by David Hair
Someone called, ‘Kazim?’ and he glanced up and saw Jamil had entered the tiered seating above the pit, his scarred and lined face cracking into a rare smile. ‘Get cleaned up,’ he called down. ‘We’re wanted.’
‘Who by?’ Kazim asked suspiciously. Jamil was his friend, but he was also Hadishah, and that loyalty came first.
‘Rashid.’
Kazim cursed softly. He had no wish to see Rashid, but despite this he hurried to obey, for Rashid Mubarak was head of this chapter of the Hadishah and his word was law.
‘What’s happening?’ he asked Jamil after he’d poured water over his head and dried it with the cloth Jamil had handed him.
The Hadishah warrior shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but something big. Very big.’
Kazim grimaced. ‘As long as that hag Sabele isn’t there.’
Jamil looked at him steadily. ‘You must learn to accept who you are, brother.’
They both knew he was afraid to see the Souldrinker jadugara Sabele and his sister Huriya; unlike himself, Huriya had embraced the revelation of their shared Souldrinker heritage and followed Sabele willingly – but then, she’d always been a conniving minx.
‘How can I?’ He looked at Jamil. ‘Have you seen Huriya?’
Jamil shook his head. He’d had hopes of a relationship with his friend’s beautiful sister, but those were gone now. ‘My kind and yours – the union is forbidden. Unknown, even.’
That gave him pause. Ramita is magi now … The world conspires against us.
‘Can you tell what I am, just by looking at me?’
Jamil said hesitantly, ‘Now that you are training, and depleting your powers, it becomes evident. Your aura is different. It is … hungrier.’ He looked profoundly uncomfortable about it all. ‘Come, my friend. We must not keep Rashid waiting.’
They hurried to the Dom-al’Ahm, removed their sandals and entered, barely noticed as they hurried past the ranks of worshippers prostrating themselves to Ahm and praying in echo to the words of the Godspeaker at the front. They took stairs leading below the dome, to a chamber lit by a single torch. The door closed behind them, cutting off the sound of the prayers.
‘Thank you for coming.’ Rashid’s melodious voice filled the small room. He was seated cross-legged on an intricately woven carpet beneath the torch.
Kazim and Jamil sank to their haunches on another larger carpet opposite him.
‘The time has come for the next stage of our plans.’
‘We are ready,’ Jamil said, and Kazim nodded in reluctant agreement.
‘Good,’ Rashid responded. ‘For in a few weeks time, we’re going to destroy the Ordo Costruo.’
*
Huriya Makani stared through the stone lattice-work of the remains of the zenana, the women’s wing of the broken palace, overlooking a ruined garden. The abandoned fortress northeast of Hebusalim had never been repaired after falling during the Second Crusade. Now it stank of stale piss and rot.
She turned as her mentor Sabele hobbled around the curve of the narrow balcony. Sabele was a crone while Huriya was in the full bloom of youth; despite her deeply tanned skin, Sabele was actually a white woman, born in Yuros centuries ago, while Huriya was a dark-skinned, black-haired Keshi of barely sixteen years. But they were both Souldrinkers, magi who had triggered their gnosis by inhaling the soul of a dying mage. Huriya had never suspected she had the trait until Sabele had revealed it to her, but nerve and greed were things she had always had in abundance, just like Sabele. The hag, herself a Souldrinker for centuries, had been visiting Huriya secretly most of her life, promising great rewards for patience – predictions that were finally coming true.
‘Are we alone?’ Sabele croaked.
Huriya clasped both hands together and bowed. ‘We are.’ She’d been scanning the area carefully with her newfound gnosis.
Sabele smiled her aggravating smile, the one that said she’d outwitted her protégé. ‘Look again, girl.’ She peered through the stonework. ‘Don’t look just for men.’
Ah. Huriya swallowed her irritation, closed her eyes and reopened her mind. She reached out to the sentinels she’d placed about the old fortress. Under Sabele’s supervision she’d been capturing weak daemons and placing them into the bodies of birds, mostly crows. She now had a flock a dozen strong that followed her everywhere.
