The Forbidden City

by Deborah A. Wolf

  It changes nothing.

  Hafsa Azeina let her song fade, let her awareness of self dissipate like mist scattered upon the winds. This was his place, not hers. She had hunted the wyvern to his very lair, and what little flame she held in her heart was almost nothing compared to the inferno of his glory.

  Almost nothing, she told herself as she hovered too close to the sleeping wyvern, is still something. And perhaps it will be—yeh Atu, let it be—it must be enough.

  I must be enough.

  Scarce daring to breathe in the waking world, Hafsa Azeina nocked the black arrow and drew back. She aimed high, as the miniature of her love would slow the arrow’s flight and drag it down, even as her love of him dragged at her resolve. She aimed, and it broke her. She aimed for his heart, the path to which was laid clearly before her by the strands of moonsilk, and in doing so broke her own.

  She drew back, and the string of the bow burned against her fingers as, trembling, they touched her cheek.

  Even as she loosed her arrow, Hafsa Azeina cried out in pain, a cry that shook both worlds to their core. The golden wyvern reared with a scream, eyes blazing. When he beheld her hovering before him, his cry of grief was so profound, so true, that it broke into pieces the magic of ehuani. Hafsa Azeina watched in horror as the golden wyvern flicked his tail, hurling Sulema’s fennec deep into his cave.

  He rose up, wings outflung, to take the black arrow in his heart.

  The golden wyvern screamed. His wings wide as dawn beat, twice, three times, and he launched himself into the sky. For all his bulk, the wyvern was quick as sudden death. He caught up the dreamshifter’s spirit-mist form, clutched her to his hot bright breast with talons like swords, and held her there as if she were the last treasure in all the world. Up, up he shot past the trees that clung to the mountain peaks, past the clouds, past any thought of salvation, into the sky and out of memory.

  The wyvern’s claws were an iron prison, and Hafsa Azeina clung to him, to the kima’a soul of her enemy and lover. It was not out of fear for her life. She pressed her face against his warm hide, stretched her arms as wide as she could, and sang herself into the Dreaming Lands. As her song grew thin and weak, she knew her dreaming self would grow more substantial, while her body in the waking world would grow cold and stiff.

  There was no apprentice in the waking world to sing her home, and for this she was grateful. She belonged in this place, at this time.

  With him.

  The wyvern’s heart labored, faltered, and as his wings skipped a beat they hung suspended so far above everything that they might have been a single golden leaf upon a vast and colorless ocean. All that had been, all that was, all that would ever be between them ceased to matter in that moment, leaving nothing but love and a faint aftertaste of regret.

  Give me this death, Belzaleel whispered. Give me this death, and free yourself.

  Ah, she replied, but I am free.

  Life is pain, Wyvernus whispered into her mind, infinitely sad. He allowed himself to be drawn unresisting into his kima’a, even as Hafsa Azeina sang herself to sleep. Only death comes easy. I am sorry, my moons-haired princess.

  I am not sorry, Hafsa Azeina answered. She closed her waking eyes, then closed her dreaming eyes, and held on tight. I am free at last… and I am with you.

  Free, he said, and his voice caught as his great heart slowed. At last.

  Slowed…

  …and stopped.

  Hafsa Azeina did not weep, did not cry out as they fell, locked tight in a last embrace, blazing through the pale sky like a dying star. She had killed her love, and in doing so she had doomed the world. In the end, however, her daughter was close, her daughter was safe.

  That was all that had ever mattered.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  The scents of leather and horses, and of women and sweat, were sweeter to Sulema than any perfume sold in a merchant’s stalls. She took a deep breath and held it in, as the shadowmancer and his apprentice might when smoking their spirit-herbs.

  Sensing her rider’s momentary distraction and fresh from spending too much time idle, Atemi crowhopped a bit to one side and made a half-hearted attempt at unseating Sulema with a series of sassy little bucks. Sulema laughed and rode out the ill-mannered display.

  “You need to teach that filly some manners,” one of the Draiks called out, even as he yanked his mount’s head around. The shaggy gelding stuck its tongue out, rolling its eyes in displeasure at such rough handling.

