She stood twenty paces away now.
As she approached the godling boys, she wondered how vengeful the god Onondu might be. She hoped it wouldn’t come to bloodshed, but she’d promised herself that if they wouldn’t listen to her commands, she would do whatever she needed to protect herself, even if it meant killing his children. Her identity was her most closely guarded secret, after all—no different than a chest of golden rahl, a chest these boys had tipped over with their mischief, spilling its treasure over the dirt for Rümayesh and Ashwandi and perhaps all of Sharakhai to see. Things would only grow worse if she let these boys be.
Ten paces away.
Then five.
The nearest twin faced away from her, looking downriver to the trading ship, which was just mooring, men and women busying themselves about the deck, a few jumping to the pier. She’d grab him first, drag him down and put her knife to his throat, then she’d grip the finger tightly and speak her wish. The moment she took a step forward, though, something snapped beneath her foot.
She glanced down. Gods, a dried branch off the acacia. How could she have missed it?
When she looked up once more, Hidi, the one with the scar, was turned on the branch, looking straight at her with those piercing blue eyes. His form blurring, he dropped and sprinted up the bank.
Çeda ran after him and was nearly on him, hand outstretched, ready to grab a fistful of his ivory-colored tunic, when something fell on her from behind. She collapsed and rolled instinctively away, coming to a stand with her kenshar at the ready, but by the time she did both of the boys were bounding away like a brace of desert hare.
She was up and chasing them in a flash. “Release me!” she called, gripping Ashwandi’s finger tightly. “Do you hear me? I command you to release me!”
But they didn’t listen, and soon they were leading a chase into the tight streets of the Knot, a veritable maze of mudbrick that had been built, and then built upon so that walkways and homes stretched out and over the street, making Çeda feel all the more watched as men and women and boys stared from the doorways and windows and balconies of their homes.
Çeda sprinted through the streets, wending this way, then that, coming ever closer to reaching the boys. She reached for the nearest of them—her hands even brushed his shoulder—but just then a rangy cat with eyes the very same color of blue as the boys’ came running out from behind a pile of overturned crates and tripped her. She fell hard onto the dirt as the boys ahead giggled.
She got up again, her shoulders aching in pain, and followed them down an alley. When she reached the mouth of the alley, however, she found not a pair of twin boys, but a strikingly beautiful woman wearing a jeweled abaya with thread-of-gold embroidery along cuff and collar and hem. She looked every bit as surprised as Çeda—almost as if she too had been following someone through the backtracked ways of the Knot.
“Could it be?” the woman asked, her voice biting as the desert wind. “The little wren I’ve been chasing these many weeks?”
Çeda had never seen this woman before—tall, elegant, the air of the aristocracy floating about her like a halo—but her identity could be no clearer than if she’d stated her name from the start.
“I’m no one,” she said to Rümayesh.
“Ah, but you are, sweet one.” From the billowing sleeve of her right arm a sling dropped into her hand. In a flash she had it spinning over her head, the sound of its blurred passage mingling with Rümayesh’s next words. “You certainly are.”
Then she released the stone.
Or Çeda thought it was a stone.
It flew like a spear for Çeda’s chest, and when it struck, a blue powder burst into the cool morning air. She tried not to breathe it, but she’d been startled and took in a lungful of the tainted air. As she spun away, its scent and taste invaded her senses—fresh figs mixed with something acrid, like lemons going to rot.
Çeda turned to run, but she’d not gone five strides before the ground tilted up and struck her like a maul. The world swam in her eyes as she managed with great effort to roll over. Blinking to clear her eyes of their sudden tears, she stared up at the blue sky peeking between the shoulders of the encroaching mudbrick homes. In the windows, old women and a smattering of children watched, but when they recognized the woman approaching Çeda, they ducked their heads back inside and shuttered their windows.
Çeda’s kenshar was gone, fallen in the dusty street two paces away, though it might as well have been two leagues for all her leaden limbs would obey her. She’d somehow managed to keep Ashwandi’s finger, though; its leather cord had surely prevented it from flying away like her knife. Her throat convulsed. Her tongue was numb, but she chanted while gripping the finger as tightly as her rapidly weakening muscles would allow. “Release me, Hidi . . . Release me, Makuo . . . release me, Onondu . . .”