A moment’s communion told her what she needed to know.
‘There are jackals outside the walls,’ she reported, a little afraid. ‘And something else.’
Sabele smiled. ‘Better, child.’ She touched Huriya’s shoulder and sent a tingle of pleasure through her nerve system, an exquisite combination of mental and sexual bliss that left her panting slightly, her nipples stiffening, her groin tingling. She exhaled heavily. Sabele knew her too well; she knew how to keep her enslaved. The ancient Souldrinker could reduce Huriya to a quivering lump of flesh with just a touch on the arm, giving pain or pleasure, whichever suited her whim. Huriya hated and craved such moments.
One day I will have learnt all you can teach me, hag. Then beware …
‘Come,’ the crone said, and led her through the maze of half-wrecked passages, dead vines clinging to the stonework and snakes slithering through the shadows, towards the gates. Huriya could feel the jackals entering; she glimpsed them though her daemon-birds’ eyes.
When they reached the courtyard they paused at the top of the stairs. The beasts below turned and silently regarded them. They were larger than common jackals, with at least twice the body mass, and they rumbled and growled and ducked their heads as if bowing. Then as one they fell to the ground, writhing through the agonies of mutation. Limbs began to form, arms and legs; jaws shortened and narrowed as fur came away in flakes and became dust. Some pissed or shat as they changed, losing control of their bodies in the moment, but then their torsos reformed into lean, muscle-laden flesh. They were men and women of many races, many colours, blonde hair and dark, copper skin and white, and all young to middle-aged, strong and well-made. She watched breathlessly as they changed before her, their faces contorted by pain or pleasure, as if experiencing some ultimate orgasm.
‘Are they all shapechangers?’ Huriya breathed.
Sabele arched an eyebrow. ‘Our kind have tended to band according to prime affinity. It is both a strength and a weakness. This group have been a pack for centuries. They are like insects of the same hive.’
‘Then there are others like me?’
‘You are my apprentice, girl. You will stand above them all.’
Huriya smiled inwardly at this as her eyes were drawn back to the bodies writhing – like beasts – beneath her.
Just as the shapechangers were climbing to their feet, a mountain lion entered the courtyard. He did not waste time with any messy transfiguration; he simply reared upright, shedding his shape as he came on. He strode through the strewn bodies as they rose, a godlike body appearing from beneath the fur he shed. His mane became tawny hair that fell past his broad shoulders, and his corded belly flexed as he moved. His manhood was semi-erect amidst the golden thatch of hair at his loins. His thighs were like tree-trunks. His face shone in the late sun, and Huriya’s breath – and her scorn – caught in her throat.
Mine, she growled inwardly, drinking him in with her eyes. One of the female shapechangers, a hard-faced creature all sinew and sun-blackened skin, seemed to hear her thought. She glared at Huriya threateningly.
‘Packleader Zaqri,’ Sabele greeted him as he went down on one knee.
‘My Queen,’ the golden man replied in Rondian. His words were echoed by the rest of his pack – and it was his, Huriya could see that clearly.
‘Thank you for coming, Zaqri my child,’ Sabele croaked in the same tongue. Huriya knew enough of it by now, through mind-to-mind learning, that she could follow the conversation. ‘I have a mission for you.’
‘You have only to command us,’ Zaqri told her.
‘I know.’ Sabele smiled. She was standing a little taller and he
r skin looked less lined, almost as if she were growing younger.
Huriya wondered if it was illusion; perhaps it was pride.
‘Come, there is food and clothing in the dormitories. How long have you been on the road?’
‘Three weeks in beast-form, my Queen,’ Zaqri replied. His eyes went to Huriya, measuring her, and she looked back steadily. He had a wild beard and tangled hair, and a thick pelt on his chest. The beast clearly still lurked within.
‘This is your new student?’
Sabele inclined her head. ‘Huriya Makani.’
‘Daughter of Razir?’
‘The same.’
He knew my father? Huriya’s skin prickled.
Zaqri nodded appraisingly. ‘It is good that his line returns to our tribe. She has awakened?’