  “Watch your tongue, lest Her Radiance teach you some manners,” Iyezabel replied as she flashed by in her Divasguard robe and mask of blue-and-green. “Ja’Akari know how to ride without beating their mounts silly.” She gave her own horse—a long-legged bay—his head as they raced for the dead sheep.

  “Maybe,” the Draik called, “but Herself is ne Atu now, not some barbarian wench.”

  Wench, indeed. Sulema encouraged Atemi’s tantrum and the young mare complied, spinning about so that her hindquarters collided with the ill-treated gelding, sending its rider flailing and yelling through the air. Sulema grinned as she flew past the disgraced guard. Any apology he made would have been a lie, anyway.

  Because she was warrior enough to cling to the beauty in truth—even ugly truth—Sulema had to acknowledge the verity of the guard’s words. Though her place as heir to the throne was no more than a fool’s mummery, her future as Sa Atu more than suspect, neither was she wholly Ja’Akari. The fox-head staff belied her claim to that title.

  Even as guards and warriors alike galloped shrieking toward the sheep’s head, Sulema opened her dreaming eyes. It was child’s play when compared to the voice exercises Aasah had given her. She watched the game of aklashi as if from a very great distance. If she reached out, just so, she might turn this rider away, might swing the sheep’s body that way, and so affect the outcome of the game. She did not, but her joy in the day was somewhat diminished.

  One of the Divasguard rode past at a controlled canter. Her face was flushed with pleasure and the morning’s chill air, and her eyes shone. She wore three white ribbons on her helm, signifying that she had captured the target thrice.

  “My thanks for teaching us this game, your Radiance,” she called out as she passed. “Truly, it is a sport fit for a queen.” Even as she said the words, her eyes lingered covetously upon Atemi. The asil were still and always forbidden to any but the Zeerani, and no few of the Atualonians resented this.

  Beware the one who wants what you have and they do not, the voice of Istaza Ani whispered. Such poison turns even a friend’s heart to wickedness.

  Sulema sighed. She had just wanted to play aklashi in the sunlight, but there was no escaping the long game of Atualon. Though she was surrounded by her own Divasguard, and by a few remaining Ja’Akari, though she was ringed about with her father’s guards and the Salarian salt-cloaks and by citizens who smiled and paid her all manner of courtesies, still she was alone in a hostile land. She would do well to remember it.

  There are no few people in this world, she thought, who would rather see me dead. I would prefer to disappoint them.

  The Diva with ribbons on her helm streaked past again, this time in the other direction, screaming in triumph. The sheep’s head was clutched tight to her chest. Sulema dropped her worries, spun her mare around, and gave chase.

  It was a good day to die. It was a better day to live.

  * * *

  When they had finished the game of aklashi—the sheep had lost, as usual—Sulema and the rest of her entourage rode back to the city proper at a leisurely pace. Saskia had her back, as always, and Sulema had long since outgrown blaming the girl for the attack on her mother.

  If a viper strikes, one should blame the fool who stepped into their nest, not the fool who let them do it. Neither can I rightly blame the viper, for it is simply following the way of its kind.

  She smiled to realize how much she had begun to sound like her old youthmistress. I wonder where Istaza Ani has gone, she thou
ght wistfully. Probably raising another crop of younglings to be warriors, by sending them to clean churra-pits.

  She had never thought she might miss that.

  “Salt for your thoughts, your Radiance?” The Draik who had lost his mount—with a bit of help—smiled indulgently at her as if she were a Mother in child. Sulema kept the irritation away from her face.

  “Nothing of import.” She had long since learned that any word of hers could become fertile soil for speculation. Atualon was a land of beauty, but its beauty did not lay in truth. Sulema had heard enough wild fancies to fill volumes of stories, had she the time or the will to write them down.

  From what she had heard, her father was a pretender to the Dragon Throne, and the real king was biding his time until he could reclaim his rightful place. Her mother had taken a lover, young and antlered like a stag, from among the Salarians, and they had conspired to kill the king. Her mother’s lover was the king’s old concubine, and they had conspired to kill the king. Sulema, herself, had conspired to fill Atukos with her barbarian warriors and kill the king.

