A score of men and woman came to him, arranging themselves in a ragged circle, attentive, eager to please.
“You have a young man named Davud in your care,” Ihsan said.
“We do,” they spoke in unison.
“Take me to him.”
Chapter 39
“HE’S HERE, MY LORD KING,” Davud heard from the hallway outside his room.
“Forget what you’ve seen this night,” said a soft voice. “Forget what you’ve heard. This has been a night like any other.”
“Quite right, your Excellence. It has.”
Davud sat up in bed, confused. My Lord King, the voice had said, but the voice wasn’t Sukru’s.
“Go now,” commanded the anonymous King.
A sound of shuffling footsteps lifted and faded—the servant complying with the King’s request—and then Davud’s door creaked lightly open. Honey-colored light spilled into the room as a man stepped inside, his features hidden behind a lantern. Davud could tell he was of medium height and build; when he came closer and the lantern’s light reflected off the bedcovers, he could see more: the King’s rich raiment, amber accented in blue and thread-of-gold, his handsome face with its impeccably manicured beard.
“You are Davud.”
“I am, Excellence.”
“You and I have a lot to talk about.” Davud was terribly confused and nervous, but when the King smiled, it chased away all the worries that had been building inside. “I’ve been most curious about your story, your time with Hamzakiir. You and I could probably spend a night and a day talking about it, but our time is limited.”
As the King sat at the foot of the bed, Davud finally recognized him. This was Ihsan, the Honey-tongued King. He was certain this should worry him, but just then he couldn’t put his finger on the reason. “Of course, your Excellence.”
“You’ve been here for some time now. Tell me what Sukru has been teaching you.”
“Nothing,” Davud said in all honesty.
The King seemed more than a little surprised.
“If anything, I’ve been teaching him.” He would never had spoken it so plainly before anyone else, but Ihsan seemed an eminently trustworthy soul.
“He’s not provided you instruction to broaden the use of your magic?”
“He’s given me books. I’ve broadened my own knowledge. As has Anila.”
It felt strange to talk about Anila, but he was eager to please the King. Indeed, when Ihsan smiled quizzically, as if Davud had both surprised and impressed him, his heart swelled.
“Anila,” he said.
“She was the only other survivor of the attack on the collegia’s graduation ceremony.”
“She was burned in Ishmantep?” Ihsan asked. When Davud nodded, he went on. “I’d thought her dead.”
“Her survival is a miracle, to be sure. She’s been here since our return, healing, but lately she’s been learning how to commune with the dead.”
Ihsan’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I beg your pardon?”
Gods, he was angry, or disappointed. It was a secret Davud should probably have kept hidden, but sharing anything with Ihsan gave him a thrill.
“She isn’t dangerous!” he said quickly. “But she can bring the dead back from the abyss. At least for a time.” Davud told him all of it, how she’d raised Bela from the dead. “She’s a good woman at heart. She just wants to use her power to destroy Hamzakiir.”
“And Sukru,” Ihsan said pensively. “You said you were teaching him. Teaching him what?”
“He asked for my help to determine the cause of the sickness in the adichara. He thought it might be related to the growing madness in the asirim.”
“And were you successful?”
“Yes, until Yerinde came.”
If Ihsan had seemed disappointed before, he seemed utterly shocked now. “What did you just say?”
“Yerinde came to us in the caverns below Tauriyat, my Lord King.” He proceeded to tell him all of it, the shift in mood, the goddess striding in, those depthless eyes. Bring me her head, she’d commanded the Kings. The head of she who has wronged thee.
“Yerinde said this?”
“She did, Excellence.”
“And then she left . . .”
“Yes.”
“And who was in attendance?”
“Myself and Anila. Sukru’s man, Zahndrethus—”
“Which Kings, Davud?”
“Kings Sukru, Kiral, Cahil, and Husamettín.”
Ihsan was lost in thought, his face heavy in shadows from the light cast by the lantern. Suddenly he breathed sharply, as if returning to himself. “There’s something I wish you to do for me, Davud.”
“Anything.”
“You know a woman named Çedamihn, I believe.”
This struck something deep within Davud. Love. Friendship. Loyalty. “I do.”
“She will be brought here tonight to be interrogated by you. You will find a way to free her, by any means necessary. She cannot remain here under the power of King Sukru.”
Çeda? Brought here? “But she fled the city.”
“She foolishly returned, Davud, and she’s been captured. Here’s what you will do.”
The King leaned closer, took Davud by the back of the neck, and gazed into his eyes in a way that was not so different from what Yerinde had done in the cavern. Ihsan spoke, but Davud could no longer understand the words. He caught one here. Escape. Another there. Blood. But so much was lost, the sound was akin to the snap of a bonfire, as mesmerizing as the flames.
All too soon Ihsan was standing. “Do you understand all I’ve told you?”
“Of course, my Lord King.”
“Very well,” Ihsan said, moving like a memory toward the door.
The moment it thudded home, Davud was up and washing his face. He had much to prepare for, but he started only a short while later, suddenly aware of a new presence in the room. “My King?”
He expected to find Ihsan, but it wasn’t him. It was another.