Sabele stroked Huriya’s arm, sending a pleasant shiver through her. ‘She fed on a half-blood.’
Zaqri bared his teeth. ‘A good start.’
A good start. Huriya almost forgot to breathe, barely masking her excitement. Does he mean that I could be stronger? The rest was easy to work out. I have to kill someone stronger than me and drink their soul.
Sabele had not told her that – had perhaps not intended to tell her, not when she was the obvious next meal.
But Sabele was still talking, and the mission that she outlined soon erased all other thoughts. ‘We go to Krak di Condotiori, to visit destruction on the Ordo Costruo.’
A whole order of magi to devour … Whose soul might I not consume then?
4
Into Captivity
Pregnancy manifestation
A great wonder came to pass: Agnes, a mere human who had been taken to wife by Sertain, Magus Primus, became herself Magi of the Second Rank by virtue of bearing his progeny in her womb.
THE ANNALS OF PALLAS
Gestational manifestation was once common place, as the Ascendants were young and virile. Now it is a rarity as the original Ascendants reach their old age and pass on. At times the human wife of a pure-blood might experience a temporary gnostic awakening, or a very weak permanent effect, but the last human woman we know of who has experienced full awakening through carrying an Ascendant’s child has long since died. New Ascendants created by the Scytale of Corineus have exclusively married pure-bloods, and any liaisons with human women have to my knowledge been fruitless.
ASA CENIUS, BRES ARCANUM SCHOLAR, 911
Kesh, Antiopia
Rajab (Julsep) 928
1st month of the Moontide
Ramita Ankesharan watched as the unknown woman she’d been staring at suddenly jolted as if struck by a thrown stone and looked wildly about her. She pulled the curtain across so their eyes would not meet and smiled to herself in satisfaction. In the other corner of the carriage’s pokey cabin her maid dozed, oblivious. More importantly, so did the armed man beside her.
Third one today, she reflected, glowing inwardly. She had been trying to hone her fledgling gnostic skills, using the very least energy she could – any error might alert those with her, and she couldn’t afford that. It was like creeping past a slumbering snake: to misstep would be death. But so far she was treading soft and sure. She rubbed at the bulge at her belly. I will protect you, my little ones. I will see you safe.
She had very little idea where in the world she was: Dhassa and Kesh were foreign lands to her, and she’d never paid much attention to maps – not that they’d had any when she was growing up in the marketplace of Baranasi. Now her world was limited to this carriage, rolling slowly eastwards on roads choked with all of humanity. Bench seats faced forwards and backwards, with barely room for feet between. The tiny windows were curtained to keep the dust out, but the air inside the cabin was hot and smelled. Sweat soaked the bodice of her salwar kameez and dripped from her face into her gauzy dupatta scarf. Her belly churned with each lurch. It was already visibly distended, though this was only the third month of her pregnancy. Her hands cradled the bulge protectively.
Prune-faced Arda slumbered in the opposite corner. She was Keshi, and the most close-mouthed woman Ramita had ever met. Not that conversation was easy in the nauseating bump-and-sway of the carriage. She found herself missing Huriya, until she remembered the way her lifetime friend had betrayed her, by her part in the murder of her husband, and she forcibly evicted the girl from her thoughts. At least Arda was a known enemy.
An armed man slept beside Arda. Mostly he rode above with the driver, where the air could at least pretend to freshness, but he liked to sleep in the afternoon. His name was Hamid and he looked all Keshi, but he had the Rondian magic, the gnosis – he sometimes made little flames dance on his finger-tips to show off. He was maybe twenty, with a cocky manner. He liked to leer at the female refugees they passed, calling out lewd offers, but he did not pester Ramita, to her relief. Of course she was a valued prisoner, so maybe he was frightened to tease her. Or perhaps being pregnant and a Lakh, he found her repulsive.