The only answer she received was the vision of the beautiful woman coming to stand over her, staring down with bright eyes and a wicked demon grin.
Çeda woke staring at the ceiling of a dimly lit room.
She was lying on something cold and hard. She tried to sit up, tried to move but was unable to. Her legs felt as though the entire world were pressing down on them. Her arms were little better. Even her eyes moved with a strange listlessness, brought on, no doubt, by the powder that had erupted when the sling stone had struck.
The light in the room flickered strangely.
No.
The ceiling itself . . .
It was covered in some strange cloth, undulating like the fur-covered skin of some curious beast.
No.
Not cloth . . .
Wings. By the gods who breathe, they were wings.
She was lying in a room, and above her, covering the ceiling as far as the lamplight revealed, moths blanketed its surface, their wings folding slowly in and out, flashing their bright, cresset-shaped flames over and over and over. They did so in concert such that waves appeared to roll across their surface, as if they were not thousands upon thousands of individuals at all, but a collective that together formed some larger, unknowable consciousness. She couldn’t take her eyes from them, so hypnotic were they, not even when she heard footsteps approaching, the sound of them strangely deadened.
It was cool here. And humid. She was underground, then, in a cellar, perhaps, or one of the many caverns that could be found beneath the surface of Sharakhai.
The footsteps came nearer. “Do you like them?”
Rümayesh.
Soon the tall woman was standing over Çeda, staring down with an expression not so different from what a caring mother might share with her sick daughter. The urge to reject the very notion that this woman held any similarities whatsoever to Çeda’s mother, Ahya, manifested in a lifting of Çeda’s arm in an attempt to slap the look away. Her right arm shifted, but no more, leaving Çeda to fume as Rümayesh reached down and brushed Çeda’s hair from her forehead.
“They’re wondrous things,” she said, looking up to the ceiling, to the walls around them, every surface awash in a landscape of slowly beating wings. “Do you know what they do?”
Çeda tried to respond, but her mouth and tongue felt thick and rigid, like hardening clay.
Rümayesh went on, apparently unfazed by Çeda’s silence. “They are taken by the mouth, eaten, in a manner of speaking, and when one does, she is changed, drawn into the whole of the irindai, drawn into a dream of their, and your, making. Some think they’re connected, all of them, anywhere in the world, like threads in a grand weave, though I doubt it goes so far as that. These, though . . . My lovely brood . . .” She stopped near the wall and stretched out her forefinger until one of the moths crawled upon it, then she walked slowly across the room until she stood once more at Çeda’s side. “They are certainly aware of one another, as you will soon see.”
“Wuh . . .” Çeda tried forming w
ords. “Wuh . . . Wuh . . .”
Rümayesh stared at the moth as if she hadn’t heard Çeda’s graceless attempts at speech. “The effects of the powder will wear off in time, certainly soon enough for you to select the irindai you wish to consume”—she flicked her hand and the moth took wing, fluttering in the air for a moment, circling her, then flying back and returning to the very same location it had roosted before crawling onto Rümayesh’s outstretched finger—“though if experience has taught me anything, it’s the irindai that choose you, not the other way around.
“Relax, now. The ritual will start soon. I’d ask that you choose a memory for us to share. My patrons wait years to partake of someone as captivating as you, so choose well. Make the memory dear. I wouldn’t want them to leave disappointed.” She strode away, heading for the arched entrance to the room. “And I hope you’re not thinking of denying me this small request. If you refuse, I’ll simply find one on my own, but it’s less special for my patrons when I do. The memory is dimmed. More importantly to you, the experience will, I’m afraid, leave your mind quite ravaged, possibly beyond repair.”
When she reached the archway, she stopped and turned until she was staring sidelong at Çeda. “Perhaps the tale of the White Wolf’s first bout in the pits. Yes, I think that would please them a great deal. There will be plenty of time for the rest in the coming weeks.”