  The king, it seemed, would suffer many deaths.

  For all these conspiracies against my father, she thought with a wry smile, the old goat is surprisingly alive. Then her smile departed. More disturbing were the rumors that surrounded the king’s intentions toward Sulema. It had occurred to her, some time past, that her own chances of survival would be considerably better were she not in Atukos, and seated at the feet of its Dragon King.

  Atemi snorted and tossed her head, still fractious. Sulema reached forward to stroke the silken, sweat-damp neck of the one friend she had in Atualon.

  I know, she told her good mare silently. I want to go home, too. With her entire heart Sulema wished to leave Atualon and return to the winds-blasted desert, but freeing herself from Atukos was a more difficult task—and a dirtier one—than cleaning churra pens could ever be. Sulema had sussed out her father’s security at the four main and twelve minor gates of Atualon, and what she had learned did not inspire her to confidence.

  Her father’s guards knew her by sight and by reputation, enough so that even a casual disguise would not allow her to pass unnoticed. People were allowed to come and go through the Sun and Moon gates as they wished, but each person was stopped and questioned, more or less respectfully, Sulema had observed, depending on their dress and apparent social stature. Bags, carts, and packages were carefully searched, more so since the Salarians’ stunt at the Sulemnium.

  The Sunrise and Sunset gates would open only to those who had a writ of passage from the king or his shadowmancer, and the smaller gates were, to a one, closed and barred except for certain times, and to certain people. None were ever left unguarded. Sulema would have been pleased, were she not trying to leave the seven-times-damned place. If she could just get past the gates, Sulema thought, she would give Atemi her head and never stop until they were back in the Zeera.

  The Zeera is mine, she thought. My own. I would be safe among my people, free to ride once more with my sword sisters beneath the gaze of Akari. She had dreamed of fleeing over the mountains, but indeed to go north over the forbidding mountains meant to fly, and Sulema had neither wings nor an amenable wyvern to carry her.

  While possible, escape by sea was less likely still. Without a Baidun Daiel on board to dazzle and confuse the river serpents and sea serpents, any vessel was doomed to be torn apart, its passengers gobbled up like minnows, before its crew had lost sight of land. Thus Sulema remained in the land of her enemies, smiling and nodding at them and biding her time.

  Ani would tell me to be patient. Yet her old youthmistress, she was certain, would have found her way to freedom by now.

  The Draik was still making eyes at her, and Sulema resisted the urge to roll her own in exasperation. His name was Seamus, she thought, or perhaps Theamus? He had been flexing his calves and batting his eyes in her direction for a handful of days now. When finally it became apparent that she had no interest, another would take his place, and another. Using both men and women—some too young to be taken seriously, others old enough to know better—they had attempted this ruse repeatedly. She needed neither her youthmistress nor her mother to tell her that it was a trap.

  One lover is enough of a pain in my arse, she thought, and at least I know I can trust Mattu Halfmask.

  In truth, she knew such a thing, but Sulema had decided not to spend the entirety of her life weighed down with suspicion. There were few in Atualon she trusted. Her dream-eating mother, her sword sister Saskia, her good mare Atemi. Her lover, Mattu—and not because he had shed his clothes, delightful though that was to behold—but because he had first shed his mask.

  As they neared a pasture near the Sunrise Gate, where the asil were kept, the Ja’Akari gave a series of war whoops and began to race. Much as Sulema longed to join them, she did not. She had attempted to maintain a camaraderie with her sword sisters, joining them at mealtimes or for a game of stones and bones, but the drawn-out silences and abrasive looks had grown as thick and stinging as a sandstorm. As a result she had learned to shield herself by shunning their company.

  “Sulema…” Saskia began.

  “Yes, Diva?” Sulema responded, not turning her head.

  There was a long, heavy pause.

  “Nothing, your Radiance. Never mind.”

  A hawk wheeled overhead, screaming into the silence.

  It is better this way, Sulema thought. For both of us. She considered ordering the warrior to return to the Zeera, but Saskia would doubtless refuse to leave her side. Again. Churra-headed brat, she thought with a smile. Reminds me of—

  Sulema, her mother whispered. Open your Dreaming eyes.

