The Forbidden City

by Deborah A. Wolf

  You have nothing to fear, little Mother, Hafsa Azeina sent out upon the wind. Not from us, at any rate. Not today.

  The grouse did not believe her.

  In all fairness, she told the bird, I would not believe me, either.

  She had come, as always, to kill.

  * * *

  They found prey late that afternoon, four ridges down and in a very difficult position for the kill. There were three rams, two of which were relatively small, and one magnificent beast with horns longer than Hafsa Azeina was tall, straight along the length and curved at the end like fine swords. The rams were a shaggy, soft blue-gray, with barred stripes on their legs and necks, and faces black as soot. Half again as tall as the stout mare she’d left tied at camp and with a temper like a woman just past her childbearing years, they were the kings of these mountains, and well did they know it.

  These three males, alas, had been browsing their way down the ridge and were nearly at the bottom. It was a long trek, a long, slow way treacherous with sliding rock and echoes, and little more than brush and fistfuls of grass behind which to hide.

  Are you afraid? Khurra’an teased. He dropped to his belly behind a big, lichen-crusted rock and lay panting. Covered all in dust as he was, with his chopped-up mane sticking up in clods and clumps, he all but disappeared before her eyes. At least he would not have a difficult time blending in. The tea had done its work. His eyes were fever-bright, his mind and body strong again.

  No, she said. We are the terror of the Zeera. What have I to fear, when I am with you? She sat crosslegged and sharply pulled in her ka so as not to alert the rams to her presence. But I am weary, and still weak from that beating. Let me rest a bit before we go on. Now that they had found their prey, she found herself reluctant to make an end to it.

  As you humans say… ehuani. Khurra’an flattened his ears, narrowed his eyes, and thrashed his tail twice sharply to let her know that he did not believe her.

  She cut her eyes at him, amused. I did not think the vash’ai found beauty in truth.

  We do not, he admitted, flicking his ears forward. Only a fool gives up the advantage of a good lie. Are we not lying to these rams, even now? I cover myself with dirt, and you with shadows and dreams, and we tell the world that we are not here. But I am here, and you are here, and we have come to shed blood.

  Let there be lies between hunter and prey, for so it is and has always been. But between you and me, Dreamshifter, let there be nothing but truth. I have come here to kill, or I have come here to die. Let us get on with it.

  Yes, she agreed, rising to a killer’s crouch and reaching for her bow. Let us get on with it.

  They headed swiftly up and around the end of the canyon in order to take a position directly above the rams, who were by then browsing their way slowly up the other side. Hafsa Azeina had some trouble spotting them again, loath as she was to unfurl her ka, but a twitch of Khurra’an’s ears and a flick of his eyes let her know that he had seen them, and where.

  Finally she spotted them, bedded down below some rock outcroppings to the south and west, chewing their cud drowsily in the warmth of the ripening day.

  I will go down and see what I can see, she told him. She would stalk the rams, and take a shot if she could, likely wounding one of the great beasts so that Khurra’an could go in and finish the kill. It was a thing they had done a thousand times before.

  Let this be a thousand and one, she wished. Let us not fade like mewling kits into the long shadows, quiet and without a fight. Let us go instead as Theotara went, screaming down the throat of a dragon with the blood of the people’s enemies on our swords.

  Or in our mouths, Khurra’an suggested helpfully.

  Or both, she smiled.

  Taking up a good position behind a large rock ledge, just above the goats, she could see two of the three—the smaller ones—and thought the one on the far right to be a very good prospect.

  No, Khurra’an chided. She could not see him, nor smell his cat-musk, but he was close. We will take the big ram, or we will take none.

  She agreed, and crawled on one hand and her knees, holding her bow close. Hafsa Azeina peered around the far side of the ledge and… there he was, her prey, and he was indeed magnificent. The late sun shone on his hide, and his pale blue eyes scanned the world like a true king’s, watchful and boastful and possessive all at once. He flicked his ears lazily—at a fly, she thought, for she had not made a sound—and turned his head a little to look to the north and south. He never once looked up.

