Devorah complied, if only to humor him, but by the gods who breathe, the araq tasted like sunshine. There were notes of pear and persimmon and peach, with undercurrents of distant campfires, veiled beyond the dunes. It did much to lift Devorah’s spirits.
“I thought you might like it,” Sukru said, sipping his own drink with relish. “It’s from the northeast, the land of the Standing Stones. Years ago I might have scoffed at the notion, but they’ve managed to fold in several Mirean ingredients to good effect.”
“They have,” Devorah echoed. “It’s better than any araq I’ve ever had. Any drink I’ve ever had.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “A single bottle costs as much as an akhala.” He finished his drink and poured himself another before speaking again. “The other day, when the prizes of Annam’s Traverse were announced, your sister had what is known in Sharakhai as widow’s shock.”
Devorah wasn’t quite sure she understood all the implications of the idiom, but the heart of it was plain enough. Leorah had not handled the situation with aplomb. “She was only surprised, my Lord King. I hope you’ll forgive her.”
“Mmm.” He swished a mouthful of araq around both cheeks, then swallowed. “And you? Were you surprised?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Why?”
“Because that ring belonged to my mother.” There was no sense denying it. He would surely have heard the tale by now.
“And what happened to her, your mother?”
“She died in a sandstorm along with my father, uncle, and two cousins.” A necessary lie, one she, Leorah, Armesh, and Şelal had all agreed to when they’d been allowed into Tribe Rafik.
“A pity,” Sukru replied. “And the gemstone…” He said the words casually, though for a man like Sukru, who always seemed like a jackal working up the courage to attack, it seemed immediately threatening. “The amethyst your sister now competes for. How was it that it came into Şelal’s possession if, as you say, your mother was lost in a sandstorm?”
“She rarely wore it. It was kept in a box, which was where it remained until we finally accepted that none of them would return.”
“A pity,” he said again, though this time the words were worse than lifeless. They were practically amused. “She wore it seldom, you said, but I wonder, did she ever tell you of its properties?”
Devorah shook her head, hoping that in her silence, the King might tell her more. “Properties, Excellence?”
“Have you worn it yourself?”
“Sometimes, as a child.”
“And what did you feel at those times?”
She shrugged, suddenly more curious than fearful. “I felt proud, like a queen of the desert. Leorah and I used to play—”
Sukru waved her words away like a bothersome cloud of flies. “What did you feel inside?”
“Forgive me, my King, I’m not sure—”
“The tribes trade for information, do they not?” The King’s eyes had grown sharp, revealing some small amount of the anger that seemed to be bubbling up inside him. “While we drink, let us do so.”
Coming from a King, and she but a woman from a distant desert tribe, the words were indistinguishable from an edict. “Of course,” she replied. “What I have is yours.”
“You know the story of how Yerinde swept Tulathan from the heavens?”
“All know that story, my Lord King.”
“Yes, but what is rarely spoken of is the manner in which she was taken.”
“She was ensorcelled,” Devorah said.
“True enough, but how? When Iri left our world for the farther fields, he bequeathed to Yerinde, his favorite among the younger gods, a gem. An amethyst of astounding size and clarity. Some called it the Sunset Stone. Others the Flame of Iri. Yerinde used it to trap Tulathan, her soul caught within its facets. Thereafter, Yerinde returned to her tower in the mountains and secreted the gem away, hoping to woo the silver goddess over time, to make Tulathan love her as she loved Tulathan. For many long years, they spoke at sunset and sunrise—such was the power inherent in the stone—but always Tulathan resisted Yerinde’s advances.
“Meanwhile, Tulathan’s sister, Rhia, grew despondent. She searched the desert wide for her twin, to no avail. Then one day, many years later, the fates rewarded her persistence. Goezhen, who’d learned of Yerinde’s whereabouts, had whispered it not to his fellow gods, but to his children, the ehrekh, crafted from his own blood, his own hatred of man. Through them, Rhia learned that it was Yerinde who’d taken Tulathan away.
