The Kingdoms of Dust

by Amanda Downum

  A dozen cobras moved as one, shattering their bottles. Wine and glass sprayed the room. The snakes sprang for Isyllt’s attacker with fangs unfolded. He screamed high and sharp as they uncoiled, long slick bodies whipping through the air. She wasn’t sure if their venom could survive death and pickling, but it didn’t seem to matter. After several bites, he curled on the floor, weeping and trying to bat the undead snakes away.

  A shadow fell across the door and several snakes turned. Luckily for Adam, Isyllt turned too, and recognized him before they could strike.

  “Don’t worry,” she called. “They won’t hurt you.” The cobras lowered their bellies to the floor, hoods furling against their necks. Purple tongues tasted the air; their eyes were empty sockets.

  “Blood and iron,” he swore, muffled by the fold of his cloak held over his face. “What is that?”

  “Snake wine. And our sniper friend. Help me up, please.” She hated to ask, but her left arm still didn’t want to move, and as her heart slowed she began to feel the blow her back had taken. Wine stung her eyes and a dozen cuts on her face and scalp. The liquid dripping down her face stained her robes rusty pink.

  Adam looked at her and grimaced. For a moment she thought he would refuse. Then he limped carefully through the snakes and took her outstretched hand. She whimpered as he pulled her to her feet.

  “What happened?” he asked, touching her face and frowning.

  “He hit me with a chair. And a shelf. Then a jar of snakes fell on me. Then I turned the snakes on him.”

  “Right.” He looked past her, to the unbroken jars watching them from the wall. “People drink that?”

  “It’s medicinal. Let’s see how it worked for our friend.”

  The assassin curled on the floor, keening inside a ring of snakes. At Isyllt’s command the serpents slithered back, leaving room to crouch beside him. Adam went first, his knife ready, but there was no fight left in the man.

  “Let me see,” she said gently.

  He had been bitten on the cheek, the shoulder, the arm and thigh. A fang had pierced the webbing of his right hand. Already the bites were black in the center, the skin around them inflamed and peeling. The beginning of necrosis. The alchemy of necromancy and cobra venom was an ugly one.

  Isyllt tugged off her right glove and laid her hand on his brow as if checking for fever. He was clammy and sweating, eyes black with pain and fear. Questing tendrils of magic spread from her touch, searching for death echoes in his wounds. In each one she found them. Any one of these bites would kill in a day or two if untreated; with so many it was a matter of hours.

  “H-help me,” he stammered, muscles standing out in his jaw.

  “I’m sorry.” She kept her voice soft. Hard to stay angry with the dying, even though her back throbbed and seized with every movement. “I can end the pain.”

  “Please—” His hand groped for hers. Or perhaps it was simply convulsion. She took it anyway.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Reda.” His face was sun-browned despite its current pallor, weathered. The hand in hers was callused and strong. He was younger than she’d first thought; fear made him younger still.

  “Tell us what we need to know, Reda. Why were you trying to kill me?”

  “Orders. Kill the foreign witch, keep al Seth off-balance. Weaken al Seth, weaken the empress.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “H-ha-ha—” She feared he’d bite his tongue off before he could finish, but finally the seizure eased. “Hamad. General Hamad. But it was the red woman’s bidding.”

  Isyllt glanced at Adam. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

  She looked down at the dying man, trying to think of other questions. He wouldn’t live long enough to interrogate—the veins around his wounds were black, the skin already sloughing. She wasn’t that cruel.

  “Mercy,” she said, rocking back on her heels.

  “Mercy,” Reda whispered. “Thank you.”

  Adam reached for his knife, but Isyllt shook her head. It would be easier to let him, but some things shouldn’t be delegated. She slid a slim, straight blade from her boot. Adam read her intent and pulled Reda closer, pillowing the man’s head on his thigh. “Close your eyes,” he murmured.

  Reda sighed and did so. Isyllt nodded thanks—a second mercy, not to see the dagger’s needle point hovering over his eye. She only needed one arm for this.

