With Blood Upon the Sand

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Their rage was justified, but she needed to learn to control it and the poison. If she didn’t, she would surely die, perhaps taking those she loved with her—sacrificed to the emotions she could no longer control.

  It happens through anger. Always through anger.

  Perhaps it was something she could use to her advantage. After all, if the asirim could use her, might she not use them as well? She had bonded with them—as the Maidens had taught her and Mesut prescribed—but the link through the poison seemed to be something outside of that traditional method. Was it the combination of the poison and the blood she shared with the asirim? She wasn’t sure, but she would learn more in the days ahead. This she promised herself.

  Macide and Dardzada spoke for a long while. At one point she heard their voices raised, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying. Finally, as the sun was setting, Macide came out and regarded Çeda from the doorway. “We should walk awhile. There are things we need to discuss.”

  She nearly demanded to know what but she stifled the urge and simply nodded. They returned to the workroom where Dardzada was stuffing the clothbound packages into two burlap bags.

  For a moment Çeda and Dardzada stared at one another. There were words of apology on her lips, words of farewell, but like a wraith hopelessly searching for the life it once led, the words could find no form. It looked as though Dardzada wanted to speak as well, but then he glanced to Macide and finished his work. Macide slung one of the bags over his shoulder, motioning for Çeda to take the other. Çeda tried to say something. Anything. But in the end, neither she nor Dardzada seemed ready for this conversation, so she merely nodded to him and coiled the second bag around her wrist. Macide pulled the tail of his turban loosely around his face. Çeda did the same with her veil, and then she and Macide left the apothecary, the two of them striding side by side through a city cast copper in the ruddy light of sunset.

  Chapter 36

  MACIDE LED THEM SOUTHEAST THROUGH THE CITY. He wove his way through little-used alleys and shortcuts, moving with clear intention but little haste. They neared the outskirts of Sharakhai, but before they reached the rocky plateau that dominated the land east of the great southern harbor, he cut under an old bridge with an acacia leaning drunkenly over the road above, then they slipped down a little-known trail on the far side, through a small grove of well-tended olive trees, and finally to the Corona, a street that had tried valiantly to complete a full circuit around the outer edge of Sharakhai. Its only failure was the city’s imposing eastern features, where the arms of Tauriyat and King’s Harbor created a gap in the Corona’s grand ring.

  For an outlaw from the desert, Macide knew the city quite well. Then again, perhaps being an outlaw was the very reason he’d been forced to learn. After all, a stroll along the Trough for any amount of time would surely lead him past several patrols of Silver Spears. The real danger, though, were the Blade Maidens. Çeda and all the Maidens were regularly shown artists’ renderings of Macide and Ishaq and Shal’alara and other leaders of the rebel tribe. They stood a much better chance of recognizing him than the Spears, but Çeda had to admit Macide was good at what he did. The disguise he wore was subtly effective. The Malasani had a way of swaggering when they walked. If many in Sharakhai thought it a brash confidence, the desert tribes thought it a sign of arrogance. Of all the people from the neighboring kingdoms, the desert tribes hated the Malasani the most. And yet here was the leader of the Moonless Host, a man who’d sworn to cleanse the desert of their presence, walking like one of them. His clothes and slightly hunched shoulder completed a look that Çeda was sure she wouldn’t have seen through had she passed him on the street.

  It felt odd to be strolling with this man, the leader of a band of shadow soldiers who had the blood of hundreds on his hands, a man who would be slain on sight and yet who held so much power in Sharakhai and beyond.

  “The gods work in strange ways,” Macide said in his sonorous voice.

  “A point no one would dispute, least of all me, but in what particular way do you mean?”

  “I wouldn’t normally have gone to see Dardzada myself, but I’d wondered if he’d heard from you through our friend Yanca. I’ve been hoping to speak with you.”

  “With me? Goezhen’s sweet kiss, why?”

  They sidestepped as a cart piled high with hay bustled its way up the street. “To talk about your future.”

  Why would he want to talk about her future? But then she understood. “You hope to control me.”

  “Yes, though don’t be so indignant about it. You do, after all, control my actions to a degree.” He caught her skeptical look. “Come. The two of us are in positions of power now, Çeda. And those in power exert influence on one another. Is it not so?”

  “I suppose. What is it about my future you wished to speak about?”

  “We’ll come to that soon enough. For now, there’s a confession I think is long past due.”

  They’d come to the top of a rise. Ahead, the whole of the southern quarter of the city was laid out before them. Like children sitting before a storyteller, rank upon rank of warehouses and other buildings huddled near the immensity of the southern harbor. A grand arc of ships curved along the quay. Farther out, hundreds of ships complicated the sand of the central harbor around a complex array of inner docks, at the center of which was a squat, octagonal tower that was so utilitarian in design it looked like a child had built it. Two fat ribbons of rock hemmed the harbor in, and led to the twin lighthouses atop jagged outcroppings of stone; from this vantage it looked as if a fallen giant had reached out to gather his toy ships, two unlit candles gripped in his fists.

  Macide stared at the scene, perhaps drawn in by some memory. He glanced toward Çeda, though if he was embarrassed by his peculiar silence, it didn’t show. “I’ve heard you enjoy stories.”

