An Ill-Fated Sky

by Darrell Drake

  There came to him something akin to a disembodied nod. “The story of Ashtadukht’s demise reached me only recently. And when her reek, foul and with a puissance that rivaled my own, advanced on my home, I—” She simpered, patently amused by the irony of her blunder. “—I acted in stupidity.”

  “Well, I won’t argue with that. Mighty fucking stupid.”

  “Watch how you address me or . . .” Her voice trailed off, and that self-deprecating simper returned. “Even a daughter of Eshm should not have mounted such resistance. Unexpected. Her mind is a treacherous one. Still, I would have prevailed had she not invited you in. Now that was unforeseen. And truly cunning. Divs always put up a fight, you see, which may as well be struggling in quicksand. Oh, she fought like the best of them. But in that, she saddled the lot. Used my point of entry to let you in. From there, it was natural that someone like yourself with a weaker mind would succumb to her will. Frankly, I am impressed enough that it dampens the loss of my life. Always worried I would depart in my sleep.”

  “Weaker mind? Listen here, you fucking—hold on. Loss of your life?”

  “That is what happens when you are stupid.”

  Cautiously, Tirdad crossed the room to stand over the body. It stunk of feces and piss, though that didn’t faze him. Not after all the times Shkarag had died in his arms. “You’re dead,” he said, nudging the corpse. “And yet you speak.”

  “That is what happens when a man in a craze uses the skull of the div you have possessed as a scabbard. I am stuck; the three of us are . . . crossed, as the Eshm sister put it.”

  “Can you hear this, Shkarag?” He looked from the body, thinking she’d left until he noticed her sitting against a wall, leg out, and kneading.

  “. . .”

  “Shkarag?”

  “Maybe,” she grumbled.

  “I am not one for chatter,” Myrod piped up, “but I must press on. This will only last until my soul has departed. What have you come for? Justice for my standing idly by when your cousin needed me? To punish me on her behalf? I would not blame you. Since the day I learned the truth of her path, I knew I was as much to blame in not acting as those who had.”

  Tirdad frowned at that, beetle-browed and chin creased with the onset of guilt. He was perhaps the most to blame. He had turned her away from the stability of her rites; he had run her through. “We came seeking answers,” he muttered, feeling as if it didn’t matter. She was gone for all eternity, and he could never make amends for his part in that.

  “Go on.”

  “The conspiracy against her.” He stared through the dusty carpet at his feet. The memory from earlier still smarted something fierce. Even now, Ashtadukht’s cries hounded him. Her morbid fancies of plummeting from cliffs or being torn apart by divs were suggestions worth entertaining. All the disparaging things she called herself. She had thought herself worthless, scum, unwanted, unlovable, hideous, undeserving of her title.

  That struck him keener than any of it. She had always seemed so proud, always standing tall and wearing her role of star-reckoner for the achievement he had always believed it to be. A mask she wore for herself as much as anyone else.

  “You have it wrong,” said Myrod, interrupting his spiraling depression. “There was never a conspiracy against her. What use would there be in that? The conspiracy was meant to bring down the whole of your House. In that, I suppose it did.”

  “My . . . House?”

  “Several other houses wanted yours gone. The why never really concerned me, to be honest. Whatever the reason, Ashtadukht was a convenient tool for those loyal star-reckoners. And cause to find myself a less deplorable circle to run in.” Myrod let that fall to a moment of deliberative silence. “I did try to show them the error of their ways. That they were ruining that poor girl’s life. Politics were never my strength, however, and that is all they paid heed to.”

  As it had so many times with Ashtadukht, anger quelled his melancholy. What was saturnine became white-hot. He growled, which transitioned to a shout of rage. “Fuck!” Tirdad paced around the house, fuming and kicking at the single table stationed at the far end. “Fuck!” he bellowed. “Fucking menstrual-swallowing cowards!”

  After a few such circuits he addressed her again. “Who?” he demanded, still utterly incensed. “Which Houses are responsible?”

  “All of them. Mainly that of the second House.”

