The Kingdoms of Dust

by Amanda Downum

  “Look down,” Nerium said.

  In the morning light, Isyllt studied her boot. She’d bought them new only a month ago; the soles were scarcely worn. But where the darkness had touched her the leather was cracked and rotted, flaking away to expose the stocking beneath.

  “Al-Jodâ’im. The Undoing. The greatest destructive force history has ever seen. The full extent of their devastation is lost to time and fallen kingdoms, but we know enough. Your people as well as mine.”

  That last she directed at Asheris, who nodded in reluctant agreement. “We know enough.”

  “What do you want from me?” Isyllt asked, dragging her gaze off her ruined boot.

  “Haven’t you guessed? You’re an entropomancer, a vinculator—a specialist in our needs. I want you to join me, join Quietus. Help keep the world safe awhile longer.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Nerium left them on the steps of the great hall. To let them consider, she said. Isyllt wasn’t sure she could consider anything at the moment. Her thoughts chased themselves in frantic circles and eventually fell, exhausted. The weight of the journey settled heavy on her, compounded by the incessant ache in her shoulder. She sat on the broad steps, leaning against the plinth of a guardian criosphinx, and stared blankly.

  The sun rode the crest of the mountains, casting long cool shadows through the streets. Sand eddied slowly in the breeze, glittering with flecks of quartz. How much sand in Al-Reshara was worn from the stones of long-dead kingdoms?

  “You’re thinking about it,” Asheris said, settling beside her.

  “How can I? How can I not? Do you believe her?”

  “She believes herself.” His hands hung between his knees; he scowled at the space between them. Isyllt waited for his silence to break.

  “I won’t dispute the danger of Al-Jodâ’im,” he said at last. “They destroyed spirits as well as men, and could not be reasoned with. The histories of Mazikeen and Carathis agree on this.”

  “But?”

  “But what I felt in that room wasn’t malice or rapacity or even spite. It was sadness. The deepest grief I’ve ever known.”

  “I felt it too. Does it balance? Their suffering, against the suffering of the world? A hundred Sivahri dead in those mines, to save a thousand here? Do the scales weigh even?”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know.” He stood, scrubbing his hands on his trousers, and walked away, vanishing into the empty streets of Qais.

  Isyllt sat on the steps with the silent sphinx long after the sun cleared the spine of the Sarcophagi. Deliberating, she would have said, but in truth she dozed. A deliberate footstep roused her, when the doors opening at her back had not. She straightened, brushing a surreptitious hand across her mouth to make sure she wasn’t drooling.

  A slender, olive-skinned woman dressed all in black stood at the top of the steps, easing the heavy door shut.

  “Lady Iskaldur.” Her voice was soft and smoky. Short dark hair feathered against a square jaw and shaded her wide black eyes. She descended the stairs with the careless grace that came of strength and control, an alertness that spoke long training. A dangerous woman, and a beautiful one. Small wonder Adam had never forgotten her.

  “You must be Melantha.” Tact first, then the barb. “Adam told me about you.”

  The woman tilted her head in wry acknowledgment, leaning her hip against the opposite sphinx and folding her arms loosely beneath her chest. Nerium’s daughter, Moth had said. The resemblance was clear in the line of cheek and jaw and the set of her eyes, though Melantha’s features were softer.

  “He told me hardly anything about you, but I’ve heard a great deal all the same. From Moth, and other sources.”

  Isyllt laughed. Point for point. “Yes, I’ve heard you seduced my apprentice and my bodyguard. Why are you here?” A wave of her hand encompassed dust and dry rock. “Many countries would pay passing well for skills like yours.”

  “My mother’s told you what we do here. Don’t you think that’s more important than the schemes of kings and generals?”

  “That’s what I have to decide, isn’t it? And somehow I don’t imagine we’ll be given camels and sent on our way with well wishes if I refuse.”

  “No. I don’t imagine that you would. But understand, my mother is ruthless because she has to be.” Melantha didn’t glance away, nothing so telling, but her eyes glinted with subtle movement. “There’s no room for mercy in their work.”

