With Blood Upon the Sand

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “I will admit,” Cahil said as he examined the instrument’s gleaming teeth, “I wasn’t surprised when Yusam decided to allow you into the House of Maidens. He’s a skittish shell of his former self. A feckless, flighty man who becomes more so by the year. But I was rather shocked when Husamettín granted you a blade. I thought him a man of good judgment, yet there he was, welcoming a thief who had made her way through the cracks in the walls and into the House of Kings like a scrabbling, scuttling cockroach.” He rubbed his thumb over the spotless steel. He considered the pincers, working them for a moment, then set them down in the exact position they’d been before, choosing instead an awl with a handle made of a lustrous golden wood.

  “But admit you he did, and granted you a place in a hand that should have been reserved for our finest young women.” For the first time, he met Çeda’s eyes, and all the stories of Cahil the Confessor King returned to her. Wild tales meant to scare her when she was younger, mythic in their power now. “And then he had the audacity to place my daughter in that same hand.” Cahil strode toward Çeda. “An unforgivable sin, one the gods will surely make him pay for. Assuming they are just.” He stopped by her side, inspecting the lines of the impeccably crafted awl. “Do you believe the gods to be just?”

  Çeda worked her jaw before speaking. “I have found the gods to be as fickle as the Kings.”

  Cahil smiled as though he thought her comment particularly insightful. “At times, true. But in the quelling of the desert storm on Beht Ihman, and the granting of the Shangazi to the twelve true Kings of Sharakhai, they saw true.” He stepped to her side and pressed the tip of the awl through the black cloth of her Maiden’s dress, just over her right thigh. “Do you recall what I said I would do were you to assault my daughter again?”

  “I didn’t touch your daughter.”

  “But you did! You have assaulted her. You’ve assaulted us all.” He looked her up and down, disgust clear on his young face. “Traipsing about the House of Maidens as if you were born in a palace, as if you had any right to set foot in it save as a woman prepared to be hung.”

  “I was tested by the adichara.”

  Cahil laughed. “The adichara? Only fools consider that ancient ritual a judge of any worth. The daughters of the Kings are innumerable. You’re just another one of them, a seed lost in the mercurial winds of the desert, a weed that grew in whatever crack it happened to have been deposited.” He pressed the awl so that she could feel its point, but no deeper. “And if I’ve come to learn anything about weeds, it’s that they must be eradicated before they spread.”

  He pressed the tip of the awl deeper ever so slowly while staring at Çeda with dispassionate eyes, as if he wished to move on to more satisfying things but knew that this was the best way to go about it, to build fear not in leaps and bounds, but in cruel, subtle increments.

  “Why did you go to the Qaimiri embassy house?”

  “I wished to—”

  A scream burst through her gritted teeth as a burning pain pierced her right thigh. His eyes filled with a deeper anger than Çeda would have guessed, Cahil drove the awl deeper.

  “From the thousands upon thousands given into my care, I’ve learned that there are those who will spill the truth quickly, and those who gather their lies before speaking. You, Çedamihn, are certainly one of the latter. I can feel them inside you, writhing like worms ready to bore their way out through your skin.” He drove the awl deeper still. “I bid you fight them. Let the truth free, and Yndris will be allowed to take her sword to your throat that much sooner.”

  Yndris watched, every bit as calm as Cahil had been moments ago. Was it this, Çeda wondered, the sort of hatred that had caused the Kings to sacrifice the thirteenth tribe? It had run thick in the time of Beht Ihman—how else might an entire tribe be sacrificed?—but it was still present now, an indifference carried down through time, veiled by the Twelve Kings and their vast collection of lies.

  “Why did you go to the Qaimiri embassy house?” Cahil asked.

  Spittle flew from Çeda’s mouth as she fought the pain. Her breath came like a wounded dog’s. She shivered from the effort of keeping it inside.

