen from it.

  “Well, well,” Husamettín said. He’d turned to look at the wall to Çeda’s right.

  Sehid-Alaz is there, Çeda thought, so close I could call to him, and he would hear.

  The King of Swords seemed ill-pleased that Çeda had noticed what he was doing. He stared down at her. “Gather your strength, Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala. We’ll continue your questioning soon.”

  And with that he swept from the room, while the gaoler took up the lantern and used the chain around the asir’s neck to drag it from the room, shutting the door behind him with a heavy clatter.

  Soon the sounds of their departure had dwindled to nothing, leaving Çeda alone in the darkness with the dripping sound in the distance.

  * * *

  When Çeda woke again her mind was muddy. It took her a long while to remember Husamettín and the asir.

  Sehid-Alaz had come to her in her dreams. Indeed, the dream itself had been an echo of their first meeting. It had seemed true to the events as they’d happened, but then the differences had begun to grow. It was due to her growing awareness of Sehid-Alaz, she understood, that she’d been able to sense them at all. She now understood his purpose as well: he’d been working to hide certain memories from the asir.

  She pushed herself up off the floor and scraped back along the stones until she could lean against the wall and cradle her aching head in her hands.

  Her heart ached for that creature. The lives of the asirim might be poor, but at least they remembered themselves somewhat. That one had been so robbed of its humanity that it had become loyal to Husamettín.

  It led her to a problem she hadn’t anticipated. The King of Swords was more adept at controlling the asirim than she’d given him credit for. He’d proven it in the desert when she’d wanted to enlighten Melis, and he’d concealed the young asir’s memories and replaced them with his own. And again, here in the dungeon. She’d assumed the Kings would be at a disadvantage with Mesut gone, but she’d clearly been mistaken.

  She massaged her forehead slowly. It hurt terribly, but not as badly as with the asir. When had that been? Yesterday? She’d lost track of time in this place.

  She searched and found a water cup she’d caught a glimpse of earlier. After downing all of it, she gripped her right hand. Felt the old wound come to life. It had been quiet, almost numb, but the more she squeezed, the more the effects of the poison spread. She’d become accustomed to it now, knowing how much she could push, and how quickly, before it overwhelmed her. She took just enough, and reached out carefully for some sense of Sehid-Alaz.

  Where are you, my King?

  She was nearly ready to give up when she felt the barest glint of light on the edges of her mind.

  Is that you?

  She reached further, knowing that whatever kept Sehid-Alaz enthralled did so still. She was aware that Husamettín might be watching, that other Kings might be as well, but she didn’t care. She had to take this chance while she could.

  What happened? she asked.

  At last Sehid-Alaz spoke. I thought you safe, my child. You should not have returned.

  Çeda’s heart rejoiced to hear him. There is too much to do. Sharakhai cannot be ignored.

  No, but now you are back in their grasp.

  Yet all is not lost, my King. Our tribe forms once more in the desert. They lift their swords in honor of Ishaq Kirhan’ava and in honor of you. More will come, and the Kings now know it.

  She said it so that Sehid-Alaz would take heart, knowing his efforts had not been in vain. Indeed, it seemed to spark a memory in him. She saw her King riding at the prow of a ship, a line of mountains in the distance. She saw the tribe celebrating in a valley with steep walls covered in evergreens and a lake so clear ev
en the deepest folds of its bed were laid bare.

  Yes, Çeda said, reveling in the memory with him.

  The reminder of her presence drew his thoughts to darker times. To the call of Tulathan, to the transformation he’d gone through on a different mountain, this one in the center of a vast desert city. Through him, she heard the cackle of Sukru and the crack of his whip as he reveled in the pain of those who’d been given to the gods.

  Sehid-Alaz had watched as the other Kings bade his people to throw themselves against the army of the desert tribes. “Do not go!” he managed to say. “Do not heed their call!” They’d not listened. The call of the gods was already upon them. In ones and twos, their shriveled forms had hunched. They’d loped forward, and oh, how they howled as they ran. It sent shivers of regret through Sehid-Alaz. They had become a terrible host, and were now preparing to storm the lines of the gathered tribes and break the siege of the city.

  For a long while all Çeda could think of was her conversation with Dardzada in the desert. Have you not considered that it’s Sehid-Alaz himself who must be led to the farther fields in order for the asirim to be freed?

  But what was there to do about that now? Come, my King, she said to him. For now, let us look to the future, not the past.

  Sehid-Alaz was silent and still, suddenly fearful for himself, for Çeda. He’d sensed another near them, and now Çeda did too, someone listening like a thief in the shadows. She remembered the telltale scuff of feet when she’d awakened. She pushed herself up, shambled to the door, and held the iron bars of the window. She pressed her face into the gap and called, “You needn’t fear. I’m locked in a cage.”

  There was no reply. She tried again to feel for whoever was hiding there, but felt nothing. They were either too distant or too skilled at masking their presence. Sitting back down, she tried once more to reach out to Sehid-Alaz, but he was gone as well.