With Blood Upon the Sand

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Please, Nalamae, deny him Emre’s scent.

  When they were done, he beckoned to Çeda. “Come. I would speak awhile.” Yndris stared at Çeda with naked resentment, but strangely, Sümeya did as well. In all her months here in the House of Maidens, Çeda had never felt jealousy from Sümeya. Anger, certainly. Resentment of her presence, especially early on, but not jealousy, not until now, and suddenly she wished Yusam hadn’t singled her out so openly from the others. But what is there to do but swim with the current?

  She followed as he strode to a tower built into the nearby curtain wall. Inside the tower, they took the stairs up to the wall and walked east, side by side, toward King’s Harbor, where the royal clippers and ships of war were kept. Every few hundred yards they would pass through another tower. The tower’s interior would shade them for a moment, the sun’s absence feeling cool but not cold, and then the heat and the brightness of the Amber City and the desert beyond would return.

  “You’ve been among the Maidens for some time now,” Yusam said.

  “Yes, my Lord King.”

  “Have you found your place?”

  “If you mean, do I feel like this is my home, in truth I would say no, but it is coming. My sister Maidens have welcomed me.”

  “But only after proving yourself.”

  After killing a King. After lying to them and telling them it was Jalize. “Yes, my Lord.”

  “Tell me of your childhood.”

  “What do you wish to know?”

  “Tell me about your mother.”

  She’d told him of Ahya many times before, but she did so again, giving him the same story she’d given him and several of the other Kings: that her mother, Ahya, had come from the desert when she was young; that she’d done much in her time: seamstress, translator, poet, sword mistress; that after Çeda was born they’d moved about the city often, her mother never finding comfort in one place.

  “Do you suppose she did so because she missed the desert?” Yusam asked.

  The thought so struck her that she stopped for a moment. They were at the edge of King’s Harbor, which sprawled to their left, a mass of ships crouched along dozens of piers, as if they yearned for the wind to fill their sails, for the sand to rush beneath their skis. On her right, the desert sprawled endlessly. How much had Ahya wished to return to the desert? She’d come to Sharakhai with purpose, to see to the downfall of the Kings, or at least to orchestrate it with Çeda as a necessary instrument, but how much had she given up to do so? It was clear she’d cut almost all ties to her family. Çeda had met only her grandfather and only when she was very young. Ahya hadn’t even introduced him as such, but Çeda had seen him again in the visions from Saliah’s tree, seen him in the reflections of those chiming crystals, her grandfather with tattoos on his face, golden rings in his nose, a vicious scar running down his neck.

  Who else had Ahya left behind? And how much had she come to regret doing so?

  For years Çeda had dreamed of sailing the desert, visiting the desert tribes, hoping to connect with those of her blood, and the call was never greater than it was now, standing on a wall that protected the Kings, staring out over the Great Shangazi.

  “Have I struck a nerve, young one?”

  “My apologies,” Çeda said, resuming her pace until they were again stride-in-stride. “I suspect you’re right. I think she dearly wished to return to the desert.”

  “Then what prevented her?”

  What, indeed? She had to be careful here. Yusam was far too intelligent, and too gifted at sifting through disparate, seemingly unrelated clues. “A family divide, I suspect.”

  “Ah,” Yusam said, “a thing that happens to all of us from time to time. But we are nothing without our family, our tribe. Is it not so?”

  “Indeed, my King.” It was the truest thing Yusam had ever said to her.

  To their right, the Taloran Mountains were a jagged black line along the horizon. Cutting the desert in two between the mountains and the harbor was the aqueduct, which carried precious water from the mountains—from a lake, it was said, nestled between the peaks like a sapphire hidden in the nest of a carrion crow. They continued along the wall of King’s Harbor, climbing the stairs to the massive gates, crossing them, and climbing down the far side. It soon became clear Yusam was going to lead her around the entirety of Tauriyat, the mountain upon which the House of Kings was built. As they walked, Çeda could feel Yusam’s eyes on her, and on the harbor as well, as if he were considering the two of them together. It sparked a memory, of war ships sailing over the sand. She looked to her right, examining the amber dunes that made their way right up to the very gates of the harbor, trying to determine whether, and indeed how, the two of them were related.

  It seemed as good a time as any to broach a subject. “My King,” she said as they moved beyond the harbor and toward the northern slopes, “I’ve wondered about your mere, the visions it shows you.”

  He nodded his assent, striding with hands clasped behind his back.

  “You’ve sent each of us in Sümeya’s hand on various tasks, and I wonder: Did the visions themselves show you the danger we face, or is it the outcomes that do so?”

  “In truth, both. Think of our combined future—yours, mine, Sharakhai’s—as a grand tapestry.” He gripped his hands before him, as if by doing so he could shape the very things he spoke of. “A tapestry that is constantly being torn apart by the whims of the gods, indeed, by the whims of man, threads that are woven and rewoven. The mere grants me some small insight into the colors and shapes within that tapestry, but only a glimpse, and an imperfect one at that, for the tapestry may be torn and remade by some monumental event, or even a host of smaller ones. Or even—given time—one tiny event that like a landslide triggers others. It is up to the viewer, then, to determine how soon the event might occur, and to move as quickly as possible to gather views of other, nearby threads so that a larger picture might be formed. Wait too long, and I’m pulling together an image from different times, from different tapestriers, in a way of thinking. Wait too long and the view becomes flawed, and eventually useless.”