  “Yndris said you were stubborn.” A third time Cahil pressed the awl, this time until it pressed against bone. He smiled. “Believe me, I don’t mind.” He torqued the awl, twisting the muscles of her leg, the awl’s tip scraping her bone. “I don’t mind at all.”

  When he twisted it again, Çeda found herself screaming from the fount of pain that poured from the wound.

  “I love him!” she cried, ashamed for having voiced even a single word.

  The pain did not ease as Cahil leaned closer. “Lord Amansir?” He was so close now she could smell the citrus and sage of his perfume. “You love him?”

  “She’s lying,” Yndris said. “They spoke of the aqueduct.” Through the haze of pain, Çeda realized that Yndris had caught some of her conversation with Ramahd, but surely she hadn’t heard all of it, or the interrogation would certainly have begun differently.

  “Only to warn him away!” Çeda said. “I didn’t wish him to get caught in the conflict!”

  “Father, she’s lying!”

  Cahil raised a hand. “In due time, Yndris.”

  Finally, the pain in her thigh eased. Though the awl was still pressed deep into her flesh, she collapsed with relief. The leather restraints creaked as they took her weight.

  A knock came at the door. Cahil acted as if he hadn’t heard it. He stepped back and looked Çeda up and down, as though he’d just fashioned her from a block of wood. Then he walked back to the table. He spoke with his back to her as he perused the instruments before him. “Some people are like figs. But touch them and they split wide, spilling their secrets.” He picked up a hammer and admired it. One side of its head narrowed to a vicious point, the other was flat with blunt spikes, the sort a cook might use to tenderize meat. “Others are like dragonfruit, prickly and difficult to open.” He held the hammer in a shaft of sunlight and gave it a spin, making it glint like Goezhen’s teeth beneath Tulathan’s silver light. “Until you pound them with a hammer once or twice.” He made his way back to her and lay the spiked head of the hammer against her left shin.

  He brought the hammer back—

  “You’re going to have to decide which one you are, Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala.”

  —then crashed it down against her leg.

  A scream forced its way up her throat as the pain burst from her leg and through her entire being. Her mind expanded in that moment. She felt it reaching out as so often happened when she took the adichara petals. Her right hand ached. But it was an ache that buoyed her, an ache that touched on so many other things. It was in this moment that she felt something, or someone, in the distance.

  Come, a voice called, so wraithlike Çeda had no idea if it was real or some remnant from her dreams. She felt a twinge in her right hand. A throbbing. Her tattoo. The poisoned wound. Come.

  It was Sehid-Alaz, asking her to join him beneath the adichara. Could she? Could she escape this place? Could she shed this mortal coil and join him like a wight in a boneyard? She might, but there was a look in Cahil’s eyes—so very pleased with himself, so self-assured. He’d given her that very same look in King’s Harbor as he’d run his knife across Havva’s throat. It made her wonder again if he’d taken his perfect, shining instruments to Çeda’s mother, Ahya. With the return of that thought, the wish to know the truth became a burning desire. Maybe, here at the end, she could get Cahil to reveal himself. But even now she knew she couldn’t speak of it. She might once have demanded to know more of her mother—what Cahil had done with her, who her father was—but what good would that do? She had more than herself to think about. She had an entire people to protect.

  Sehid-Alaz beckoned once more. Come. He was trying to save her, but in so doing he put himself at risk. She was just about to tell
him so when a knock came again at the door.

  Again Cahil ignored it, his eyes lit with pleasure as he studied Çeda. “So”—the fingers of his right hand rolled across the hammer’s rich, leather-wrapped handle, a caress she’d seen from many a dirt dog before a bout in the pits—“on the eve of a battle that might sway the very course of our city, you chose to speak with the queen of Qaimir and her lapdog. Again I ask, why?”

  As Çeda struggled to breathe, to fight away the pain, gods help her, she thought about telling Cahil.

  Do not ignore me! Sehid-Alaz pleaded. But where would he take her? Would he whisk her away to the desert? Yes. He meant to take her there, to turn her to sand as she’d seen him do in the desert.