  Çeda’s heart began beating madly. She wasn’t even sure why. “When the time is right.”

  “Believe me, the time has never been better.” He paused, gathering himself. “Nearly two hundred years ago,” he said as they began taking the long slope down, “a rumor surfaced in the desert tribes that on the night of Beht Ihman, Tulathan recited poems to each of the Kings. Then, the thirteenth tribe had been nearly decimated. They were the diaspora of our tribe, the survivors from the massacre of Beht Ihman and the years that followed in which any of our blood were hunted and killed. The rumor of the poems was believed by some, discounted by others, but most cared little one way or the other, for it was thought that the poems the silver goddess recited merely described the power granted to each King. Those few poems that had been unearthed corroborated this. They spoke of blessings, not curses.

  “Time passed, nearly a century, before a lost stanza was discovered by a woman who had inveigled her way into the services of King Kiral. The King of Kings,” Macide said in a mocking voice. “A secret council of our elders was called to hear these words, to listen to what the woman had found. They went to the desert to meet, but none returned. Their bodies were found the next morning. With blood upon the sand they lay slain, their throats slit. Any who’d heard those fateful words died that night, cutting off one possible path to our retribution like a branch from a sapling tree.

  “For generations following that night, it was thought that the story had been leaked by the Kings themselves, that no such verses existed. It was said they’d lain a false trail so that the King of Whispers could listen for those words and turn his ear toward us more easily, and perhaps he did. Perhaps that’s how Azad came to find them before slaying them all. Most believed this version of the story, and that the only folly was in believing that the gods would reveal some weakness of the Kings on the night of Beht Ihman. Why would the gods do so? they argued. Why come at the request of the desperate Kings and grant such wondrous abilities they might use to defeat their enemies while at the same time reveal weaknesses?

  “Like ironw
eed in the desert, however, the story persisted. There were those who believed it, and nothing anyone said could shake their belief. In fact, arguments against it seemed only to make them embrace the idea more ardently. They were few, but they worked diligently over the course of the following decades.”

  A high-pitched bell rang on the road behind them. “Make way!” called a young woman. “Make way!”

  They stepped to the side of the narrow road as three mules pulling carts of grain trundled past. The driver, a fair-skinned woman with freckles jogging alongside the first mule, tipped her wide-brimmed hat to them as she passed. “Good fortune upon you.”

  When the wagons had gone a fair distance, Macide continued. “At first, they had little fruit to show for their efforts. Some of their number wandered the desert, collecting stories. Others were sent to spy. Some made their way into the collegia to gain access to that grand store of knowledge.” The thought reminded her of both Davud and Amalos and she nearly laughed, but the churning in her gut stifled the urge. “They made their way deeper into the city, coming closer and closer to the Kings.”

  “My mother was a believer,” Çeda offered.

  “She was, though her father was not.”

  Her steps slowed. Her feet stopped. The light of the setting sun was inexplicably bright. The city seemed so much wider than it had only moments ago, as if it were ready to open up and swallow her whole.

  Macide turned to her, but said nothing. He merely waited for her to utter the logical question they both knew would follow. But Çeda’s mouth had filled with spit. She swallowed, unable to speak. How cruel are the gods? Since she’d been old enough to know what family meant, she’d wanted to know where she’d come from, and now she could hardly work her mouth to form the question.

  “And who was her father?” she finally asked.

  Macide, a burlap bag of medicine and poison slung over one shoulder, replied, “Ishaq Kirhan’ava.”

  “Ishaq . . .” She remembered the dreams she’d had in Saliah’s garden in the desert, the ones that showed her mother, Ahya, speaking with a man Çeda remembered from her childhood. Dear gods, she’d been shown pictures of Ishaq by Sümeya in the House of Maidens, but they’d shown a much older man than her memories. Now that she knew, though, the similarities were undeniable. The intense eyes, the sharp nose, the very shape of his cheeks and chin.

  Macide stared at her with a look that bordered on sympathy. She could see some of Ishaq in Macide, especially in his eyes.

  “Ishaq is my grandfather,” Çeda finally said.

  Macide nodded.

  “And you are my mother’s brother. My uncle.”

  He nodded again.

  Çeda felt powerful, as if she could wrest from Thaash his command of the heavens and release strike after strike of lightning. Her head swam with questions. But the first that won out against all the others was, “Why did you never come to us?”

  “I did once.”

  The day Demal was taken by the Maidens. The day Hefhi was killed. “But you said nothing to me. I had no idea who you were.”

  Macide nodded. “Ahya insisted I come only rarely, for my sake to a degree, but more so for yours. In all her time in Sharakhai, we spoke only thrice, and each time she was desperate to make sure her identity, your identity, wasn’t discovered. As well, my father forbid anyone from the thirteenth tribe from contacting her.”

  “He forbid it?”