  “So you must move quickly.”

  Yusam nodded. “Yes, there is that. Simple, straightforward briskness. But there are times, young dove, when a particular future is all too likely. It comes on strong. So strong, in fact, that it almost feels a certitude. And when one of these visions comes to me, I know it, and I have learned that I can take more time. I can be patient, for the thing ahead is massive. Unlikely to easily change.”

  “That’s what we’re doing, helping you to see something important to the Kings.”

  “Not just the Kings, Çedamihn, but the entire desert. What is coming will shape the way of the world. I know it is so. I simply don’t know what form it will take, this threat.”

  “But you will.”

  Yusam made a gesture like who can tell? “With diligence, and the favor of the gods, yes. But we can never rest.”

  “Have you learned anything from what we’ve done? Can you not see the nature of the threat?”

  Yusam smiled, his bright eyes glancing Çeda’s way. “Do you wish to look in the mere yourself?”

  “No, my Lord King. I only wonder if the Maidens could help more. If I could help.”

  “Your enthusiasm commends you, child, but this a broth best left to a single chef.”

  “Is it to do with the harbor, a threat from the desert?”

  Çeda had expected some response from Yusam. What she hadn’t expected was for him to stop and spin her to face him. “Why did you say that?”

  She’d wondered how much she could say without putting herself in danger, but she could see now she’d better tell him most of it, or a near enough facsimile that he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. “I’ve been given to dreams from time to time, my Lord King.”

  He peered more
deeply into her eyes. “Yes.”

  “In one, I saw ships sailing over the dunes. Dozens of ships. Perhaps hundreds. I’d never known what it meant, but since entering the House of Maidens, since seeing King’s Harbor with my own eyes and the dunes beyond, I wonder if that wasn’t what I saw—a threat to our house.”

  “Tell me about them, these ships.”

  Çeda shrugged. “The dream was a long time ago. When I was nine, ten. I can’t remember anymore. But it was vivid, and it’s stayed with me ever since. I don’t recall much about the ships themselves, only that they were of varied types. That they were sailing over the dunes on a moonlit night.”

  “Under the twin moons?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “And these dreams, do you have them often?”

  “No. Only a handful of times in my life.”

  In truth, they hadn’t been dreams at all. Not in the normal sense. They’d been visions from Saliah’s tree, deep in the desert. Saliah, the goddess Nalamae in disguise. Or if not in disguise then at the least in a new skin that Nalamae herself did not completely understand. The visions had come the day her mother died, and they’d shown her a number of things, some of which had already come true. The granting of her ebon blade by King Husamettín, the tattoo placed on her right hand by Zaïde in order to save Çeda from the adichara poison, the truth of Çeda’s heritage as the daughter of a King of Sharakhai. No matter that the final one had been a vision from the past. She now believed that all of them would one day come true. In fact, they now felt inviolate, as if she must play her part or risk the displeasure of the fates.

  “What else have you seen, child?”

  Çeda told him of Husamettín granting her her blade, of Zaïde tapping the tattoo into the palm of her hand. She told him of the Blade Maidens raising their swords in triumph. She wasn’t sure whether to share with him this last vision—she had no idea whether it might be related to the ships on the moonlit sand—but he seemed so intense she thought it might lighten his mood.

  And it did. They resumed walking, and soon the view to their right was dominated by the terraced rice paddies on the mountain slopes and the fields of grain and vegetables fed by the glinting reservoir beyond. Yusam’s intense curiosity faded, replaced by a contemplative look. “You were headstrong when you came to us.”

  “Some would say I still am, my Lord King.”

  “Yes, but perhaps this gives me some insight as to why.”

  “I suspect it has more to do with my mother than any visions. I had no idea they would come true then.”

  “And now you have some confirmation.”

  “Yes, but as you say, who can know whether a vision will come exactly as it’s shown?”

  “You may have more of them. Will you come to me if you do?”

  “I will, my King.”

  “Very well. It’s good you’ve shared with me what you have.”

  As they continued, Yusam’s mood continued to lighten. As they rounded Tauriyat and approached the House of Maidens once more, he pointed out the parts of the city that were young when he was a child in Sharakhai, before he’d become a King. The old wall, which still existed in many places but that had long been outgrown. Ancient bathhouses, the auction blocks, Bent Man Bridge and the Wheel, where the city’s largest streets, the Spear and the Trough, met. “How it’s grown,” he said, his eyes bright, and for a moment Çeda wondered at all he’d seen. Here was a man who’d lived for well over four hundred years. It wasn’t right. No man should live so long, certainly not while standing on the graves of those he’d sacrificed.

  No sooner had the thought come than a well of hatred surged up inside her, a thing tied to the blooming fields that ringed the city. It became so great she nearly screamed. Without even realizing when it had happened, she saw her own kenshar gripped in her right hand, the very one given to her by her mother when she’d turned six.