  After a moment of startlement, she opened her Dreaming eyes, and what she saw made her pull Atemi up short. Even as the Ja’Akari reached the pastures, the pasture guards and horse-minders sprang to life. Bows appeared as if from nowhere, and the hapless riders fell beneath the rain of arrows like sheaves of wheat to the farmer’s scythe. Horses screamed, riders screamed.

  Saskia screamed.

  A lone rider broke away from the mass of gold-and-white cloaked imperators at the Sunrise Gate. He raced toward them low to his horse’s neck, a shield over his back, and gave his mare her head as if all the winds of Yosh were behind them. Indeed, he was pursued by a hail of arrows, all of which fell short, and then by a wedge formation of white-cloaked Salarian guards, golden-antlered, bull-horned, and armed with the bright white blades of the il Mer.

  “Salarians,” Sulema hissed. She stood in her stirrups, heart pounding in her ears. “What are they doing here? And who are they—”

  “Davidian!” Saskia cried. She flung herself forward and her mare leapt away, toward the fleeing figure. “Dav—”

  A red flower bloomed, impossibly, upon the pale leather vest on Saskia’s back. She toppled from her mare and fell to the ground, a dagger protruding from between her shoulder blades. She was crushed beneath the hooves of Sulema’s guard.

  “Saskia!” Sulema screamed. She would have leapt from her saddle, but was prevented by a strong grip on her arm. Strong, and cruel. Sulema looked up, shocked, into the face of the Draik who had offered salt for her thoughts.

  “Saskia!” she heard Davidian cry, as all around her Divas and Draiksguards unslung bows from their backs, nocked their arrows, and drew. “Saskia!” Three times, making it true. “Saskia!” Even as the arrows struck him, struck his horse, struck the blood-soaked ground at their feet. He fell as his love had fallen, pinned to the ground by the weight of betrayal.

  Sulema went cold and numb all over. Her hands, gripping the reins, were heavy, clumsy. The brown-eyed conspirator in a Draik’s helm took them from her grasp with ease.

  “Why?” she asked him. “Why?”

  “I am sorry, your Radiance,” he said as he lifted his drawn sword high above his head. “But it is better this way. For all of us.”

  The blow fell, and she fell.

  Into darkness
.

  * * *

  Sulema did not know for how long she remained lost to the world, or how they got her into Atukos, but when she came to her senses she was bound and kneeling on the stone floor in front of the Dragon Throne.

  The cold, dark, angry stone.

  The fury of Atukos returned before her own pain. Deeper than blood, deeper than bone, deeper and colder than the heart of the world it ran, and the world trembled and knelt before Atukos even as she trembled and knelt before the man on the Dragon Throne. A man who, though he held the Mask of Akari and wore the golden robes of the Dragon King, was not her father.

  My father… Sulema blinked back the tears, bit back the pain and heartbreak, and dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands, bound tight behind her back. Focus, Sulema, she told herself. Think, girl. Think, and look. For the second time that day, she opened her Dreaming eyes. This time she was trampled beneath the dark hooves of pain.

  “Ah, ah,” Aasah scolded in his gentle voice. “Do not try that again, girl.”

  Girl. Not your Radiance, or even Endada. Heart sinking, Sulema dropped her eyes. There, at the very bottom of the steps leading to the Dragon Throne, she saw them.

  Her father was laid out upon a golden bier, his head on a golden pillow, his body draped chest-to-toes in a shimmering golden shroud. His hands were folded neatly atop his breast, eyes closed, face as peaceful as that of a sleeping child. But he was most certainly not sleeping. Wyvernus, the Dragon King, her father, was dead. Sprawled upon the floor at his feet, broken and torn, her beautiful face mutilated as if they had wished to erase all memory of her from the world, lay Hafsa Azeina, foremost dreamshifter among the Zeeranim.

  Mother, Sulema thought. Mama. A wail rose in her heart. It flew up her throat and burst from her mouth in a single, clear note of purest agony. Again she sang out, and again, putting power behind it this time so that the cold dead walls of Atukos flashed a sullen red, so that the floor shook beneath her.