Dear gods, it was true then. It was all true. Rümayesh was going to force her to take one of these moths and relive her past. Like a dream, except her patrons would dream them as well. How many? A dozen? Two dozen? They’d witness her trips out to the blooming fields to harvest adichara petals. They’d see how she dried them and used them in service of Osman’s shades or her own needs. Either was a high crime in Sharakhai, punishable by death. She didn’t wish to die, but she was horrified by the thought of someone forcibly taking her memories from her. By Tulathan’s bright eyes, would she still have them when the moths were done with her? Or would the experience leave her some useless husk like Djaga’s mentor, Izel? Would she go to the farther fields not knowing her mother? She couldn’t bear it. She’d lost her mother eight years ago, but at least she still had her memories of her. At least she’d know her when they were reunited in the world beyond.
And all that wasn’t even the worst part.
The Kings of Sharakhai had killed her mother. She had vowed her revenge. It had driven her to so much. Her bouts in the pits, her shading for Osman, her trips to the blooming fields and her endless search for clues of how she could fulfill her promise to knock the wicked Kings from their perches atop this city. But if Rümayesh had her way, all that would be lost like bones ground to dust beneath the dunes of the Great Shangazi.
As a door somewhere boomed shut, Çeda commanded her muscles to move. She felt her legs shift, her arms twitch, but they would do no more than this. She tried over and over and over again, and soon it was bringing on a dull pain that grew with each attempt.
She saw movement to her right and managed to loll her head in that direction. Gods, a mound of irindai were rising, pulling away from their brethren. It was vaguely man-shaped, she realized.
Or boy-shaped.
As the form came forth, the moths began fluttering away, returning to their previous positions, and a second form began to emerge. Whole flocks of moths peeled away, revealing two boys with dark skin and bright blue eyes, and one of them, Hidi, with that terrible scar running down his cheek.
Hidi glanced to the archway where Rümayesh had recently gone. Makuo came straight for Çeda, a gentle smile on his lips. “You are here,” he said in a Kundhunese accent so thick Çeda could barely understand him.
“Yuh . . .” Çeda licked her lips and tried again. “You wuh-wanted me here.”
Hidi came and stood next to Makuo. “Yes, and now you come.”
“Buh . . . But I commanded you. Ashwandi . . .”
“Yes,” said Makuo, “and we are bound. We listened.”
“I s-said . . . to release me.”
Hidi tilted his head, as if speaking to a child. “And we will obey. We will give you the keys.”
“What do you mean?”
“You must release yourself,” said Hidi in a sharp tone. “Rümayesh is not so easy to move as that.”
“H-how?”
Hidi ignored her, choosing to step around the perimeter of the cellar, while Makuo reached into Çeda’s black thawb and pulled out her mother’s locket.
“Luh-leave that alone!”
“Calm yourself, girl.” He pried it open, revealing the two petals Çeda had placed inside. She’d normally have nothing inside, or perhaps one if she was expecting trouble, but she’d started carrying two for the fear that was constantly running through her.
Makuo took them, then whistled two sharp notes. A flurry of cressetwings descended from the ceiling, one of them alighting on Makuo’s outstretched finger, the rest continuing to fly around and above his head. With care, Makuo set the two petals onto the wings of the moth. The petals remained there, as if they’d been a part of the moth from the moment it struggled free of its chrysalis. Makuo whistled again, and the moth on his finger flew to rejoin the swarm.
Bit by bit, they retook their positions, but in doing so Çeda completely lost the one with the petals. She searched frantically, but couldn’t find it. “Where is it?”
At this the boys smiled and spoke in unison, “And what fun we going have if we be giving you that?” They glanced to the archway, and Hidi began backing away. Moths flew toward him, landing on him, layering his form as if consuming him. “You got to play the game, girl,” Hidi said as he was swallowed whole.
“Look to the flames.” Makuo touched his hand to Çeda’s cheek, then he too began backing away, following his brother. “Look to the flames and you’ll find it sure.”