  “Their work. Not yours.”

  One black-clad shoulder rose and fell gracefully. “She is one of the Silent. I’m just an agent. A weapon.” Her lips thinned on a smile.

  “Like the man in Kehribar?”

  “Yes. I was faster that day.” Her voice held only blithe unconcern, but her fingers tightened around her elbows.

  “He’s with me, you know.” Isyllt lifted her ring. “If you had anything left to say.” Antagonizing a woman who carried plumbatae was probably a bad idea, but she couldn’t resist.

  Melantha’s eyebrows rose. “Not today. My mother will appreciate that, though—she likes to get as much use from her tools as she can.” She straightened, arms falling to her sides. Her next smile was crooked. “But don’t let our family bitterness sway you. Think about the offer.”

  “Do I have the freedom of the city, at least, or do you have snipers waiting if I stray too far?”

  “You’re safe within the canyon walls. Stray beyond them and you’ll be collected. And there are more scorpions than snipers in the rocks.”

  Isyllt stayed well away from the canyon cliffs, instead settling by a shaded pool at the edge of the hypostyle. The ache in her shoulder curbed her desire to pace—the touch of Al-Jodâ’im had undone Nerium’s soothing magic, and the willow bark as well. With the lead removed she could numb the pain, but the reminder of danger seemed apt.

  The pool was peaceful, at least, if redolent of decay. The water mirrored the pillars and the high blue sky above, overlain with a lace of scum and moss and floating lilies. Midges droned across the surface, their feet pricking tiny ripples, but a chill teased from her ring kept them away from her skin.

  Isyllt drew on the water’s stillness, soothing her spiraling thoughts. As calm filled her, she felt again that watched sensation, separate from the constant low hum of magic that soaked the streets. This time she thought she knew the source.

  If she was to consider Nerium’s offer, she needed to hear more than one opinion.

  “Kash. Is that your name? I feel you hovering in the shadows. Come out.”

  For a moment nothing answered. Then a slow chill gathered at her back and a longer shadow dimmed her reflection in the pool.

  “They call me Kash. It’s as close as mortal tongues can come. Conjure with it if you like. If you can.”

  The presence behind her reminded of a half-forgotten dream. A shadow, and dying fish, and her heart— Her pulse spread, threatening her hard-won peace. Kash chuckled, as if he sensed her unease. No doubt he did.

  “It would be impolite to summon you on such short acquaintance. Nerium forbade you to speak to Asheris, but can you speak to me?” She tried to turn, but the cold weight at her back held her in place.

  “I am speaking, aren’t I?”

  “Some prefer to have conversations face-to-face. I admit I’m one of them.”

  “I’m not handsome like your half-jinn friend.”

  “He would argue that half. And I’m not so shallow as to choose my companions for their looks.”

  He clucked sharply. “As you wish, necromancer. Look at Quietus’s handiwork, then.”

  Turning around wedged a hot sliver into her wounded shoulder, but turn she did, tilting her head back and back again to see the tall shape behind her.

  A vulture’s head regarded her from atop a man’s gaunt body, the profile of his flesh-tearing beak silhouetted against the sky. One sunken heavy-lidded eye glittered coldly. Where Asheris had four wings and two arms in his burning form, Kash had four arms a
nd two vast wings, half mantled now. Instead of fire, he was made of smoke and shadow, ashes and falling dust.

  “You were a jinni,” she murmured, peering into the darkness where his heart should be. Perhaps a spark of that light and heat remained, but it was lost in the shifting haze.

  Kash snapped his beak. “You said a conversation, not an examination. What do you want, witch?”

  “I dreamed of you in Sherazad.” She lowered her voice, in case more than one invisible listener haunted Qais. “It was a true dream, wasn’t it?”

  “I was there. I rode the ghost wind. I wanted to see this sorceress Nerium and her brethren were making such fuss over.”

  “Very flattering—right up until they tried to shoot me. You warned me away.”

  “But here you are.”

  Isyllt wrinkled her nose. “Yes, well. They were very persuasive. You, on the other hand, ripped my heart out.”