“You will forget my face,” came a voice so soft it was nearly a whisper, “and you will forget that I was here.”
Just like that, the form blurred, becoming like a shadow. “Of course,” Davud said.
“There is one last request your King has for you, Davud. The most important of all.”
“Anything.”
“When you’ve done all Ihsan has asked of you, you will take Çedamihn’s life, and then you will take your own.”
“I . . .” It seemed an odd request. “Excellence, are you certain that is what you wish?”
“I’m certain.”
Davud nodded. “Then it will be done.”
“Very good, Davud.” And the door clicked shut.
* * *
After retrieving the golden triangle from the bureau at his bedside, Davud picked up his candle and moved to the patio. It was night yet, but the sky was overcast, no starlight visible. He gave the triangle a spin, hoping it would work anyway, but it fell, tinkling against the mosaic tabletop.
Perhaps it only needs time. As he held it in his palm, hoping the night sky would grant it the power it needed, he rubbed his temples, trying to clear a bit of the pain. He’d had a terrible headache since waking and setting about the tasks he’d been set by . . .
Now that was strange. He couldn’t recall who. I’m tired. I can worry about that when the sun rises.
He spun the triangle again, and again it rattled against the tabletop. He tried a third time, and a fourth. Gods, no! He needed this to work.
The Sparrow’s words played in his mind. You need but summon the sigil for passage and doorway, he’d said. The moment he’d spoken those words, Davud had felt wary. He’d said it pleasantly. With kindness, it seemed. But this whole situation—Sukru and the hunger in his close
-set eyes, Anila and her growing power, the sudden appearance of the Sparrow and his stories of Sukru—it all had Davud on edge.
He mightn’t have done it now, not if it was for him alone, but this was to save Çeda. She was here at least in part because of him. He’d been the one to show her the tunnel to the collegia tower. He’d helped her uncover the Kings’ secrets. Thaash’s bright blade, who was it that told me Çeda was captured? Sukru?
The triangle glinted in the candlelight. He picked it up. Felt the sharp edge of one of the corners, carefully considering what he was about to do. Such a treacherous path. In that brief moment of indecision, his headache became markedly stronger, and he decided it was worth the risk. He pressed the triangle into his thumb, piercing skin, and worked the flesh until blood welled. He drew the sigil the Sparrow had described on his palm, then placed the triangle there and gripped it.
Immediately he felt a hollow sensation building in his stomach. It came on so swiftly he threw the triangle from him. It turned in the air and wobbled like a top. But then it started to rotate more smoothly, and grew. The sides expanded, becoming larger and larger until each was nearly as long as Davud was tall. What shocked him more was that the triad’s center now revealed not the trunk of the fig tree behind it but another place entirely.
Davud approached carefully. Within the triangle’s borders was a room with sandstone walls. A clutch of candles held in an iron sconce lit the room in pale light. On the far wall stood a shelf of books and scrolls of all sizes, plus a host of clay tablets in wooden trays. There was a rocking chair on a rug. A hearth beside it. Dominating the left side of the room was a table of thick wood, like a butcher’s block. All about the space were cages both large and small, some on desks, others on pedestals, others still hanging from the walls and ceiling. Within were dozens, hundreds of small birds. There were many firefinches, like the one the Sparrow had sent to spy on Davud and to deliver him the triangle, and many others besides. Berrypeckers and tailrunners. Saddlebacks and thornbills. A dozen more Davud had no name for.
“Hello?” Davud called softly. “Sparrow?”
The birds chirped softly, some fluttering in their cages before settling once more.
“Hello?” he called again.
Taking a deep breath, he screwed up his courage, hiked up his robes, and stepped through. He moved swiftly lest the thing return to its previous size and chop him in two. The triangle, however, continued to spin.
“Hello, it’s Davud. I’ve come to speak to you.”
The fire was low in the hearth, but the room was quite warm. Davud peered into the darkness beyond the open door, fearful of leaving the triangle lest it close and trap him here. There was nothing for it, though. He was committed. As he took a step toward the open door, he noticed a book in the rocking chair. A journal, perhaps. He was reaching for it when a voice spoke from the darkened hallway.
“So cometh the young mage.” At the sudden sound, the birds flapped noisily about their cages, then settled like windblown leaves.
“I’ve just . . . I’ve just come from Sukru’s palace.”
“I’d be surprised if you’d come from another.”
He thought he’d known who he was speaking to, but now he wasn’t so sure. The voice sounded deeper, more hoarse. “I’m here to see the Sparrow?”
The shadow shifted, and Davud could just make out the silhouette of a smallish man. “Mmmm,” the voice said noncommittally. “I’m pleased you’ve come. I’d begun to wonder if you’d ever take up my offer.”
“I haven’t come to take up your offer, exactly. Not yet, in any case.”
“Not yet?”
“I need your help. There’s someone who will need shelter. She must be hidden from the Kings and then seen safely into the desert.”
An uncomfortable silence followed. “Would the Kings be wroth to learn of her departure?”
“Yes.”
“Mmmm.” The birds flapped noisily for a moment. “Who is she to you that you would risk so much?”
“A friend.”