  Rising up on her knees, Hafsa Azeina strung her bow in silence, nocked and drew an arrow. Steady was her breathing and steady her hand as she readied herself to bring death to this beautiful creature, this king who had never wronged her, and in whose heart’s blood she might find salvation.

  She stilled her sa and ka, her heart and breath, and let death fly.

  The shot was true. It connected solidly, passing through the ram just behind his shoulder. He leapt to his feet bawling and wide-eyed as blood poured from his side. The younger rams bounded away even as their wounded elder took flight, stumbling a little in fear and shock but desperate to live.

  Hafsa Azeina lowered her bow and watched, heart in her mouth, as a golden shadow detached itself from the mountain and leapt through the air, to fall upon the wounded ram like the wrath of a damned soul. Forelegs wide in a death-hug, mouth open in a gaping snarl he struck the side of the ram, scrabbling with his hind legs for purchase, and—

  The blue goat fell, head twisted to one side, as Khurra’an sank his tusks into the back of its neck. The ram thrashed, striking out with sharp black hooves at the ground, the sky, at his attacker. Khurra’an held fast, jaws restricting its breathing and hind claws digging deep into the soft underbelly, disemboweling the great ram even as he fought on.

  It was an ugly death and hard-fought.

  It was glorious.

  Hafsa Azeina dropped her bow and ran to kneel beside her friend, her love, the one true companion of her heart. She grabbed fistfuls of his mane and buried her face in it, blotting out the harsh light of a truth in which there was no beauty to be found.

  Hush now, Khurra’an purred, more gently than she had ever heard him. Dry your tears, Dreamshifter. He released his hold on the dead goat, rolled onto his side and draped one great paw across her body, holding her like a mother as she wept. That great heart still beat, there was warmth still in his flesh, but already she could feel him pulling away from her.

  Khurra’an, foremost sire of all the prides, had made his last kill.

  SEVENTEEN

  Akari Sun Dragon fled westward, past the salt lakes and the rice farms, past the city proper and her father’s fortress, warming the dragonglass walls as he roared overhead. He raced to touch the smoking, seething pinnacle of the great black mountain Atukos, the very heart of the world.

  Where Akari went, Sulema Ja’Akari followed, always chasing him, determined to claim his power for herself. The dragonglass steps, carved into Atukos ages before the fortress had been built, flashed a welcome with every step, glowing warm behind her and leaving a trail of approbation. The fortress walls did this, too, and some of the floors. It almost seemed to her she could hear the stone singing, greeting her every touch, responding to her every move.

  She almost could hear Sajani Earth Dragon dreaming, dreaming a song so old and so vast that a single note of it could shatter the mind of an untrained girl. Cold iron bit into her palms and knuckles as she gripped the chains she had wound around her hands.

  Focus, she reminded herself. Focus. Whatever her father’s plans were—whether he meant to raise her up as his heir in truth, groom her powers so that he might steal them, or fatten her up for dinner—she thought it was high time she made plans of her own, and every path she might wish to take began with learning to wield atulfah.

  Then, in her teacher’s voice, her mind spat the dreaded word.

  Again.

  The steps became slick, and narrow—so na
rrow she could scarce set her two feet beside one another, so steep she could reach out and touch the mountain ahead of her with her sore hands. Sulema pounded up them. As the air thinned and the smoke and mist burned her throat, she practiced her breathing. Slow, shallow breaths in through her nose, a steady trickle of acidic air when her lungs screamed at her more, more.

  She was barefoot so that Atukos would come to know the taste of her skin. And my blood, she thought as she leapt over a cracked step. That one had bitten her at least a half-dozen times before. The leap jarred her legs, sending a shock up into her belly. She used that small pain as a reminder to pay attention to the disruption in her breathing, and to notice how the slight hitch changed the feel of the steps beneath her feet.

  “Feel the mountain,” her teacher had urged her, his voice hard and angry. Even as she ran, or slept, or ate. Be the mountain. Even as she danced her forms his cane had lashed out, trying to catch her unawares, leaving a trail of welts on her skin when he succeeded. Feel the mountain.

