When Jackals Storm the Walls

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Who would have done it?” Esmeray thumped the book she’d been reading onto the top of the pile. “Who could have done it?”

  “I don’t know,” Davud said.

  “We have to leave,” Esmeray said. “Tonight. It isn’t safe here anymore.”

  She was worried. Davud was too, but even so, he wondered over how someone could have managed to defeat his spells and, more importantly, why. “Maybe we should try to contact them.”

  Esmeray looked completely shocked. “You can’t be so thick, Davud. This is a trap. The Enclave are trying to catch us.”

  “If that were so, don’t you think they would have sprung the trap already?”

  “Davud, we’re leaving, and those fucking books are staying here.”

  Davud, knowing hers was the safer path to tread, reluctantly agreed. That night, they moved to a cellar outside the collegia grounds, one of several places Davud had scouted should the need to move arise. The chandler who lived upstairs had recently moved his operations to a small shop, leaving the old workspace in his cellar unused. It wouldn’t be pleasant to sleep in—it reeked of the cheap perfumes the chandler used in his candles—but it was close to the collegia, which was all Davud really cared about.

  Davud used Esmeray’s blood to lay spells over the cellar. They were the same ones he’d used before, the sort that masked sounds and scents and confounded any who came near, making them think of something more important than entering the small, subterranean space.

  When he was done, Esmeray said, “Let’s add one more.”

  Her ability to use magic had been burned from her by the Enclave, but she could help Davud weave spells by creating the framework for them. She did so now, creating a spell that would alert them if magic was cast anywhere near the workshop. They hadn’t cast it before because it took energy to maintain and so required more of Esmeray’s blood, but Davud agreed the step was necessary.

  It seemed to work. The two of them took turns watching the workshop door throughout the night, but days passed and they saw no one, and not a single book showed up on their doorstep.

  During the day, Davud watched Cassandra through the topaz pendants. Her strange project of collecting the names of the descendants of the thirteenth tribe continued. She copied the names into a small leather journal, presumably so she could deliver them all at once to the chancellor, who had apparently authorized the project.

  Davud always made sure to copy them into his own journal. He wasn’t always fast enough to catch them all—Cassandra’s topaz wasn’t always positioned properly—but he got most of them.

  One day, while Davud was copying more of the names in his journal, Esmeray leaned over him and stabbed her finger at one of them: Damla Kuram’ava. “I know her.”

  Davud paused, thoroughly confused. “For some reason, I assumed the people she was finding were all dead.”

  “So did I, but Damla is a jewelry maker. She has a stall in the bazaar.”

  “How do you know it’s the same Damla?”

  “I don’t,” Esmeray said. “There’s one way to find out, though.” Davud cringed as she ripped out a piece of paper from the back of his journal. After writing down a list of the names he’d taken down so far—over a hundred in all—she kissed the crown of his head and made for the cellar door. “I’ll be back.”

  She didn’t return until two days later. Davud was worried sick. Beht Zha’ir came and went, which he assumed was the reason she didn’t come back the first night. Even so, she should have sent word. When she finally did return, she whisked into the abandoned workshop and said nothing about her strange disappearance. Breathing hard, she handed him the piece of paper with the names, many of which had been marked with small stars, circles, or diamonds.

  “The ones with the stars are all missing,” she said.

  “What?”

  She flicked the paper with one finger, making it snap. “The names Cassandra’s been collecting. Many of them have been reported as missing.”

  Davud scanned the list of names. “You’ve checked everyone on this list?”

  “No. The ones with the circles are people I’ve verified are alive and well. The diamonds are deceased. Those with no marks, I’ve yet to confirm.”

  Davud stared at all the circles. There were more than thirty of them. “All missing?”

  “All of them. And the others are in danger.”

  Davud couldn’t help but agree. There was only one conclusion to draw: the Kings were targeting the thirteenth tribe again.

  “But why?” he asked.

