The Forbidden City

by Deborah A. Wolf

  This is no game, Hafsa Azeina assured her kima’a. And I am no easy meat. She half-drew Belzaleel from his bespelled sheath at her hip. The Huntress has weapons such as can kill any man or beast. Even a wyvern… even a king. If I can but get close enough…

  That one would not lift a finger to help you, Dreamshifter. Nor do you have half the skill it would take to catch her unawares, demon blade or no. Take Belzaleel from these lands, while you still may. Better to cast that knife into the fires beneath Atukos, better even to bury his blade in your own flesh than bring him here, to the Dreaming Lands. In the Huntress’s hands, Belzaleel would be a weapon fit to give fell dreams to the Nightmare Man.

  Your need is not so great that you should risk us all. Basta growled and thrashed her tail as she spoke, fur rising in a black nimbus around her head.

  My need is dire. Wyvernus has bound my daughter to his will. I fear that he seeks not to train Sulema as an heir, but to use her. As he had used Tadeah. Hafsa Azeina suppressed a shudder at the memory. I cannot hope to stand against Ka Atu now, weakened as I am and alone. There are weapons here, for those who have the knowledge to find them, and the courage to steal them.

  I know what I am doing, she asserted.

  You know nothing, human. Your tiny mind is not big enough to see the long game these immortals play, much less join the game yourself. You are like a bird, trapped in a net of your own making, and your struggles are drawing attention that you do not want. You wish to keep your daughter safe? Stay away from these lands, Dreamshifter. Leave the Huntress to her hunting, leave the twilight lords to their long game, and let us small folk live such small lives as we have in peace.

  Basta stood and stretched, arching her back. The Dreaming Lands are no place for you. Not anymore. The bonds you have woven in life are tearing at your soul, tearing it to pieces, and the scent of your pain draws the lords and ladies as to a feast. You draw danger to yourself—but also to your daughter and those of us foolish enough to care for you. She began to mist around the edges, fading even as a false light broke through the canopy of leaves overhead.

  And why should I trust your words? Hafsa Azeina asked. As you say, I killed you once. Perhaps next time you will conspire to kill me.

  Yes, Belzaleel interjected, in a voice that stank of burned stones. Yes, yes, yesssssssss. Kill her, Annu. Kill them all. Seize the power you were born to wield. A spasm shot through Hafsa Azeina’s hand, and the blade slid nearly free of the sheath.

  Kill you? I think… not. Basta’s hindquarters and feet had disappeared. Only her head and shoulders floated among the leaves now, eyes bright as stars, tongue red as blood. It is in my best interest to keep you alive, and a cat will always act in her best interests. Which reminds me…

  The black face, hated and beloved, faded to a mask, to a dream, to nothing. Her parting words laughed through the leaves.

  How is Khurra’an, these days?

  * * *

  Khurra’an was failing.

  Hafsa Azeina knelt beside the vash’ai on the hearth, using a scrap of linen to rub oils into his dull coat. Never had he tolerated being groomed by humans, or even petted, and never before had she considered performing such a task. But his fur was falling out by the handful, and his great silver-and-black mane had knotted so that she had had to chop much of it off.

  There was blood and pus on the stones where he had lain for so long, and she wished she had the strength to turn him over. The smell of rot and cat piss burned her eyes.

  We were the terror of the Zeera, she thought, dashing weak tears away with the back of one hand. The mighty would see our eyes in their dreams and despair. Now look at us… half a season in this blasted city, and we have been shorn like churrim, reaved of our hair and our strength and our glory. We should never have come.

  Khurra’an slitted one dull eye at her. If I have lived long enough to witness the Eater of Dreams weeping over spilt blood, then I have lived too long.

  I am a dream eater no longer. Hafsa Azeina pushed the soft moonsilk fluff of hair back from her face, where once glorious sorceress locks had fallen like a shroud. I am hardly a dreamshifter at all. Neither am I queen of this land… I am not sure what I am, anymore. Perhaps both of us have lived too long.