  Reda’s short, sharp cry covered the pop of skin and sphere, the crunch of the delicate bones behind the eye. Isyllt felt them all. She twisted the blade. He convulsed and fell still. Blood and milky vitreum dripped down his cheek as she eased the knife free.

  She felt the cold exhalation as life and soul escaped the body. Her ring sparked, and she reached for Reda’s ghost out of habit, ready to wind it into her diamond. She let her hand fall. Where did the dead go in Assar? She knew next to nothing about their otherworlds.

  “You’re not binding him?” Adam said. When she shook her head, he leaned close to check her pupils. “He must have hit you harder than I thought.”

  The gathered crowd of children and vendors fell back as Isyllt limped into the light. She shoved her right hand into her pocket before anyone could see her ring. A few spectators leaned toward the doorway, trying to see what had happened.

  “Hadath,” Isyllt said wearily, shaking her head. Unclean. She felt it, with the stench that clung to her. Merchants and urchins fell back, making warding signs against death.

  “Our reward, meliket?” asked one of the braver urchin girls.

  “Of course.” She fumbled with her purse and passed it to Adam; he had two working hands. “And an extra silver falcon to anyone who will take a message to the Azure Lily.”

  * * *

  When Isyllt staggered back to her room over an hour later, she found the chamber ransacked and Moth missing. Adam’s nostrils flared as he followed her inside; the scent he caught peeled his lips back from his teeth and drew a snarl from his throat.

  A note pinned to a cushion waited for her, a pale blot in the deepening shadows.

  The girl is safe, it read, in a neat hand. We’ll be in touch.

  CHAPTER 13

  Imperial agents weren’t the only ones with access to fast ships. A little gentle prodding convinced the captain of the Mother Dawn not only to provide Melantha a berth, but to change his schedule and sail with the next tide, close on the Marid’s wake. Which left her with nothing to do but wait, and fret, and dream.

  She had spent a year crewing on a Ninayan ship—she was Charna then, a pleasant but short-lived identity. But that was long ago and far away and that woman was dead. Skills and knowledge remained, but she had no desire to wake ghosts. She spent the voyage in her cabin, away from salt and sky and the memories they might stir.

  It didn’t help. She still dreamed of the sea, of cold waves foaming against white stone cliffs, of the fog that drifted off Dian Bay. Some nights Adam stood beside her; some nights it was a man she’d betrayed in Yselin; some nights it was Brenna, the woman she had been, her long hair streaming in the wind, her face young and soft and sad. She never saw her mother in her dreams, but she heard her voice on the wind, telling her not to be a fool.

  If only it were that easy.

  The Mother Dawn reached Sherazad with the morning’s flood tide, a day behind the Marid, and was immediately mired in a mess of other merchant ships awaiting customs inspection. The Marid had gone straight to dock—one advantage of being an imperial agent. Melantha had advantages of her own; she stepped from the shadows of her cabin into a gloomy dockside alley.

  The reek of urine and dead fish made her grimace, and did nothing to help her stomach’s uneasy sway. Something was wrong besides the stench—she felt it even before her feet touched solid ground. The shadows had the same unstable, abrasive touch they’d had in Ta’ashlan.

  It didn’t take long to learn what happened. Markets buzzed with the news, and old men discussed it in front of teashops, shaking their head at t
he state of the world. Fish still clogged the gutters, swarming with flies. No one wanted to touch them to clear the streets.

  A cold knot of panic drew tight in Melantha’s belly: The storm had never reached so far north before.

  A dim stairwell took her from the hot, dusty street into a dark room and a different stink. Rats, this time, and the tang of pickling spices. A storage space above a shop, low-ceilinged and cramped. Light from one shuttered window striped the grimy floor. Her nose closed as she breathed in dust and stale air and she sneezed. All she wanted was a bath and a nap in a bed that didn’t move. Instead she sat cross-legged on a filthy crate and began sifting through shadows.

  An hour later a headache pierced both her temples, but she’d finally located Iskaldur. She thanked all the saints she didn’t believe in that the necromancer was still in the city—losing her quarry would make the conversation with her mother that much more unpleasant.