  “Then I’ll fucking, I’ll rip their livers from their guts and—” The second House. Chobin. Chobin didn’t just belong to the second House, he was the son of its patriarch. All this time. For the last decade, Tirdad had been played for a fool. They were probably in some pavilion laughing at him behind his back—they had been all along.

  “Chobin,” he breathed, seething. It’s no wonder the marzban had been so eager to take him in. Though their Houses’ territories shared borders, the two had never really been close. There was, after all, a gap in age and standing. Not to mention the fact that Tirdad had been out adventuring with Ashtadukht well before Chobin was conceived. So it should have come as more of a surprise when the marzban invited Tirdad into his inner circle. In trying times, a friend—or someone posing as a friend—was not given second thought.

  He faced Shkarag, eyes narrowed. “Did you know about this?”

  “. . .” She ignored him, focusing instead on her kneading.

  Tirdad took a step forward. He felt like flying into a rage. Exploding. That bled into his delivery. “Did you fucking know?”

  Shkarag craned to cant at the upended table. “No,” she flatly replied.

  Those straight answers, elusive as they were, always threw Tirdad off as sure as a lariat yanking his feet from under him. He grimaced, and occupied himself with stowing his sword. “Sorry. You have a habit of keeping these—” That wouldn’t go anywhere enviable. “Just, uh, sorry.”

  “Goat-fucker tread on you,” she said. “Tread on you like some, like some crook going around snatching pillows, and you were using those to sit to the right of the, to the, like some vineyard stomping your grapes, and you’re thinking I’m into this or that, wouldn’t be all that ruffled by a wallop or stropped-iron handshake, but the stomping can go for a saunter on a salt flat.” She swiped the axe he’d given her from its holster and gave it a spin. “I’ll lob his head clean off.” She set hers askew. “Not clean. A šo-messy cleaving, all scorching-hot and—” She sucked in a breath as tremulous as it was wanting.

  “Some company you keep,” said Myrod. “Now what is she doing? Cease that at once!”

  Tirdad watched with indifference as Shkarag limped over and set to hacking at the star-reckoner’s corpse. “You’re already dead,” he reminded her.

  “That is not the point. She is desecrating my body.”

  “I think you saw to that when you shit your trousers.”

  “Fair point,” Myrod conceded. “What do you plan to do now?”

  Tirdad trailed his fingers through his hair, blinking against the splotches of night that bridged his vision with that of Ashtadukht’s memory, as if the starry sky had somehow done to his eyes what staring into the sun would have gotten him. “They destroyed my family, brought all so much ruin to our lives. Left us destitute. Broke Ashtadukht. All those thousands who fell to her invasion have the second House to thank for it. Then there’s Chobin. I thought we were friends. More than that.”

  “He would not have been born when their ruse was set in motion,” reasoned Myrod. “Perhaps he was none the wiser.”

  “Perhaps,” Tirdad surrendered, though he didn’t believe it. “What would you do?”

  Myrod emitted another of her simpers. “You are looking at it.”

  “You would have me run and hide?”

  “I would not have you do anything. I have said my piece, and am merely entertaining your questions until we are free of one another. Besides, should you not be asking that of the half-div?”

  At that, Shkarag cocked her head to regard at him out of the corner of her eye. />
  “Well?” he asked. “What should I do, Shkarag?”

  “You fucking stop.” As caustic as it came out, hiss and all, the ease with which she lowered her axe flagged her surrender. “Would like šo-rousing adventures, crossing to and fro, hither and thither, unconcerned with—” She lifted her axe as if for another chop, but suspended it above her head. “Not worried about this vendetta or that feud. Used to travel all over with, with Waaaaaaaaray. Think you—” She brought her axe down, cleaving through the star-reckoner’s neck. There wasn’t much blood, which is likely what inspired her pursed lips and furrowed brow. “Left out too long,” she said, reaching down to dab a finger with a taste of blood. “Out too long,” she affirmed. “Think you might be company worth spelunking with.”

  Tirdad continued to watch as she wiped her axe on Myrod’s robe. Despite her claims to the contrary, it seemed to him she always went for the axe he’d given her as her first choice—whether oiling, sharpening, chopping, or fighting.