  Perhaps you should stop mewling for the tit like some helpless cub, Khurra’an growled. He pulled his dry tongue back into his mouth, doubtless realizing that lying slack-jawed with his tongue puddled upon the stone robbed him of dignity. Leave off. Leave OFF, human. With a great heaving effort, he rolled so that he was lying upright. I am no cub, to lie supine while my queen bathes me. If I want my ass cleaned, I will lick it myself.

  Hafsa Azeina winced to see the clotted mess of hair and crusted skin that he left upon the hearth.

  You should rest…

  Should I? Should we? His voice was gentle. I am Khurra’an, Rhan-an-ar of the Wide-Water Prides. You are Hafsa Azeina, Dream Eater of the Burning Sands. We are the scourge of this world and the next. We will rest when we are dead, Kithren, and not before.

  At his words, something stirred deep in her breast, where long ago she had buried the ruins of a heart. You are right, she said at long last. She reached up and began twisting a lock of her hair between her fingers. But you need to regain your body’s strength. I will bring you water, and meat. The heart of a pig—

  Hrunnnn. He laughed, almost, and shook out what was left of his mane, then began licking one foreleg. Water only. I have gotten weak and soft from eating fat meat, dead meat, killed by a weakling and drained of all vitality. What I need—what we need—is the hunt. Tooth and claw, and the flesh of worthy prey between our teeth. Heart’s blood and marrow and entrails, my love, and nothing less. He sent her an image then, the two of them stalking a great blue goat along the sea cliffs.

  Hafsa Azeina licked her lips and swallowed. Worthy prey indeed, she allowed. Worthy prey for any strong hunter—but we are weakened, Kithren. Perhaps this hunt is beyond us now. If we hunt such prey, we may well die. Not even bonded humans knew much about the lives of wild vash’ai, but every man, woman, and child of the Zeera knew that much—a wounded sire who failed to make the kill was marked for death.

  Khurra’an stopped mid-lick.

  Then we die. His great golden eyes, so like her own, held a world of love—and not the least shadow of regret. A weight she had not known she carried lifted from her then. The bonds of which Basta had spoken loosened just enough to let her breathe.

  Life is pain. She had always known this. Only death comes easy.

  Ahhh, she breathed. Yes. You are right. Shall we share a bowl of tea, beloved? Shall we join the dance?

  We shall dance, he agreed, showing his massive, bejeweled tusks in a long yawn. And it will be glorious.

  NINE

  The wind roiled eastward across the dunes, rousing them to song. Wind and sand, sa and ka of the desert, fought against each other and their voices grew angry, discordant. The morning sky, which had dawned soft and rosy, shrieked with the souls of hungry bintshi. It raked at them with sand-teeth and fire-breath, and turned the anger of a battered world upon the small group of travelers.

  It tore at their clothing, clawed at their eyes, and raised questions that no heart could bear to answer. No human heart, at any rate, though the Mah’zula warriors, the youthmistress, and the king’s son hunched miserable in their saddles. Horses and churrim, warriors and vash’ai plodded along, step by step, breath by breath, enduring now with little thought to there or then.

  Now is burden enough, Inna’hael had told her once, blinking his yellow eyes in a slow laugh. Especially when one is hunting.

  Or when one is being hunted.

  Though her face was well wrapped, the sand-dae kicked dust into Istaza Ani’s eyes so she could not see, stuffed their wicked claws into nose and mouth and into her ears, as well. Blinded and deafened as she was, still Ani knew they were prey. For some nights now, the horses had pressed close to the fire at night, the churrim had grumbled and fussed at the line
s as they chewed their cud, and the vash’ai had bristled so that warriors gave them wide berth.

  The stars pressed down upon them, the sand pressed up, and the world pressed in from all sides till their small group seemed smaller still, and weak, prey to the greater predators that screamed in the dark.

  If these warriors are prey, Ani wondered, glancing at the women around her, what does that make us? She would have spat, but water was life, and life was precious.

  It is, Inna’hael whispered. You are.

  The vash’ai’s words and soft sentiment were so unexpected that Ani rose up in the saddle, causing her stallion to toss his head and snort, rolling his eyes this way and that and flaring his nostrils wide. This in turn gave the other horses an excuse to prance, dance, and generally act like idiots.