“Enraged, she went to Yerinde’s tower and struck the goddess down. She shattered the amethyst, freeing her sister in the process. The stone was broken into four pieces. They became known as Iri’s Four Sacred Stones. Some called them the Tears of Tulathan. One was taken by Tulathan herself, to remind her of her own imprisonment. A second was destroyed by Thaash centuries later. One is believed stolen and taken away from the desert a thousand years ago. That leaves the fourth, of which there has been no word for centuries.” Sukru paused, staring intently at Devorah.
He was implying, of course, that her mother’s amethyst was one of the four, a Sacred Stone of Iri.
“It cannot be,” she said.
“Why can it not?”
“It was my mother’s. A simple piece of jewelry.”
“No one can look upon that stone and call it simple.”
“Still. She wore it as if it were nothing more than a fancy.”
“And where did she get it?”
“From my grandmother, her mother.”
“And she?”
“I was never told.”
“Come now. Surely your mother told you something of its nature.”
“No,” Devorah said, “she never did. Surely it cannot be the same stone!”
“When you wore it, did you feel a yearning of any sort, an emptiness while others were near?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t, Your Grace.”
To this point, Sukru had seemed eager, if piqued, at her inability to share more. Now, his expression darkened. Such a pretty meal… “Centuries ago it was considered not merely rude to withhold information once they’d entered a trade of knowledge, but unlawful. Men and women lost fingers for replying with less candor than their counterpart. Others, when it was important to the defense of Sharakhai, lost their heads.”
“I wasn’t aware we had entered into so formal a version of trading.”
“Now you are.”
Devorah knew what he wanted, but knew just as well she couldn’t give it to him. Everything he’d said so far had been a revelation. It seemed impossible. How could such a stone have fallen into her mother’s hands? She couldn’t begin to guess, but she was well certain if she didn’t tell Sukru something, there would be a price to pay.
She nearly confessed her secret, the one she hadn’t even shared with Leorah yet. She only wanted to be free from this tent, free from Sukru. But instead, after thinking on it a moment, she took a different tack, a more dangerous one. “My mother told me nothing before her death. But I have worn the stone, as I’ve said, and I swear before the gods of the desert, I felt nothing at the time. I knew not what I held, however. If you know anything—anything at all—you could share it with me. Perhaps Şelal will allow me to wear it and I could tell you what I find.”
Until now, everything about Sukru had spoken of his hunger for knowledge: the leer in his eyes, his insistent tone, the way his lips drew back to reveal his small, yellow teeth. A rage had been building in him, a thing he might unleash at any moment. At Devorah’s suggestion, however, he seemed to shrink. His expression devolved into one of simple, childlike worry, of jealousy over secrets he clearly wanted to hoard as his own. He masked it a moment later, replacing it with an expression of simple neutrality, a sort of inoffensive airiness made all the more conspicuous for how desperate it made him seem to discover more about the amethyst. Were it anyone else sitting before her, she would have laughed.
Sukru sipp
ed his araq, and the somewhat discourteous manner he’d displayed on her arrival returned. “There’s no need,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “You’ll forgive, I trust, my curiosity getting the better of me.” With his glass, the golden araq within it swirling, he motioned for Devorah to take up hers. “Please. To let any of this go unappreciated would be a high crime.”
He became almost friendly over the next hour. Perhaps he realized he’d gone too far. Or perhaps he believed her story, that she knew nothing, and with that barrier removed found that he could talk to her as he would any other. Whatever the case, they spoke of Devorah’s parents, sliding quickly to life in Sharakhai, the palaces, the cramped streets, the high walls. Devorah loved to sail, loved the feel of the wind as it filled a sandship’s sails, loved the varied swaths of desert she’d visited in her young life, which had only fueled her fire to see more. It made his stories of Sharakhai feel like damnation, a sentence to life in an oubliette. The day she left the desert was the day she would die and fly to the farther fields.
After a veritable flock of bite-sized, thousand-layer sweets, the King said his farewells and Devorah was soon walking over the cooling sands toward the Rafik camp. She forced her pace to remain slow, calm, even after she’d moved beyond the galleon; there was no telling if one of the ship’s crew or the Blade Maidens might see her. Once she’d moved beyond the first line of tents, however, she was running headlong along the unordered rows until she’d arrived at the tent she shared with Leorah.