  “My dear child, what are you doing?”

  She blinked. She’d just drawn a knife in the presence of a King. The poison in her hand had done it. Or rather, the link she felt to the asirim sleeping out in the desert. She’d first known of the bond it had created shortly after Zaïde had saved her from the poison. What she’d never expected was that it would control her, force her to do things against her will. It had happened at Yndris’s vigil in the desert, and now here. Gods, was she becoming a tool of the asirim? Would they use her as the Kings used them? They would if she didn’t learn to control it. And then where would she be? Dead. Lost beneath the sand. Forgotten like her mother.

  Bearing down against the pain that was now running all along her arm, Çeda showed the blade to Yusam. “I’d forgotten one last vision,” Çeda lied. “I remembered it only when you were speaking of the bladewright just now, the one who made your first sword for you.”

  None of the concern had left Yusam’s face. “Go on.”

  “I saw a woman, perhaps me, perhaps another, driving this knife into the heart of a false King.”

  “Why do you say false?”

  “Because when he fell to the ground, the crown upon his head rolled away and withered.”

  Yusam swallowed. His eyes searched hers. He took the knife from her and examined it, then handed it back to her as if it meant nothing. “Come, Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala. We’ve talked enough of meres and dreams and knives this day.”

  They completed their circuit, and Yusam delivered her back to the courtyard of the Maidens. Sümeya, with a sour expression on her face, was there to greet them.

  “What is it?” Çeda asked before she could think to allow the King to speak first.

  After a look of chastisement for Çeda, Sümeya addressed Yusam. “My Lord King, my apologies, but there’s been an incident with the woman we brought from the collegia.”

  “An incident, First Warden?”

  Sümeya nodded. “She poisoned herself, most likely before we took her from the bursar’s office.” Sümeya paused, glancing uncomfortably at Çeda. “She’s dead, my King.”

  King Yusam didn’t appear angry at this information. Rather, he seemed to weigh it, to turn it about to inspect it from all angles as if it were but one more piece in the grand puzzle he was solving in his mind.

  “You have my thanks,” he said absently, then strode from the courtyard.

  Çeda slept only lightly. Her chest was filled with the flutter of moth wings, not only over the strange conversation with Yusam, but with what she was about to do, the hope within her that might be crushed.

  After listening for some time for any movement from the other Maidens’ rooms, she got up and moved to the desk in the corner of her room. She lit a candle and retrieved a piece of the reed paper she’d received from Juvaan, then took out the inkwell and pen. She wrote in clipped sentences in the smallest script she could manage. She recorded her initial meeting with Yusam, their chase after the two men, the death of one of them. She did not name Emre, but she made it clear she’d seen the scarab she’d been searching for but had no idea where he might be now. She wrote of the woman being dragged back bloody to the House of Maidens, and finished with her long walk with Yusam.

  She lit the corner, feeling a hundred times more exposed than their last exchange. A plot was afoot, and she needed to know what, and she desperately wanted to know how Emre was involved. The page lit, blue flames rushing across it in the blink of an eye. It rested there, the flames licking the edges, the ghostly sheet seeming to ripple above the desk’s wooden surface. She waited for long minutes, her nervousness growing.

  Letters appeared, inking the page in elegant curves and blue flames:

  Very well. I did find that the Kundhunese ship you told me of, the Adzambe, which has been smuggling in rare herbs and roots for Ihsan, things the grass witches use before taking one of their week-long sleeps beneath the earth. Why would he want such?

  Her heart sank a bit
as the page burned up moments later. Why wouldn’t he mention something about Emre?

  She took another paper. I’ve no idea why Ihsan would want them. What of my other concern? Has there been word of the scarab? Do you know what they’re doing?

  As she lit the fresh page, she heard the creak of a bed. It was likely one of her sister Maidens shifting in her sleep, or getting up for a drink of water or to relieve herself, but it felt as if they were going to burst into her room at any moment. She readied herself to smother the flames with the square pot she had on one corner of the desk, a thing she’d prepared for that very purpose.

  But then writing appeared on the burning page—

  I’ve nothing on that as yet. Report more when you can.

  —and it burned up, just like her hopes.

  She fumed, wondering whether she should use another sheet to press Juvaan. Surely he knew something, even if only rumors. Staring at her dwindling supply of the magical paper, she decided to give him more time. It may be that the Host had gone quiet before the mission at the collegia, which she’d learned was often the case.

  Give him time, she told herself. Give him time.

  A bitter leaf, but what was there to do but chew and swallow it?

  Chapter 14

  WITHIN THE SAVAŞAM, ZAÏDE UNLEASHED a series of moves that had Çeda on the defensive, barely able to keep up. Çeda blocked them all, but when she tried to spin away to regain her distance, Zaïde caught her heel with a well-timed snap of her foot. As Çeda fell, Zaïde launched herself forward and brushed the vein running along Çeda’s throat, ending with a perfectly executed shoulder roll to return to her feet. It was a reprise of the drill they’d been performing this past week. Zaïde had managed once again to score a strike, but Çeda was somewhat pleased that it was taking her longer and longer to do so.