  Her breath came loud in the small space as she stretched. Sweat soaked her shirt and hair, and the morning’s bustle had quieted with the rising heat. On the street a dog barked twice and fell silent. The building beneath her was empty and still.

  The shop below was shuttered and locked, and from the look of the living quarters behind it no one had been there for days. The occupants weren’t much for vanity—the only mirror she found was polished bronze, dusty now. It distorted her reflection but didn’t hide the grime on her cheek, or the sweat-spiked horror of her hair.

  “Mother,” she said, laying her fingers against the metal until she felt the spell catch. Five smudges remained when she took her hand away. She stepped back, standing like a soldier at rest as she steeled herself for the conversation to come.

  “Where have you been?” Nerium asked, cold and sharp. Her mother was always sharp, but this time Melantha heard the strain beneath it. “I’ve tried to reach you for days.”

  “I just arrived in Sherazad.” Sea travel played havoc with scrying and magical communications—hard to pinpoint someone who was in constant motion.

  “You might have told me your plans.” It sounded like maternal concern, but Melantha knew better. Her mother scolded all her agents as if they were children out after curfew.

  “I had no time. Iskaldur fled Kehribar and I followed.” She swallowed, her mouth dry. “Corylus is dead.”

  “What happened?” Her mother’s face was rippled and discolored in the mirror, but Melantha imagined her pinched frown perfectly.

  “He tried to kill Iskaldur, on Ahmar’s orders. He lost.”

  “Saints.” Nerium swore primly, as if she were a devout matron and not a member of an organization with its fingers tangled in the purse strings of temples and kingdoms. “Do you have Iskaldur?”

  “Not yet, but she’s in Sherazad as well. An imperial agent came to Kehribar to collect her before I could make contact. What happened? Did the seals fail again?”

  “Yes.” Through blurred metal, she watched her mother scrub a weary hand across her face. “None of us expected it so soon, not even me.” Nerium straightened. “This only makes your mission that much more urgent. I need Iskaldur here.”

  “She’s guarded by an imperial spy. I can’t simply steal her out from under his nose.”

  “Which agent?”

  “Siddir Bashari.”

  Nerium swore again. “That means Asheris al Seth is likely behind this. You’ll have even less luck stealing her from under his watch.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t care. Bring her here or convince her to come to us, only do it soon. Ahmar won’t take the death of her agent well. We can expect another attempt on Iskaldur’s life soon.”

  * * *

  Melantha delayed long enough to scrub her face and hair under the house’s tap, and to steal a shirt and pair of trousers not smeared with dust and rat droppings. With her face veiled against the dust and bowed to the sun, she made her way across the city to the Azure Lily.

  Iskaldur was still at the courtyard table where Melantha had found her earlier. Warded as she was, the necromancer appeared as a grey blur through shadows. The obscuring fog crept toward her companions, but not enough to hide their faces: Bashari and Adam.

  Melantha’s breath hitched. When last she’d seen Adam he’d been cocky with youth, strong and lithe and beautiful in motion. She remembered his sharp-toothed smile and companionable silences. Now he was whittled to bone and sinew, his black hair cropped to stubble. In all her spying, she had yet to see him smile.

  Memories welled up, one after the other, relentless. They had no right to sting so after thirteen years.

  Adam had never been her goal. It was his friend and mentor she had seduced, a former mercenary who’d risen high in the confidences of the king of Celanor. Her affection for him had quickly become unfeigned, as had her friendship with Adam. His infatuation with her had been plain, but he never acted on it. She hadn’t—Brenna hadn’t—wanted to hurt him. Her time in Yselin had been the most complicated wirewalking she’d ever performed, and the closest she’d ever come to losing herself in a persona, or betraying her vows.

  She’d wept when Brenna died, as she never had for any of her other selves.

  She clenched her fists, mastering the urge to punch the nearest wall. Get hold of yourself. Worry about the job.

  Adam hadn’t stopped her from stealing from the vaults of the Eyrie—he wouldn’t stop her now.

  A long step through darkness deposited her in Bashari’s suite, where the shadows were thickest. The room smelled of lilies and recent polishing, and the lingering amber and sandalwood of his perfume. She searched the room quickly out of habit, but Bashari was too long in the business to carry anything incriminating. She was tempted to rearrange his luggage just to keep him on guard, but this wasn’t the time for games.