Inside, she dropped to her knees before their wooden chest, the one where they kept their few valuables. She dumped them all out—handfuls of coins, bits of paper with poems written on them, small ivory statues—so that she could get to the bottom, which was false. Pulling back the wood, a compartment was revealed, and in it, a small silk pouch. She pulled the drawstrings to widen the mouth, then upended it.
What fell from within was a golden ring with an amethyst set in it. It was the same size as the one they’d given to Şelal, and nearly identical save for the crack that could barely be seen running through it, and then only if it were held up to the sun. She hid the ring in her hand as a man and woman walked by the tent, the two of them speaking softly. When it was clear they were continuing on, Devorah slipped the ring on and concentrated. She felt for something, anything, that might indicate that the amethyst was one of Iri’s Sacred Stones.
As the couple’s footsteps faded, as their hushed words and the woman’s giggles softened, she felt nothing. Nothing at all. She replaced the contents of the chest, including its false bottom, but kept the ring. She waited there for hours, holding it, trying ineffectually to convince herself that this was anything more than a normal jewel. Near dawn, she finally gave up. She wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or not. It would be a wonder if it had been a fabled jewel like King Sukru had described, but who would wish for such a thing? Those tales always seemed to end in sorrow. Better, she thought, for the jewel to remain mundane, a bit of insurance should she and Leorah ever need it.
Just as the sun was rising, as she was lying down to sleep, Leorah rushed into the tent. Devorah debated whether to tell her, but she’d hidden the information thus far. Her mother had wished it so. Don’t tell her about the second ring, Yael had said, not yet. She’s too wild. She’d only fritter it away. You’re the responsible one. Sell it if need be, else keep it safely hidden.
Devorah had done so, but just then, with Leorah standing over her, her expression of joy fading like stars at sunrise, she felt terrible for it.
“You won’t even talk to me now?” Leorah asked as she flopped onto her bedding.
She thought Devorah was still angry about the race. “I’m only tired.”
“You seemed awake enough when I came in.”
“I’m tired, Leorah.”
After a few moments of silence, Leorah came over and lay behind her. Devorah still wore the ring, but she’d turned it so that the jewel was resting in her palm, gripped by the fingers of her right hand.
“I’m sorry,” Leorah whispered, “for everything. I know I should have spoken to you about the traverse first, but you’d only have tried to talk me out of it. That ring is ours. I won’t let him have it.”
Devorah nearly told her then. But instead, she hugged Leorah’s arms more tightly around her and said, “I know.”
They fell asleep like that, Leorah cradling Devorah, Devorah cradling the hidden amethyst.
❖ ❖ ❖
As dawn broke on the third day following the end of the first contest, ten riders waited in a line, horses stamping and restless, their breath clouds that dissipated quickly in the cool morning air. Leorah sat on Wadi. All the horses seemed eager, but Wadi was full of nervous anticipation. He tugged at the reins, his tail swished, and the skin along his shoulders and flanks flicked.
To the right of the line, the winner’s post no longer held ten pennants, but two, each representing one of the two riders who would move on to the third and final contest. Just beyond the post, Şelal held her whip at the ready. The morning celebration had just ended. Speeches had already been made.
The gathered crowd cheering her on, Şelal twice cracked her whip overhead. Like arrows from bows, Leorah and the other riders were off, heading toward Annam’s Crook, the daunting black peak that loomed above them. The horses’ hooves plodded onward, tails of sand kicking up behind, the sound like an approaching war party. As they rode further, the shallow dunes gave way to the earthy shelf below the mountain. The sound of their passing became sharper, their speed unfettered by the grasping sand.