The journey was an ordeal. All of Dhassa and Kesh were on the move, fleeing the coming Crusade. The rich had left long ago, but the poor, with no incomes if they fled their businesses and farms, had hung on as late as they could before joining the flood of refugees. If she were to pull open the curtains she would see them up close: their handcarts weighed down with massive burdens, all their lives and property bundled up and lashed down. She would see barefoot people trudging through the dust and stones, faces set in hard-eyed blank stares: mothers carrying their children on their shoulders, others breastfeeding as they walked. Men who were already little more than skin stretched over frames of bone scavenged the refuse for anything they could feed to their starving wives and children. Occasionally horsemen galloped by, careless of those they scattered before them as they rampaged through, intent on their missions. Dhassa was emptying. In the last Crusade, the Rondians had plundered eastwards all the way to Istabad. This time would be worse, the people were saying.
She glanced furtively at her sleeping companions, then opened the curtain once more. The last person she’d thrown her mental stone at was out of sight, somewhere behind them. She found her eyes drawn to two young girls, walking hand in hand, heads bowed, featureless forms in bekira-shrouds, utterly anonymous.
Chod! Ramita dropped the curtain aside. She knew instinctively what she’d done wrong: by not focusing enough on one, she’d called both. She scolded herself. If her plans to escape were to come to fruition, she had to do better than that.
She’d been working hard, like a good Lakh woman, but she’d been subtle too, lest Hamid sense her activities. No one alive yet knew that she could do these things. To escape, she needed to perfect her call, to make it narrow, strong and focused. The people outside the window, changing by the moment, were the perfect subjects for practice, so she waited a minute, until the two girls were somewhere behind, and tried again on someone else.
Often, though, she could not bear to watch them. Even Arda’s blank scowl was better than the suffering she saw everywhere, especially when her eyes strayed to the sides of the road and she saw the remains of those who had just given up, women and children, mostly. Their skin was burning black in the sun but their souls had long gone. Sometimes a wailing child still clung to a fallen mother, ignored by the rest of the passers-by. Hamid and Arda would not let her stop and help them, and she hated them even more for that, though she could also see that if they tried to save them all, this carriage would soon be stacked high with infants and she would have to sit on the roof.
I have two of my own coming. They must be my only concern.
So for now, she concentrated on self-learning these strange skills her pregnancy by Antonin Meiros had bequeathed her: the last gift of her dead husband, and the proof that it was he and not Kazim who had fathered her children.
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I will escape somehow. I will bear my children into freedom.
Arda woke, which ended her secret training session. The woman stared at her with contemptuous eyes, as she had throughout the journey. To her I am a whore who sold myself to an old jadugara and let him impregnate me. But I don’t care what she thinks of me.
‘Where are we?’ she asked. Huriya and Kazim had taught her Keshi as they grew up together, and she spoke Rondian now as well, thanks to her husband’s tutelage, though she was not terribly fluent in that awkward language.
Arda considered her with her raisin eyes. She seldom responded even to direct questions, but for whatever reason, she answered this one. ‘Near Sagostabad.’
‘Is that our destination?’ Ramita asked, while Arda was in the mood to speak.
The old woman blinked slowly. ‘Halli’kut.’
Halli’kut. Where Rashid Mubarak is Emir. Ramita felt an invisible cord tighten about her throat. She was pretty sure Rashid was the leader of the Hadishah; he’d certainly been the puppet master who’d contrived her husband’s death. The last time he’d spoken to her, he had laid out her fate very clearly: if the babies in her womb were Antonin’s, then her blood rank would be strong and Rashid himself would take her to wife. If they were not, she would be given back to Kazim.
Ramita could not decide which fate was worse.
She found she’d lost her appetite for questions.
Sometimes they slept in abandoned houses, small, crude shelters of mudbrick. Other nights, they simply stopped, and Hamid and the driver shared the roof while Ramita and Arda each took a bench-seat. Neither woman was even five feet tall, but still the benches were too short and hard for comfort. The air was not much cooler than during the day, but at least the pitiless sun was gone. And all about them refugees suffered, rubbing blistered, aching feet and road-sore backs, sipping rancid water when their bellies cried out to be flooded. There was never enough of the lentils and grain, the only foodstuffs left, and Ramita dozed uneasily, the constant wail of hungry children permeating her dreams.