  I cannot! If Sehid-Alaz took her from this place, Cahil would know and Sehid-Alaz would be hunted down and killed. My life is of no consequence. You must survive.

  No! You are wrong, my child. It is you who must survive.

  Cahil seemed pleased by her silence. “Very well.” But before he could do or say more, the knock came again, much louder this time. “My Lord King?” came an urgent, muffled voice.

  Cahil’s brow knitted, his look of pleasure fading. “Come,” he answered sharply.

  The door behind Çeda opened. The metallic rattle of armor filled the room. “Forgive me, my Lord King, but Kiral awaits. He has sent three messengers already. The last said that if Kiral is forced to send a fourth, he’ll take heads when he arrives.”

  Cahil’s face remained almost perfectly composed, but there was a tightening to his lips, a flaring of his nostrils. He regarded Çeda, then the hammer in his hand, then the soldier who’d spoken a moment ago. “Is my armor prepared?”

  “It is, Excellence.”

  “Good. Go.” He waved toward Çeda. “And speak of this to no one.”

  “Of course, my Lord King.”

  As the clank of armor receded, Cahil turned to his daughter with barely composed patience. He flipped the hammer and held it out to Yndris, handle first. “It is time for you to take matters into your own hands.” When Yndris didn’t take it, he added, “Assuming you’re up to the task.”

  After a moment’s pause, Yndris nodded. “I am, father.” And took the hammer.

  “Find me my answers, Yndris,” Cahil said, and strode from the room.

  The door clanked shut, and Yndris was left staring at Çeda with a look of indecision, as if she had no idea what to do now that she was alone in a room with a woman she’d hated from the moment they’d met. It was then that Çeda saw how very young she looked. She was a girl of seventeen, and though she likely thought herself as hardened as her father, it was clear she was anything but.

  “Why did you go to speak to the Queen of Qaimir?” she asked.

  “I went to speak with Ramahd.”

  She shook the head of the hammer at Çeda. “Don’t prevaricate with me.”

  “I went to warn him away.”

  “And don’t hide behind that story!” She struck Çeda’s leg in the same place her father had.

  A fresh scream erupted from Çeda. The pain in her leg was terrible, but her right hand burned as if she’d gripped a piece of the fallen sun. She reached out to Sehid-Alaz where he lay in the desert, desperate. She clasped hands with him, strengthening their bond, and felt him trying to draw her to him. But she resisted. I will not come to you, Sehid-Alaz. You must come to me!

  There was hesitance, not because Sehid-Alaz didn’t wish to come, but because of the chains that lay upon him. Çeda had felt the like before, had wondered if she could break them. She’d never tried, not truly, but she did so now, allowing the pain and anger over all the Kings had done to drive her.

  A moment later, the walls between her and Sehid-Alaz fell, and Çeda felt the desert as never before. She felt like a stone in the dunes, breaking into smaller and smaller fragments as the sand slowly crushed her. The wind scattered the pieces across the desert, and with it came the feeling of helplessness, as if she were beholden to the Great Mother, and power, as if she could command the desert with but a wish.

  As Yndris lifted the hammer again a breeze began to blow about the room. It gave Yndris pause. She stopped and turned. Saw a spinning whorl of dust behind her. The cloud grew. It was comprised now not merely of dust, but sand as well. It spun nearer to Yndris. Drew up along her frame.

  “What are you doing?” she shouted, backing away, but the cloud followed her. “What are you doing?”

  Çeda tightened her right fist. The pain it brought was nearly unbearable. An inhuman cry born of impotence and outrage burst from her, bringing strength to her limbs the likes of which she’d never felt, not even from the adichara petals. The leather split near her wrist, then broke asunder.

  Yndris whipped the hammer at Çeda’s head, but she ducked and it struck the wall and clattered to the floor. In a flash of black steel, Yndris drew her blade. She held it before her like a talisman that might protect her from the swirling sand. “Stop it!” she cried, waving the tip at Çeda. “Make it stop!”