  “Asshole,” she muttered under her breath, as with hand and leg she reminded Talieso that he was not to come up in front and dump her upon the sand. She felt Inna’hael’s laugh.

  If I live to be a hundred, she thought, I will never understand cats.

  If you live to see the end of this day, you should thank me with a fat pig. You humans are blind and helpless as cubs at the teat.

  You and the other vash’ai may keep the greater predators at bay during the night, Ani retorted, but I hardly see what help you might be against this storm.

  You are right, little one, he purred angrily. You hardly see. And he was gone again, leaving her adrift upon a sea of sand and malice.

  For nearly a two-moon they had ridden, skirting the territories of vash’ai and man alike, giving lie to the claims of the Mah’zula that all the Zeera was theirs by right. For all their big mouths, this handful of false warriors cast a very small shadow beneath the wings of Akari.

  The riders chased the dragon by day, and Leviathus by night, forcing fermented mare’s milk down his throat until he staggered and fell upon the sand, and then they would make other sport of him. His cries of pain and rage, the women’s laughter, and Mariza’s sideways sneer as she judged the youthmistress’s reaction burned inside Ani’s belly like venom in a wineskin. It was only a matter of time before her anger ate through and got them all killed. She kept her face stone, and her heart. Ani bode her time, playing a children’s song as they rode.

  It was a simple tune, played on a simple flute made from cactus-bone. She had learned it from Hafsa Azeina, back when the world was young, when there were men to chase and usca to drink and bodies to dump into the river.

  The Mah’zula were young yet, still hot to pursue the boys, to ride over the next dune and chase the setting sun. Young, and beautiful, and dumb as the dung that dropped from their horses’ asses.

  Youth and beauty, the voice of Theotara whispered, will always be overcome by…

  …age and treachery, Ani finished, but Theotara would never have been made captive, would never have allowed a guest under her protection to be beaten and raped. She would have cracked the world open like a dragon before she let such an age come to pass.

  You lot are a strange species, Inna’hael observed, not kindly. I had begun to think I was wrong about you… but I see now that I was mistaken.

  Ani burned with shame beneath the veiled gaze of Akari, and said nothing. She sat astride her horse, and listened to the fell wind, and played her flute…

  …and played her flute…

  …and the storm came, providing cover to those predators who stalked the sweet two-legged meat.

  At last the song was finished, its final notes sucked dry as marrow bones by the hungry storm. Ani tucked the flute away, pressed her face into the mane of her good and faithful horse, and let the world do with her as it may. Had Akari himself come screaming through the storm to devour her for this trespass, Ani would not have been surprised, nor would she have resisted. She had broken a law that stretched back to the Sundering, a law set down into the bones of the world itself, and there would be a reckoning.

  What was that Sulema always said? “It is only trouble if you get caught.” Well, then she would simply have to avoid being caught. A fine job I have done so far.

  You are alive, yet, Inna’hael reminded her.

  Yes, she answered, and where there is life, there is yet hope that I might fuck things up even worse than I already have.

  A strange species… he reaffirmed. Ani did not answer. She bent her mind, as they all did, toward surviving the storm so that whatever stalked them might not have its chance at them until later.

  Year after year she had told her younglings that a good dust storm might last minutes. A bad dust storm might last years. By highsun, it was apparent that this storm had no intention of being good. By latesun, Ani began to suspect that it was, at its heart, truly wicked. It howled about them, rousing the sand-dae into leaping, gyrating columns the height and breadth of a man so that it seemed, at times, as if they were surrounded by enemy warriors.

  Neither could they hope to climb the higher dunes in an attempt to rise above it. This was a proper buraq, a storm with a heart of lightning. The hairs stood up all over Ani’s body, strange dark colors crackled and danced among the sand-dae, and twice the peaks of nearby dunes lit up with fire blue as the bowels of Jehannim, and as foul-smelling.

  Mariza’s chestnut mare emerged from the paste-thick gloom as she fell back to ride between Ani and Leviathus. She leaned from her saddle, tugging aside the sand-caked cloth wrapped round her face. Ani leaned in, as well.