  His cold eye flared, a spark from buried embers. “I would rip the heart from every human mage I met, and stitch their cursed diamonds into their bloody flesh. But there is something of Al-Jodâ’im inside you, so perhaps we are cousins of a sort.”

  She touched her chest below the bindings of the splint. “A true kinship, or only a sympathetic one? Did mortals know entropomancy before Al-Jodâ’im came?”

  “I don’t know. The fall of Irim was long before my hatching. I knew only the segregation of the Fata.” He made a harsh coughing sound. “The first mortals I met were Quietus.”

  “Tell me about them. Nerium told me her story, but I want another view. And please, will you sit? My neck hurts.”

  He crossed his long legs, furling his wings behind him. One pair of arms folded across his sunken chest and the other rested on his knees. In his dark, sharp-angled symmetry he looked like some ancient obsidian idol, a demon-god. His haunches didn’t touch the earth, but hovered a few inches above it. Had this been what Irim was like—human and spirit sitting together, but without the bitter weight of history between them?

  “I was, as you said, a jinni. Bright and beautiful and brash. Irim intrigued me since I was a fledgling, and I hunted the ruins for some trace of what had come before. One day I caught a scent on the wind, myrrh and magic, leading me south. I followed it here, and discovered Qais and its mages. And they discovered me.

  “This was perhaps a century and a half ago, as the seasons reckon. Quietus had its council then as now, but in truth one man ruled them: Onotheras. He was powerful and brilliant and a little mad. He captured me at first out of simple practicality, so that I wouldn’t tell anyone what I’d found. But once I was bound, he found another use for me.

  “Quietus had bound Al-Jodâ’im, and siphoned from them to fuel their own entropomancy, but they had never found a way to harness the void. A few sturdier, foolhardier mortals attempted to scry the Undoing, but exposing humans to their touch resulted in…fewer humans.” He lifted one wing in a shrug. “But with me bound, Onotheras made a new plan.” His beaked face showed no emotion, but his harsh voice flattened, losing its sardonic cadence. “He cast me into the oubliette.”

  Isyllt drew a breath. She would have reached out to him, but she suspected any hint of pity would cost her the rest of the story. “What happened?”

  “They consumed me, as they consume everything. But as they did, their song filled me and I understood them. They were travelers, crossing the void behind the stars in a barque of ice and rock and diamond. They traveled and they sang, to the stars, to the void, to themselves. But as they journeyed, another song reached them. It called to them, and in their curiosity they changed their course to answer.”

  “The song of Irim,” Isyllt whispered, remembering Asheris’s story.

  “Yes. You know how that ended. They meant no harm, any more than the priests of Irim did, but the touch of the Undoing is destruction. The purest entropy. All they wanted was to go home, but they were lost, their vessel shattered and momentum spent. And when they tried to seek help from the humans who had called them—”

  “Fewer humans.”

  “Just so. And from the destruction of Irim, Quietus rose, brimming over with self-sacrifice and righteous cause. They first wrestled Al-Jodâ’im into the scattered diamonds that fell with them; next they built the oubliette, and this mausoleum of a city to surround it.”

  “But what happened to you, in the pit? You weren’t consumed.”

  His beak snapped. “Better if I had been, than to be left like this—dull and stained and foul.” His wings flared, and the draft tasted of char. “I never knew why I survived. Perhaps Onotheras’s controls worked, as he claimed. Perhaps Al-Jodâ’im have grown weak in their captivity, or an immortal soul is harder to digest than flesh.” His eye pearled with the blink of a milky membrane. “Perhaps they took pity on me. They were never cruel, though they’ve learned enough of human brutality. I can’t hate them for what they did. Onotheras, though, and his children—them I do.”

  “You said we could be allies. What do you want?”