  After yanking the bloody awl free from the meat of her thigh and letting it drop to the floor, Çeda worked at the buckle on her left hand, but it was moving too slowly, so she ripped the leather free with an ease that surprised her. What was happening Çeda had no idea, but she wasn’t about to question it. As the sand tightened along the axis of the spinning, undulating gyre before her, she strained at the thicker leather across her hips. It gave with a loud snap. The nails pinged off the stone wall somewhere to her right.

  In that moment, the feeling she’d had of Sehid-Alaz vanished, leaving her feeling empty inside. She coughed as Yndris brought her shamshir down in a vicious, two-handed chop. Çeda ducked and the blade sunk into the bed of the table. Uprooting the last leather strap with one great heave, she dove to one side just as Yndris yanked her sword free.

  Zaïde’s training returned unbidden. Çeda slid wide as Yndris swung down, the sword passing so close it sliced the ends of Çeda’s hair. Yndris tried to bring her blade back for another swing, but Çeda followed the movement, matching her hands with Yndris’s. She drove forward, grabbed the wrist of Yndris’s sword arm, and lifted high, using the arc of her movements against her. Body to body, Çeda placed her right leg just so and spun Yndris over her hip.

  Yndris grunted as she crashed against the marble. Her sword went skittering away, but she twisted violently to free herself from Çeda’s grip. Çeda saw her foot coming in too late. She took it across the cheek, twisting with the blow, using the momentum to roll away and grab Yndris’s sword. As she kicked herself up to a stand she saw something bright flying toward her. Cahil’s hammer caught her hard against the side of the head.

  Disoriented for a moment, she saw Yndris, black-clothed, charging toward her. She struck out. Felt the sword sink into flesh. Saw blood as Yndris’s fist came crashing against her jaw. Çeda shoved her back to gain space, then spun and delivered a compact back kick, sending Yndris flying, falling, flailing over the slick marble floor, blood streaking her path.

  Yndris stood, favoring her left side where blood now darkened the black cloth. It glistened in the light shining down from above. She stared wide-eyed at her crimson-stained hands. With one last look at the sword in Çeda’s hands, she turned and sprinted down the short hallway to burst through the door at the end.

  As a rush of bright light lit the darkened hallway ahead, Çeda followed. Her limbs felt like fresh clay from the hammer blow, and her thigh burned brightly from where the awl had pierced muscle. She nearly tumbled, but managed to make it to the balcony where a brilliant view of the eastern desert was revealed.

  Yndris was angling herself over the marble balustrade, spots of blood marking her path along the dull gray flagstones. She stared down at the sheer drop, then swallowed as she turned to Çeda.

  Çeda had never felt sorry for Yndris, but she did now. They both knew she was going to
die; it was just a question of which way. As Çeda advanced on her, she found her answer. Yndris looked down over the balustrade, and leapt.

  Çeda rushed forward. King’s Harbor, a massive hive of activity where crewmen prepared ships and hundreds of soldiers now gathered, was arrayed like a diorama below. Nearer to Çeda, directly below Cahil’s palace, was a ravine, bushes and tall grasses coating its sides. And there, half hidden among the scrub trees, Çeda could see Yndris’s form, arms and legs splayed like a forgotten wooden doll, her black Maiden’s dress stark against the umber earth. The drop was extreme. Fifty feet or more. And yet Yndris still moved. Dear gods, how could she still be conscious? Çeda could see several broken branches on a nearby tree. She must have used it to break her fall.

  Only now did the notion of what she had planned to do that evening strike her. She’d hoped to join Ramahd and, if the gods were kind, Emre to destroy the caches. But Yndris had ruined everything. One word from her or her father and Çeda would be uncloaked. Yndris would surely die. She’d already stopped moving. Likely she’d be dead in minutes from blood loss or the wounds she’d sustained on the fall. She’d probably never wake again, and even if she did, she’d never make it out of the ravine.

  But what if she did?