  Had they not taken Ani’s shamsi, she would have run it through the woman’s heart right then. Had they not taken her dagger, she would have slit that tender throat. But she had neither of these things. They had left her nothing save the flute, more fools they.

  “We camp here,” Mariza called out.

  “What?” Ani tipped her head.

  “We camp here,” the woman shouted again, dark eyes narrowing to slits.

  “What?” Ani tipped her head the other way.

  “Here! Here!” Mariza hollered, flapping her arms. “Kharra, yeh Makhumla. Stupid old woman.”

  Ani nodded and looked around. The storm had thinned just enough for her to see that they were hemmed in on three sides by steep dunes, and her thin water-sense told her there would be no fresh water for them or their animals. There was no easy route for escape, should the things that stalked them choose to attack, and neither could they hope to post watch from higher ground, as lightning still gnawed the air above them. This was perhaps the worst place Mariza could possibly have chosen to set up camp for the night.

  Perfect. Ani nodded again, shrugged, and swung a leg over Talieso’s back. Her old stallion rolled an eye at her and attempted a half-hearted bite. He was smart enough not to want to spend the night here, but he could hardly expect her to reveal all her plans to him.

  She reached up to help Leviathus from his churra, but he had already slid down from the tall saddle and turned away from her, refusing to meet her eye. Her heart hurt for the young man.

  It is not your fault, she wanted to tell him. Not your shame.

  No, Inna’hael agreed, soft and quiet as a sharp blade through flesh. It is yours.

  Far behind them, in the gold-and-blood murky heart of the storm, Ani caught the faint notes of a child’s song. A plaintive note it was, high and pure, a sound that no human throat could ever mimic, and it turned her blood to water. Voices answered from south and east, discernible from the wind only because she was listening for them.

  What have I done? she wondered, too late. What have I done?

  Well, mused Inna’hael, it will be an interesting death.

  Ani struck her tent, a raggedy old thing which had seen her through more battles and tears and lovemaking than any woman should wish. She had worked oil into the fabric twice a year, sometimes more, till the hemp-and-silk was soft as kidskin. It was a homey shelter, plain and unadorned, nearly as scarred as Askander’s hide.

  She led the churra Leviathus had been riding to lie in the lee of the tent, chewing her cud and muttering angrily. Her own Talie
so hardly needed urging to drop to his knees and scootch ungracefully inside. Leviathus followed, and Ani was last, tying the outer flaps and lacing the inner.

  Talieso pinned his ears briefly at the meager bag of churra butter and grain she offered him, and ate with many long-suffering sighs. She wished she could give him better, not least because churra butter always gave him a sour belly. Leviathus took the handful of salted pemmican and mouthful of stale water without so much comment, before turning his back to lie as far from her as he possibly could. Ani lay between them, wishing she could give the boy more room. Though he feigned sleep quickly, he did so poorly, going stiff all over at her slightest movement.

  Her faithful tent shuddered as the sandstorm clawed at the fabric, trying to get at the tasty meats inside. It shook from within, as well, when Talieso lazily moved his tail aside and erupted with the first in what was to be an epic storm of flatulence. Outside the churra emitted a series of high-pitched and whistling shrieks as Inna’hael curled up beside her, subsiding only when the vash’ai snarled a warning.

  Oh, leave off, she told him. The poor beast is afraid of you.

  She is smarter than you, then, brave little huntress.

  Ani thought again about the sounds she had heard, and wondered what, exactly, was singing the chill song she had begun with her cactus-bone flute. She wondered whether she would live to see another morning, or be torn apart by predators, or die in her sleep, suffocated by a horse’s farts.

  An inglorious death, Inna’hael agreed, yawning so hard she could feel it inside her head. Though not without honor.

  And who will sing my bones, if I die out here? she asked, though the question had never occurred to her before. Who will see my story through to its end?

  The great cat was silent so long that Ani thought he must be asleep. Eventually she, too, drifted off, and so never heard his reply.

  * * *

  Akari Sun Dragon sang the world to life, as he had every morning since finding his love asleep in her bed of rock and brimstone, and as he would every morning until she woke and returned his song, shattering this world with her delight.