Soon both of them had been consumed by the irindai, and all was still. She could hear her own heartbeat, so complete was the silence.
She looked among the irindai, from one to the next to the next, trying to find the one with the petals, but it was so bloody dim she couldn’t tell if one merely had a brighter mark of flame than usual or if it was indeed the one she needed.
While she searched, she worked her muscles—her legs, her arms, her neck, her torso. She thought the pain would ebb, but it only seemed to grow worse the more she moved. Gritting her teeth, she managed to bend her limbs, to regain some sense of normal movement, even if it was slow, even if it felt as though her muscles were made of bright, molten metal.
Just when she was ready to sit up, she heard the door opening, and this time many sets of footsteps approached. Kadir came first, but others followed, men and women dressed in white thawbs or full-length kaftans, and with them came the reek of the sort of tabbaq that would make one high. Some wore niqabs or veiled turbans to hide their faces, but most were unadorned, and came holding flutes of golden wine or stubby glasses filled with araq. Others held nothing at all, preferring to cross their arms or hold them behind their backs as they stared at the irindai or Rümayesh or Çeda.
In her desperation, Çeda tried to lift herself from the cold slab upon which she lay, but before she could do more than curl her head and shoulders up off the slab, Kadir came rushing to her side and pressed her back down. Those gathered watched with jackal eyes, hyena grins, as Kadir leaned in. “Stay where you are until spoken to,” he whispered, “and perhaps you’ll leave this place whole.” Unlike Rümayesh, who was soft velvet, a knife in the dark, Kadir was a cold, bloody hammer, every bit as blunt and every bit as deadly.
She grit her teeth and stared up, not wanting to give Kadir the satisfaction of seeing the fear in her eyes, and that was when she noticed it. Makuo’s irindai, slowly fanning its wings almost directly overhead. How could she have missed it earlier? And now that she had seen it, it was like a bloody great beacon. A fire on the horizon.
With care,
praying Kadir wouldn’t notice, she averted her gaze, lay still, and tried to quell her rapid breathing. Kadir did glance up, momentary confusion contorting his features. Eventually he retreated to one corner of the room, and relief flooded through Çeda.
From a pedestal Kadir picked up a heavy bronze cymbal and a leather-wrapped rod made from the same metal. He ran the rod around the cymbal’s edge, creating a strangely hypnotic sound. The irindai responded immediately, their wings moving at a slower pace in time to the rhythm of the cymbal.
“The preliminaries are over,” Rümayesh said. “I trust you’ll enjoy what I’ve found for you, a rare little bird indeed. A Sharakhani through and through, with mystery upon mystery we can unravel together. Please”—she motioned around her to the walls, to the low ceiling—“choose, and our young maid will follow.”
Those gathered began walking about the room, looking up to the ceiling, plucking a single moth from the writhing mass. Çeda tried as well as she could not to stare at the moth with the adichara petals, but she was so worried that someone would take it that she found her eyes flicking there every so often. One of the women noticed. Eyes glazed, she stared up at the ceiling where Çeda’s gaze had wandered. Her hand wavered near Çeda’s cressetwing, but the gods must have been watching over Çeda, for the woman chose another less than a hand’s-breadth away.
One by one, those gathered opened their mouths and placed the moth within, taking great care to prevent harm to the delicate wings. Without exception, their eyes flickered closed as soon as the irindai was taken within them. Their eyelids opened and closed like the wings of the irindai, then they stood still, watching Çeda or Rümayesh or one another in a half-lidded daze.
Rümayesh strode to Çeda’s side.
“Choose,” was all she said.
Çeda stared defiantly, as if she were conflicted, as if she might very well do something desperate at any moment. She would take the cressetwing the boys meant for her but, when she did so, she wanted Rümayesh’s eyes on her and nowhere else. With care, Çeda stood. She felt strangely alone with Rümayesh, even with so many of those gathered staring dazedly at the two of them. With as much speed as she could manage, she grabbed the cressetwing with the petals and stuffed it into her mouth.
Of Sand and Malice Made Page 4