“A friend,” the Sparrow echoed. “Who is she to the Kings, then?”
Davud didn’t wish to reveal Çeda’s identity, but he supposed there would be no hiding it in the end. Better to let the Sparrow know now than discover it when he needed his help the most. “When we first spoke, you said you would do much to anger Sukru.”
“And it was the truth.”
“The woman is known as the White Wolf. She took up an ebon blade but has since been named a traitor. She killed two of the Kings, if the stories are true.”
Davud felt certain he’d erred in sharing this, but then a deep chuckle issued forth from the darkness. “You wish to steal Çedamihn the White Wolf from beneath their very noses?”
“Just so.”
The chuckle built into a rumbling laugh. When he spoke again, his satisfaction was plain. “Very well, Davud. Very well. I will help. Under one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll need a place to shelter. A place to hide until the storm has passed. If I help with your White Wolf, I ask only that you remain here with me. You’ll share what you’ve learned, and perhaps I can teach you a bit of what I know.”
Davud had expected this, but still felt uncomfortable about it. It felt as if he were freeing himself from one man only to give himself to another. “Before I give my answer, I would know who you are. Show me your face.”
“What good would that do you?”
“It would show your trust in me, which would tell me much about you.”
“I am but an old man, forgotten by the world.”
“I will see your face or find another way.”
Another deep chuckle came from the darkness. “If I but walk in the light, you would join me?”
“Let us see,” Davud said, growing more nervous by the moment.
A pause. Then the figure began moving toward the room. The urge to turn and run became so strong, Davud felt his feet shifting on the carpet beneath him.
But then the Sparrow paused. “No. I think not.” He sniffed, then hawked to clear his throat. “Not yet. I’ll share more when you return. If you return.” When Davud didn’t respond, he continued, his tone indignant. “Have I given you reason to doubt me? Have I not helped you when you needed it? Suffice it to say that Sukru wronged me many years ago, and I’ve since made it my business to see that he does it to no one else. To those who walk the red paths, in any case. I can’t be expected to save all that Sukru sets his cruel eyes on.” The Sparrow’s silhouette shifted. Davud saw the glint of his eyes. “What say you, Davud Mahzun’ava? I’ll have your answer now that you’ve come to know me so well.”
Davud felt ill at ease, but he had no cards to play. “Very well, but I’ll need your help first. A sigil—”
Davud stopped. He’d heard footsteps behind him. He turned and peered through the edges of the slowly turning triangle to find Anila stepping onto his patio. “Davud?”
Davud turned back to the Sparrow, unsure what to do.
“Best you go now, boy,” the Sparrow said. “I’ve seen those entering and leaving the palace. I’ve heard the tales flitting over Tauriyat like a flock of blazing blues. I know the sort of sigil you’ll need.”
“Very well,” Davud said. “Be prepared for us, later today.”
Without waiting for a response, he stepped through the triangle and released the trickle of power he’d been using to sustain the portal. The triangle slowly shrank to its original size and he snatched it from the air just as it was beginning to fall, then turned to face Anila. For a moment she looked like the Anila of old—a brash young student always pushing herself to outstrip her peers, always pressing the collegia masters to understand a thing inside and out.
She pointed to the place where the triangle had been spinning. “Would Sukru be pleased to learn of this?”<
br />
“No, he would not.”
The nerves from a few moments ago faded as Davud settled into a decision that felt right. He had planned to tell Anila about this anyway, but it felt good to share with her, like they used to.
“Anila, I have something to tell you.”
“Is it to do with the Maiden, Çeda?”
“I . . . But how?”
“She was brought to the palace a short while ago. I thought you’d want to know.”
The feeling inside him felt impossible to contain. It felt as if he were being pulled in a thousand different directions. As succinctly as he could, he told Anila about the Sparrow. “I’m going to be leaving the palace. Today.” With the admission, the feeling inside him began to ease. “Come with me, Anila.”
Her brows pinched. “Why?” She looked over her shoulder, toward the door to his apartment. “To save her?”
She meant Çeda, of course, but why was she so angry? “Yes. I owe her this. But I would leave with you.”
“You don’t owe her anything. She’s a traitor to the Kings!”
Davud’s headache had receded, but now it was storming back, stronger than ever. His heart felt like it was going to gallop right out of his chest. “I’m going to save her,” he said through the growing pain. “And then I’m leaving Sukru’s service.”
“To do what?”
“Find Hamzakiir and punish him.”
“And you don’t think that would be easier in the service of the Kings?”
“The Kings seem to be doing a rather poor job of it, Anila. Haven’t you wondered just how interested they are in finding him?”
Anila shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said no, but we’re in a better position to achieve our aims if we remain here.”
“I don’t trust Sukru.”
“You would trust a man you don’t even know more than a King who’s sheltered you, who’s given you access to texts you would never have had otherwise?”
“Sukru has twisted pleasures. Tastes I suspect will be turned on us sooner or later.”
Davud was sure Anila was going to rail against him, call him a liar or a fool for believing what others have told him about Sukru, but instead she shrugged. She seemed truly off-balance for the first time in this conversation. “I’ve heard stories as well, but you know how truth is distorted over time.”
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