  Well, she felt the fucking mountain now, and it burned. It burned where the soles of her feet skipped across the dragonglass, it burned her eyes when the fortress flashed a hot welcome, it burned white hot like the new-forged bars of a cage made for someone much smaller than her.

  Belly soft, heart open to Akari, drawing the heat of a dragon’s dreams up and into her body she breathed, she ran, and as she did so the tears rolled freely down her face. It seemed sometimes as if she was always running—always running, but never getting anywhere.

  The scent of dragonmint, planted along the steps long, long ago, made Sulema smile. She nearly opened her mouth for a deeper taste, but her teacher’s voice rang through her memory. “Focus,” he reminded her. A flash of white teeth. He was very patient, with a student come so late to his instruction. She was fortunate to have him.

  “Focus. Feel the mountain.”

  She could hear Sajani Earth Dragon singing to herself in her dreams, and Sulema let that voice carry her up, up, up into the clouds and beyond the sky where Akari Sun Dragon waited with infinite patience. Eventually the path ended and she staggered to a stop. Her legs trembled, and she was nearly blinded by sweat and dust and the stuff that rolled from the crown of Atukos.

  Not fog, she thought, not smoke. Something… A wisp of cloud, red and gold in the light of a dying sun, brought a smile to her face. It looked like a horse, leaping through the sky.

  It looked like her Atem…

  Atemi…

  The thought would not stay. These days, any image of home slipped away from her like sand sifting between the fingers, and any thought of her mother—

  The lake gleamed in front of her. It was so beautiful at sunset. Not really a lake, she knew that, just as the black shore was not really dragonglass sand. The water was not really water but pure magic, death to any surdus should they look upon it or breathe its sweet cool mists, death even to any echovete who might slip beneath the cool, silvered surface. Even so, she took a halting step toward the shining waters, so cool, so sweet, and she so hot and thirsty after the chase.

  There was a polite cough, and Sulema jumped half out of her skin. It was her teacher, her father’s shadowmancer Aasah, waiting so patiently upon the sand. He was dressed as always in scraps of scarlet silk, and his skin glowed with stars, beautiful as the night sky. She offered embarrassed apologies. He smiled and waved aside her words of shame.

  “There is nothing to forgive, Endada,” he assured her. “Are you ready?”

  “I am, Malimu,” she replied, using the Quarabalese word for “teacher.” He was so much more patient with her than Istaz—

  She frowned. What had she been thinking of?

  She must learn to focus.

  “Excellent,” Aasah said. His voice rolled over her, and her thought slipped away like the others. “Let us begin again.”

  * * *

  “I am sorry, Father, you were saying…?” Sulema shook her head to clear it of cobwebs, and reached for her goblet of wine.

  “You look exhausted, my dear one,” Ka Atu said. “Aasah tells me you are most diligent in your studies.” He gestured with his own wine toward the shadowmancer, who bowed his head in assent. Aasahsud’s little apprentice, Yaela, shot her a rare look of sympathy. Sulema supposed the girl knew better than anyone what a strict taskmaster they served. “How are you feeling?”

  Her feet hurt, her lungs burned, and she had grown so accustomed to having a headache that she had almost forgotten about it.

  “I am well,” she said.

  Her father snorted and set his wine down. “One should not lie to her king,” he reminded her. “It is a bad habit.”

  “Very well, I feel like shit,” she admitted. “Like three-day-old horse shit after a hard rain.”

  The lower tables went silent. Master Ezio dropped his knife. Loremaster Rothfaust coughed so long that one of the serving girls stepped forward to pound his back. Yaela turned to face her, pale eyes wide, and for the first time ever Sulema heard her laugh.

  Her father picked up his knife and speared a chunk of lamb. “You smell like it, too,” he remarked. “From now on, think of visiting the baths after a run and before dinner, if you do not mind.” He winked at her.

  Sulema grinned back. “Yes, Father.”