  “I want my freedom, and my vengeance. And if I could I would end their suffering.” One wing pointed toward the temple, and Al-Jodâ’im. “Everyone in Qais feels their despair—it saturates the mortar and stone. But the humans would rather wallow in that misery than free their captives. I’ve dreamed of breaking the seals, of freeing the Undoing. I sometimes think it would be worth it, though it would mean the destruction of Mazikeen as well.” He shrugged. “It’s not as though the burning legion ever rode to my rescue. It’s not as though they would take me back. Not like this.” He spread hands and wings.

  “If they were loosed, I think Al-Jodâ’im might swallow all the world eventually, and so be freed. It would be an end to suffering for everyone.”

  Isyllt swallowed, her mouth gone dry. “It would. I would prefer a less…absolute solution. If I could release you, I would. If I can, I will. But Nerium holds my friends’ lives as surety. She wants me to join her. If I did, do you think she would let me free you?”

  Kash laughed. “She would say so, I’m sure. She has before. And like before, she’ll find a reason not to.” His form shredded in the breeze. “If you want to hear another side to her story, ask her what happened to her daughter.”

  * * *

  After her conversation with Kash, Isyllt found no more peace in Qais’s empty streets and stagnant pools. She returned to the great hall, and found Adam waiting for her with a cold tray of breakfast.

  “She wants me to stay,” she said, staring at the food on her plate. “To join the order.”

  “I know. Bren—Melantha told me.”

  She stirred curried chickpeas without tasting them. A sheen of olive oil coated the spoon, and the smell of garlic and lemon wafted past her. She knew she needed food, but her appetite was cold and dead as the hearth. “What do you think?”

  “I think you should eat that instead of playing with it, or I’ll spoon it down you myself.”

  Isyllt snorted, but dutifully swallowed a mouthful, and followed it with a slice of paprika-dusted egg. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Adam raked a hand through his hair; it was long enough to cling in disordered spikes. “This place is slow death. Or a very quick one, from some of the things Mel’s said. But she swears that what they do is needful.”

  “The things they keep bound here might destroy the world. Or at least make things very unpleasant in Assar. There’s always work that must be done, no matter how distasteful.”

  “I’ve done plenty of it. Is this worth it to you, binding yourself to this place?”

  She stirred her beans again and chewed another spoonful before answering. “I don’t know. In Ta’ashlan I would wear the white veil and watch people sign themselves against me. At least this is a more honest exile.”

  His brows pinched together. “Or we could get out of here. Go north and not worry about veils or prisons.”

  Isyllt laid down her spoon. Her last bite of egg tasted like paste, and every bone in her body ached, not
just the broken one. “Would it really be any better there? I’m so tired, Adam. Tired of all of it.”

  “That’s this place talking.”

  “Maybe so. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Don’t worry,” she added when his frown deepened. “I won’t let you be trapped here too.”

  “Good.” His chair scraped as he stood. “I don’t like watching suicides. Especially pointless ones.”

  With Adam gone and Asheris not yet returned, Isyllt returned to the front step and its watchful sphinxes. The tattered shade of a palm tree protected her from the sun, and the warmth eased her aches and pains. She was scraped hollow, the worst she’d felt since the blood-sorceress Phaedra Severos had nearly exsanguinated her, since she’d woken in the hospital to the knowledge that Kiril was dead.

  Would it be worth it to spend her life in solitary service here, if it meant never feeling another heart stutter and stop under her helpless hands? Her eyes ached with sleeplessness and tears she couldn’t shed. The desert sun had baked all the moisture out of her—she had none left to waste.

  Moth found her there, stewing in doubt and grief. The girl wore riding boots and a vest laced tight over her blouse; her hair was streaked dun with dust, and the smell of horse and sweat clung to her. She walked with a pained gait that spoke of stiffness and chafing, but her color was high and her eyes bright. Isyllt was glad to see her learning—horsemanship was one of the few things Kiril had neglected in her education.

  Moth sat on the far side of the broad steps, wincing and shifting her weight. Isyllt waited for the inevitable question, but that wasn’t what followed.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  That penetrated her lassitude and stiffened her spine. “I would never have abandoned you. Although,” she admitted wryly, “if Melantha hadn’t left a note, I’m not sure what I would have done.”

  “I thought maybe it was Adam you came for.”