  He had also given her his word. As incensed as it made him to think about the conspiracy, Tirdad would be a fool to pursue it against her will. While he had forsaken honour, he had not forsaken their bond. Pursuit would mean disregarding his promise and the trust she had placed in it. There was also the prospect of venturing into the unknown by her side, which had an allure all its own. Most of all, she had invited him to take the place of her sister. Not in so many words, but she had at least in part. If they could shore up one another by filling the hollows left by loss, who was he to argue?

  “All right,” he said. “I’ve my answer, and I won’t break the promise I made to stop. Otherwise, they’re meaningless.” He shifted subconsciously to open a path toward the door, and withdrew his hand from the ram’s head pommel. The blade had been constantly urging him to run the star-reckoner through. More than that, he noted. The exact nature was uncertain, but its urges had become either demands or pleas. “We can venture as far east as the lands of the Chini if you like. You’ve no doubt travelled far and wide in your years, so I’m leaving our destination up to your experience.”

  Tirdad sighed. There, he had acquiesced. It hurt more than he thought it would. He felt as if he were betraying Ashtadukht, dismissing all she had endured and lost at the hands of star-reckoners and grandees. All so they could expand their influence, seize another House’s dominion. She deserved better; they deserved death. Would that he could give her some justice. A part of him realized he was clinging as she had to the past, unable to release himself from his mistakes or those responsible for their transgressions. That realization was more than she had ever managed as far as he could tell. Tirdad couldn’t decide whether he was honouring her death by turning away from her mistakes or desecrating her ossuary by ignoring why she’d made them.

  Shkarag saved him the trouble. During his rumination, she had taken up a position by his side, spear bearing her weight with one hand while the other rested on her favoured axe. Had she always done that? Her habitually neutral expression warmed into a short-lived grin that tapered soon after, as if she’d come to a sudden, sobering realization. She aimed her half-smile instead at the ceiling, and reached up to rub his back.

  “Had me . . .” she began. “Took me to a clearing all surrounded by worry something fierce. Know it smarts to lose. You’re, you’re turning your back on her . . . for me. Don’t know that I could if it were my šo-beloved sister.”

  “Yeah,” said Tirdad.

  The irregular circles she pressed into his back were reassuring, and adamant enough in that reassurance that they almost pushed him forward. “Just wanted to hear you say it,” she said. “To know you can. And . . . that you care.”

  “Yeah,” said Tirdad.

  “We’ll see your goat-fucker,” she said, sounding as though she’d reached the conclusion after much consideration.

  Tirdad trained a brow knotted with bewilderment on Shkarag. She still watched the ceiling, tilted and pensive. “Why?” he asked.

  “You must think I’m some, some šo-indecisive šo-impossible . . .” She trailed off, and dropped her hand, inserting a few steps between them. “I’m those things and worse.”

  “And worse,” Tirdad agreed, endeavouring to sew some levity into his tone. That emboldened in her the traces of a smile, guarded as it was.

  “Maybe,” she confirmed, still studying the ceiling with her darting stare. “Know it’ll gnaw at you. Don’t want you to resent me for it. We’ll confront the goat-fucker. Catch him testicles-deep in mutton, and he’ll be bucking and rutting and we’ll give him another cleft to swoon over. Just—” She angled her head away, but leveled her fluttering gaze on him. “Had to be sure you’d stop. That you wouldn’t become her.”

  Tirdad nodded. He knew all too well her meaning and admitted to having felt the pull of whatever was left of Ashtadukht to continue her legacy. “I understand. I’m grateful, Shkarag. That you’re here to prevent me from falling into her footsteps.”

  She mouthed something unintelligible to herself, focusing now on his scabbard. “Maybe,” she said. This time it was as unreadable as they came.

  “Chobin must be a goat after all,” Tirdad mused. Shkarag canted, but didn’t raise her eyes. “Because we’re going to have him drawn and quartered.” When she showed no signs of responding, he added, “Because you can’t eat it until it’s four.”

  That inspired a distracted smile.

  “After, we’ll travel to your heart’s content. Until my years are numbered if you so please.”