  Macide nodded and motioned to the road ahead. The two of them fell into step once more, passing an old man with a crook and five children in tow, each shorter than the last. “There was concern, not only from my father but many others, that doing what Ahya did was not only foolhardy, but reckless. They felt it put the lost tribe at risk over a fool’s mission.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “So you say.” Before Çeda could argue, he went on. “You have little sense of what it’s like in the desert, Çeda. Life is hard. We live on a knife’s edge. You will know well by now the number of Blade Maidens who hound us at the command of the Kings. They are merciless hunters, and good at what they do. The Kings come at times as well, baying beside their daughters. It’s why we travel like packs of maned wolves, never larger than ten or twenty, joining together only rarely. Those in the lost tribe feel, rightly, that anything that puts them at risk must be weighed carefully. Some might listen to your story and consider it dumb luck that Külaşan was killed. Others will hear it and perhaps believe, yet still think it a fool’s errand, not worth pursuing.”

  “I don’t understand. If Ishaq was against her coming here, why did he relent? Surely he could have denied her. He is the leader of the Al’afwa Khadar, after all.”

  Macide tipped his head to her, granting her the point. “True, but there are other powers in the tribe, Çeda.”

  “Such as?”

  “My grandmother, your great-grandmother.”

  Çeda considered this. “She was one of those who believed?”

  “Not merely believed. Leorah is our chief historian, our greatest link to our past.”

  It was all so much to take in that the implication of what he’d just said took a moment to register. “Breath of the desert, she’s still alive?”

  “She’s seen ninety-two summers, but yes, she’s still alive. She and Ahya were quite the pair. When we were young, before Ahya left for Sharakhai, the two of them could always be found together, reading stories to one another or repeating tales they’d learned from others. We were sure Ahya would eventually take her place.”

  “What happened?”

  “You mean, why did she come to Sharakhai?” This was what he’d been leading up to all along, Çeda knew. “It is difficult for me to say. She was my elder sister, and when I was young I was often regarded as a nuisance. I would try to sneak up to Leorah’s tent when they were sharing their stories, but I was always found out and sent away, sometimes with a switching for my trouble. As I grew older, I had many things to do at my father’s bidding. I only know that Ahya and Leorah conspired with one another for many years, and one day they revealed their plan to my father, for Ahya to go to Sharakhai to find more of the poems.”

  “And what of me?” Çeda asked.

  “What of you?”

  “She went to Sharakhai to have a child from one of the Kings.”

  “You know this to be true?”

  “I was tested by the adichara. I’m a Blade Maiden now. It must have been part of her plan.”

  They’d been heading steadily downhill, and now were entering the outskirts of the warehouse district that pressed against the harbor like beggars on a bread line. As the sight of the harbor and the desert was lost, their world was plunged into the shadows of dusk.

  “I know only that she went to Sharakhai after she and Leorah had devised a plan. I know they withheld it from my father until just before she left. I know that my father felt aggrieved, and rightly so, after being set upon by his daughter and his mother with demands he’d never been consulted about.”

  “Surely he could have refused her.”

  Macide tipped his head to her. “He might have, but Leorah is a convincing woman. She has an indomitable spirit. And perhaps, in the end, they had the right of it and so my father relented. Whatever the case, Ahya came, but who are you to say that your birth was her plan all along? She might have lain with one of the Kings simply to receive his favor, and so gain access to things she could not otherwise. She might have been raped.” Macide raised his palm to the sky. “Gods forbid, she might have fallen in love.”

  As they turned left down a side street and headed toward the docks, the sounds of the city rose around them like a flock of starlings taking wing. In the stream of the late-day traffic, a pair of Silver Spears approached. Çeda’s heart beat madly for Macide’s sake, but Macide wore his disguise like a mantle, changing neither his speed nor his swaggering walk, an
d the Spears soon passed them by.

  “And you?” Çeda asked when they were out of earshot. “Why have you not told me this before now?”

  “My father forbade me,” Macide said. “He made me swear a vow. Once he’d agreed to their request, he refused to allow anyone to go to your mother in Sharakhai, a command echoed by both Leorah and Ahya. They wanted no interference, no attention brought to Ahya. There were days I desperately wished to break my vow and go to her. I loved my sister, and my heart was laid bare when I learned of her death. But I knew even when I was young that to meddle in such things would put us all in danger.”

  Çeda shook her head. “There’s so much I don’t understand.”

  “I know. We have time yet. Ask me your questions.”

  “The lost tribe,” Çeda began. “How could our very existence be so effectively buried?”

  “Ah,” Macide said. “A question that would take a year and a day to sufficiently answer, but let me do my best to summarize. It’s not difficult to see how the Kings could guide the minds of those who lived here in Sharakhai. They had complete and undisputed power here. The tribes presented a different sort of problem. They could not destroy all who stood against them, nor did they wish to. The Kings were, after all, the blood of the twelve surviving tribes. So they sent Ihsan, the Honey-tongued King, to treat with the shaikhs. He gave them an ultimatum. Speak of the thirteenth tribe and be hunted to the ends of the Shangazi and ground into dust. But speak as though they’d never been, and they would be allowed to live, to prosper, in fact, under the rule of the Twelve Kings. The Kings had no desire to rule every corner of the desert. What joy is there in lording over such vast desolation? But obeisance, they required. And as long as their secret shame was buried by the tribes, as long as they could control trade in the desert, they were content to let the tribes live as they would.”