  “Why else?” Esmeray said. “The lesser Kings and Queens are resuming their fathers’ ancient campaign.”

  “Perhaps.” The new Kings and Queens of Sharakhai hadn’t been rounding up the Moonless Host much in recent months, but that only made sense; the Host were but a pale shadow of what they once were. So why the sudden interest in their bloodline?

  “You’ve a better idea?” Esmeray asked.

  “Not yet.” He handed the paper back to her. “Have you warned them?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We have to, right? We have to find any others who are alive and warn them too.”

  Esmeray seemed surprised, and more than a little happy at his reaction. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Contact with the outside world had the chance of revealing their location, but there really was no choice.

  Esmeray’s smile broadened, then suddenly she was leaning in and kissing him. It felt good and warm—a proper kiss, he and his collegia mates used to call it.

  “What was that for?” he asked when she broke away.

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d agree.” She pressed her forehead to his. “And a good heart deserves rewards lest it become shriveled and blackened like my own.”

  The following day, Esmeray prowled the city, delivering warnings to those she’d found through Cassandra’s research. Some seemed confused or even angry over the reason Esmeray gave them for invading their lives, but most took the warnings seriously—there wasn’t a soul in the west end who wasn’t familiar with how cruel the rulers of the city could be. That done, she continued to search for more on the list who’d yet to be identified.

  Davud, meanwhile, watched Cassandra through the link he’d created between the topaz pendants. One night, while Esmeray slept, he was scribbling notes in his journal, collecting his thoughts. His topaz pendant hung nearby, twinkling under the light of the nearby candle. No, he realized with a start. It wasn’t twinkling. There was something moving in the facets. Cassandra was awake, which wasn’t so odd in and of itself, but it was late and he wondered where she was going.

  He picked up the pendant and held it to his eye like a jeweler’s loupe. The view was swaying, as if Cassandra’s pendant were swinging back and forth, but the movements began to still. A bronze statue dominated the view, lit by a small brass lamp on the gravel near its base. Davud recognized the statue immediately. Any collegia scholar would. It was a statue of the collegia’s founder, Abdul-Assim, a heavyset man with a potbelly and a laurel wreath adorning his partially bald head.

  More interesting by far was the stack of books sitting near the lamp, the very same stack as had been left inside Davud and Esmeray’s room in the faculty quarters. The chill over being discovered once again traveled down Davud’s arms and the back of his neck, but his curiosity was nearly overwhelming. Why books? Why those particular stories? There must be a reason.

  Davud glanced over at Esmeray where she slept. He knew there was risk in going to get those books, but whoever had left them had proven he could track Davud and Esmeray wherever they went, and so, knowing she would be angry with him for going, he left Esmeray asleep and returned to the collegia grounds.

  The grounds were almost completely empty. He passed only a patrol of four Silver Spears along the way. Eventually he came to the plaza h
e’d seen through the pendant. Wary of being seen, he peered into the shadows of the arcade that connected the halls of science and history. Seeing no one, he approached the statue, the books stacked near its base, and the small lamp. Several paces from the books, a stick had been driven into the gravel. From it, Cassandra’s pendant hung.

  The spell of masking Davud had cast over himself was still intact, but he still felt terribly exposed as he crept forward, blew out the lamp, and picked up the stack of books. Leaving the pendant hanging from the stick, he returned to the cellar and stayed up the entire night, devouring story after story. One could argue that many different threads bound the tales together, but there was one that stood out from the rest: each book had at least one story that alluded to an intrigue of some sort. Mysteries. There were stories of diabolical plots against kings and queens and emperors. Crucially, there was at least one tale in each book that described how monarchs, unjust rulers, had conspired against their own people.

  The most important story, Davud was now certain, was found in the bottommost book. It told the tale of an ancient sage who taught the children of a forest when they came to him for learning. The sage was preyed upon by a woodland warlock and tricked into leading the children in a dance that ended in them all, sage and children alike, tipping from the end of a plank into a great roiling pot set over a blazing fire, a gruesome stew which the warlock used on a night of terror to feed the demonic hordes that lay deep in the center of the forest.