  Shkarag reached back to retrieve a sizable egg from her pouch, and bit into it without a care for the yolk that oozed between her fingers, down her palm, over her cuff, and to the floor. Before it could drain entirely, she stuffed the rest into her mouth.

  “Are we not going to discuss how she just chopped my head off right in front of me?” asked Myrod.

  XV

  The return to port had none of the perils the way out had. Myrod had faded shortly after setting sail, but for much of the ride, Tirdad felt as if he were living two lives. Like his late cousin, Ashtadukht’s memories were faint yet intransigent. The blotches wherein her experiences imposed upon the present hounded and confused him. To make matters worse, he felt threatened. Endangered. By what, was beyond him. He made connections where before there had been only passing acquaintances. The celestial theatre became the celestial theatres. Each vied for the right angle. Tirdad wasn’t certain what the right angle was, only that it was not ninety degrees. That crook had gotten him nowhere. It overwhelmed him such that he spent the ride huddled in his cloak, focused, when he could manage, on the sloshing of waves against the hull. Fortunately, that too had faded before the ship moored to port.

  “They’re headed east,” he said, emerging from the port garrison to find Shkarag leaning into her spear. “Let’s retrieve our horses and perhaps we can intercept them along—” He blinked, peering incredulously over her shoulder. “—the way.”

  A familiar face had caught his attention. Damned familiar. He swallowed, and steeled himself as the face left the crowd to approach him.

  “Cousin,” he said.

  “Some nerve showing your div-fucking mug around here,” spat the woman from where she drew up in front of him. The thick layer of soot and grime that clung to her skin made her almost unrecognizable. She had eyes heavy with enmity and laden with bags, clothes so tattered they had lost all semblance of what they once were. She seemed to him a completely different person than when she’d strut around the estate, chin held high and wearing the finest accoutrements. This was his first time seeing her since. “Some fucking nerve.”

  “I’m . . .” Tirdad swallowed, and worked unease into the ram’s head pommel. “This isn’t our land.”

  “Nowhere is!” she shouted. “Nowhere is! Because of you and that div-fucking Ashtadukht! Everyone knew you were born under an ill-fated sky. They should have cut your throats at birth! You have brought ruin to us all!”

  She lifted her hand as if to
hit him, at which point Shkarag cut in with a deft movement to snatch her wrist and press an axe to her throat.

  “Don’t kill her,” said Tirdad. He frowned at the dagger his cousin held in her upraised fist. “She has good reason to despise me.” Shkarag hissed at that, but acquiesced. Instead, she availed the woman of her dagger by wrenching her wrist until she dropped it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I . . .” There was nothing he could say. She would not forgive him, and he did not care. Not anymore. “Don’t try that again, or I’ll let her have her way with you.”

  With that, he left for their horses. That was why they’d returned to this port, after all. Tirdad would not leave behind such a prized stallion, even if it turned out that Chobin had a hand in the plot. After the sounds of scuffling and a shout, Shkarag caught up to limp in step with him.

  “What’d you do?” he asked.

  “Sprinkled rosewater on the battlefield like some, li—” She cut the head off the snake, demonstrating a discretion he’d come to recognize more and more. “Here,” she said, offering an egg.

  Tirdad cracked it open and swallowed the contents without a second thought. It no longer disgusted him; instead, it’d grown comforting. Whether by virtue of her giving it to him, or the intended effect having sunken in, was anyone’s guess.

  The trip for supplies and an extra winter cloak was a quiet one. Tirdad wasn’t sure what to make of the last few days. It wasn’t until they were well on their way that he had found the right questions to which he would seek answers.

  Rather than a circuitous course through the marshes to the north, the pair had taken an easterly route along the shore. This afforded them a less nauseating view of the Gulf’s glinting waters and busy lanes.

  “The King of Kings is dead,” he said, meaning to strike up conversation to lead to his question.

  “. . .”

  “Yeah, I don’t feel all that bothered by it either. Only heard of it from the garrison, so they must want to keep it quiet until the war is over. King or no king, most of us would go on living same as before.”