  Finishing her wine in one long swallow, she wished it were usca, wished the meat had been aged properly. Wished she were back home in the Zee—

  She set her glass down and stared, wondering when she had finished it, then covered an unexpected yawn with one fist. She really was tired, but how could she complain in front of her father? The man was old before his time, wrung to the bones every day with the effort it cost him to wield atulfah, the song of dragons, and keep them all safe. She had tried to assist him in raising the Sulemnium, and had been overwhelmed. It shamed her. She could only hope to be a small part of his shadow some day. She could only wish she had come to him earlier, that she might be better trained by now, and able to bear some small part of the burden he bore for all of them.

  If only her mother—

  Mother, she thought. For a moment her heart beat faster, and fear nibbled at the edges of the fog which held her. Where is my mother? She should be here—

  “You look tired,” Ka Atu said, as he reached out to touch her hand. His face showed such love, such concern. “You should get some sleep, in order to be well rested for the spectacle.” The whole city was abuzz with anticipation. Ka Atu meant to reveal his new Sulemnium to the world, by hosting a demonstration of magic and wonder “fit for a thousand years’ worth of stories.”

  “I should get some sleep,” Sulema agreed, standing and stifling another yawn. “I will wish to be well rested for the spectacle. If you will excuse me, Father. Parens.”

  All stood save her father, and Yaela, whose hooded eyes reminded her of a hawk’s, quiet and sharp all at once. Istaza Ani would have liked—

  Sulema blinked as she stared at the entrance to her chamber. She could scarce remember the walk through Atukos.

  I suppose I am lucky that my feet did not take me to the bedchamber of Mattu, she thought, then she reached up to rub at her temples. Halfmask had gone away, had he not? Surely she remembered—

  But she did not remember. Perhaps after she had had some sleep, the mist would lift from her mind.

  “Sleep,” she muttered, and jumped at the sound of her own voice. “I need sleep, is all.”

  “Do you?”

  She jumped again, heart hammering behind her sore ribs as she whirled around. It was only the shadowmancer’s little apprentice.

  “Do I what?”

  “Do you need sleep?” The girl ghosted closer, hips swaying in the dancer’s rhythm that Sulema envied every time she saw it. “Perhaps you are not as tired as you think, Sa Atu. Perhaps you should visit your fine horse; I hear she is pining away in the stables, and that she has taken to biting the stable boys. Perhaps you should visit your mother, who even now lies between this world and the next. Wh
en is the last time you went to see her?”

  Sulema staggered, caught herself against the stone wall, which flashed red in anger at her distress.

  “My mother. My mother. I… my mother…?” Her voice whispered away, so unlike a warrior’s that she hardly recognized it as her own. “It hurts.”

  “I thought as much.” Yaela ducked under her shoulder—not much of a duck, as she was a full head shorter than the shortest warrior—and helped her into the bedchamber.

  “You are strong,” Sulema remarked, and heat flushed into her face. Her heedless words always marked her out as a barbarian.

  “I am very strong,” Yaela corrected, helping her sit. “So are you. Do not forget that. Do not let him make you forget that.” With a gentle shove, she toppled Sulema back onto the bed.

  Soft. So soft. Her eyes wanted so badly to close that they hurt, but falling asleep with a stranger in her bedchamber was—

  Dangerous.

  —very rude, and she was tired of being seen as a barbarian.

  “Do not fall for his sweet lies,” Yaela went on, tugging at Sulema’s sandals as she talked. Oh, the relief of having those damned things off her feet was so true she could have wept, ehuani.

  “Ehuani,” she breathed.

  “You Zeeranim and your ‘beauty in truth’,” Yaela snorted. “There is much beauty in Atualon, child, but there is very little truth. Already you have fallen for his tempting deceptions. You think he loves you. He loves no one but himself—there is a truth for you—and he loves power even more than he loves himself.”

  Despite her best efforts, Sulema’s eyes closed. They were playing tricks on her. For a moment, it looked as if Yaela was dancing. Dancing with the shadows.

  “Who are you talking about?” Her words were slurred. “Surely not my father. My father adores me. Are you talking about Aasah…?”

  “Ehuani.” The word rang false against the chamber walls. “Do not give him your heart, child. He will eat your heart, and wash it down with your mother’s tears, and your name will be less than a memory to him. Less than a dream.”