  She checked Adam’s room next, determined not to let sharp-edged memories keep her from her work. The bed was neat, most of the furnishings untouched. He had hardly any luggage.

  You’re stalling.

  Shaking her head, she slipped sideways into Isyllt’s chambers. And froze, half emerged from the wall. She wasn’t alone.

  Her breath caught, eased an instant later as she heard quiet snores. Iskaldur’s apprentice lay curled amid pillows on the reed bed, nearly invisible through the gloom and bed hangings. Her eyelids twitched with dreams.

  Pulse still sharp, Melantha eased into the room, steps whisper-soft on the tiles. She needed something to keep her on her toes, as muddled as she’d been lately.

  She was staring at the warded pile of Iskaldur’s luggage, wondering if she’d find anything of use in it, when a sharp crack splintered the stillness. Her throat closed around her pulse. A gunshot outside. She spun—

  And came face-to-face with Moth, blinking in confusion and alarm as she struggled free of her blankets. Confusion gave way to shock as she saw Melantha.

  “What—” Surprise only slowed Moth for an instant. She uncoiled, ripping the canopy from the bed as she leapt. Her teeth flashed as she lunged; her knife flashed brighter.

  Melantha dodged and the blade gouged the plaster behind her instead of her flesh. She grabbed Moth’s wrist, but instead of pulling back the girl lunged, sending both of them stumbling into the side table against the far wall. A bowl of lilies rattled, slopping water.

  Moth struck again. Melantha twisted her wrist, bringing the girl to her knees with a hiss. The blade thumped against a carpet.

  “No need for that,” she said softly. “What if I’d been a maid?”

  The girl stiffened at the sound of her voice. “You!” Moth elbowed her hard in the thigh. Meant for her knee, but it still hurt. Her grip loosened, and the girl pulled free, not bothering to turn as she slammed her weight backward into Melantha. Melantha grunted, breathless. She slid sideways into the table again; this time the bowl fell and shattered. The smell of water and dead flowers washed the room.

  She fought hard and ugly, but Melantha had reach and training. After a
grapple that left her jaw bruised and bleeding from nail wounds, she wrestled the girl to the ground and pinned her face-first into a cushion.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” she said in Moth’s ear, her voice rough. “Or your mistress. Stop fighting or I’ll do worse.”

  The girl responded in badly accented and anatomically improbable Skarrish, but stopped struggling.

  “You’ll have to learn to curse in Assari,” Melantha said, stepping back. The mark of her hand rose angry and red on Moth’s wrist—it would purple soon. The sight sickened her, until she felt the blood trickling down her neck, not to mention her aching leg. She wasn’t quite brutalizing a helpless child.

  Whatever lets you sleep at night.

  Someone must have heard the struggle, she thought, but as she slowed her breathing and listened, the voices and running steps she heard were on the street outside. The gunshot had the neighbors distracted. Easing a curtain aside, she saw a crowd gathering, the rust-and-khaki uniforms of the city police pushing through. A trellised wall hid the rest of the scene.

  “What happened?” Moth asked, and before Melantha could answer, “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on out there,” she said. “I heard a shot.” Her face throbbed with every word. A drop of blood splattered the tiles as she leaned forward, followed by another, heavier still. She wiped at her cheek, frowning at the quantity of crimson that stained her hand. It had only been a scratch…

  She glanced back and met Moth’s anger-dark eyes. Her stomach lurched. “Haematurge!”

  The girl flinched at the word. Even as she dropped her gaze, one foot hooked a stray cushion and kicked it toward Melantha’s face. She swatted the pillow aside, barely throwing up her other arm in time to block Moth’s next clawing strike.

  “Enough!”

  Shadows roiled from the corners, cocooning the girl like a spider’s web. Another wormed between her teeth when she tried to shout. Moth writhed against the bonds that stole her breath, slowly falling limp as syncope took hold. Tenebrous coils laid her carefully on the bed, and Melantha knelt to be sure she was breathing again.