Leorah had spent the past few days taking Wadi on easy rides to give the stallion a chance to recover but also to plan her ascent, which all riders were allowed, even encouraged, to do. There were three viable approaches, each with their own sets of challenges and advantages. The least taxing was an ascent along the mountain’s western slope, but as the riders began this stage from the desert to the east, it was also the longest. The southeastern face was steep but also reasonably close, and for this reason, most riders took it. The last was the most difficult by far. The northeastern face. It was steep after the first few hours of riding, very steep, with many broken, knife-edge trails that could easily lead to injury for horse or rider or both. Only the most accomplished climbers dared take it, which meant that Kirhan was almost sure to opt for it.
When they approached the first fork in the trail, the swiftest horses, four of them, all from Tribe Okan, peeled away and rode hard along the easy terrain. Leorah and the five others, meanwhile, began the steeper climb toward the near side of the mountain. As she’d expected, Kirhan remained with her group.
Devorah hadn’t shared everything about her conversation with Sukru, but she’d shared enough to make it clear just how important their mother’s ring was to him; he would surely have made the price of failure clear to Kirhan, his champion. Not that Kirhan would need much urging. He was a gifted rider, a physical specimen, and, if rumor were true, an inspired climber.
But Leorah was no tent maiden, either. She’d always enjoyed climbing—the solitude, the crisp air, the vistas hidden from all save those who dared attack those heights. She might not be as strong as Kirhan, but he had a lot of weight to carry. She had the supple grace of a climber, and she vowed to cede no ground to him.
Wadi, as he’d been on the last part of the first contest, was like a horse reborn, and eager to match pace with Kirhan’s gelding. As the two of them began outpacing the rest, Leorah got the impression they’d had this sort of race many times before. Indeed, as they approached the second split, Wadi drove even harder, tugging at the reins every time Leorah tried to slow his pace. Figuring he knew himself better than she did, she gave him all the reins he wanted. Wadi was healthy. Eager. He deserved a chance to win back his pride.
As they came to the split, Leorah was indecisive. She looked back. Saw Kirhan guiding his gelding toward the leftmost path, the one that would take him toward the easier southeastern face. She debated
following, but realized a moment later, when she saw him crack a smile, that it was only a feint. She guided Wadi along the rightmost path, and Kirhan followed, laughing now, the sound of it rising above the rhythm of pounding hooves.
She hid her own smile by facing forward, crouching in her saddle as Wadi’s pace devoured the expanse below the sharply climbing ground ahead. As she neared the mountain proper, she glanced over her shoulder and found that only Kirhan and Derya on her brass mare had joined her along the more dangerous route.
Derya was cause for worry. She was known as a consummate climber. She was thin as a blade, but strong, and she never wasted energy or effort, choosing her paths unerringly and with calm certainty.
On they went, attacking the incline, their speed slowing as the horses worked themselves into a lather. The land to either side of the path was littered with scrub brush, ironweed, and flowering bushes of purple and ivory and midnight blue.
To their left, in the distance, the first of the riders were passing around one long arm of the mountain. They’d be nearing a climb of their own in little time, but Leorah could spare them no mind. The trail was becoming rocky. The vegetation changed. Ironweed gave way to proper grasses. The bushes became taller evergreens. The path was still wide, but there were gaps here and there—all easily navigable, but they would grow worse. Much worse.
The air became cool and was a welcome relief to both Leorah and Wadi, who seemed to relish it, his head lifting high whenever a stiff breeze blew.
“Careful, now!” Kirhan called from fifty paces behind her. “Alir becomes skittish at the gaps.”
Indeed, ahead was a place where the trail had given way to a dry rivulet. The slope went from steep on Leorah’s right to a precipitous drop on her left. The valley was already dizzyingly far below them. Wadi stopped as he neared the gap. It was only as wide as Leorah’s hips, but it was still far enough for an untrained horse, or one nervous of slides, to balk at.
Leorah stroked Wadi’s neck and spoke softly, soothingly, “Kirhan’s horse, the one he calls Alir, might have been afraid of this, but you, Wadi, are not. Wadi took to the desert and overcame the curse the gods placed on him. Wadi devoured the remainder of the race. Wadi forged a path up Annam’s Crook while all others fell behind.”
The Doors at Dusk and Dawn: A Shattered Sands Novella Page 5