  “What are you doing?” Esmeray, naked, sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. She yawned, then stared at the stack of books, recognition dawning. “Davud, what in the name of fuck are you doing?”

  Davud’s mind worked feverishly. “It’s someone from the Enclave, Esma.”

  “What is?”

  “The people from the lists. The people who are going missing. Someone from the Enclave is causing it.”

  Chapter 19

  THE DAY AFTER having his offer declined by Hamzakiir in the hippodrome, Ramahd arrived at a small orphanage to the southwest of Sharakhai. He stepped through the gates set in the surrounding stone wall to reach the interior, where a host of small children played. When an old matron with rheumy eyes approached him, Ramahd pressed a sylval into her palm, as he had several times before. The matron turned the other way, focusing all her attention on the children while Ramahd stepped inside the orphanage and headed down a narrow hallway.

  As he neared the orphanage’s small, central courtyard, he felt the borders of a spell of detection. He searched for its edges, then carefully untied the threads that held it together, slipped within its bounds, and retied them as they had been.

  From the shadows he watched as a girl batted at something in the air. It looked like a butterfly, but wasn’t. It flapped too strangely, and sounded like a ruffling sheaf of papers.

  Taking one step closer, Ramahd found Hamzakiir sitting at his favorite bench. He was folding a piece of paper into a shape, like the Mireans do. Finishing it, he held it in his hands and waited as the girl, who’d seen no more than three summers, tottered closer, her eyes wide. She approached carefully, one pudgy hand reaching out toward the origami crane that rested in Hamzakiir’s palm. When she came too close, the crane flapped its paper wings and lifted high into the air, narrowly avoiding her hand. The thing she’d been batting at earlier was also a crane, both having been animated through Hamzakiir’s magic.

  Giggling, then screaming, the girl followed the origami birds, hoping to catch either, failing miserably in her quest. Ramahd, meanwhile, stepped into the sun. Unlike the hippodrome, Hamzakiir shivered in fright when he realized he wasn’t alone.

  Sensing something amiss, the girl turned, spotted Ramahd, and backed slowly away. The paper cranes fell to the stones in two soft ticks.

  When Hamzakiir said to the girl, “Take them,” she picked them up and ran from the courtyard toward where the other children were playing. When she was gone, Hamzakiir turned to Ramahd and said in his low, somber voice, “I already gave you my answer.”

  “An answer I refuse to accept.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”

  Ramahd motioned to the place where the girl had just been playing. “Suppose Meryam were to learn about this place. About that little girl, whom you seem to care about.”

  Hamzakiir’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment the old Hamzakiir returned. The man who calculated. The man who schemed. But then they softened. “You would never tell Meryam. You aren’t nearly that ruthless, Ramahd.”

  “That isn’t what I’m getting at. The point is that Meryam will learn of it. I think deep down you know that. And she’ll learn about any other place you decide to hide. Or the Enclave will. She has them in her pocket. I’m surprised they haven’t found you already.”

  “Yes, well, this old mage has spells they know nothing about.”

  “This is precisely my point,” Ramahd said. “Meryam brings only rot. Leave her for too long and you’ll hardly recognize the city she leaves behind.”

  Hamzakiir looked scared sitting on that bench. Defeated. “I was once a supremely confident man. I was convinced I would have Sharakhai for my own. And I nearly did. Several times. But the mind works in strange ways. As confident as I was then, I’m certain I’ll fail if I stand against her again.” He looked positively terrified in that moment. “I’ll die.”

  Ramahd understood then why he’d been hiding in an orphanage all this time. The children gave him some semblance of life, of purpose. This place likely felt like a sanctuary to him. “You have allies,” Ramahd said. “Powerful allies.”

  Hamzakiir laughed. “And Meryam doesn’t?”

  “You have no choice but to fight.”

  “We all have choices to make, Lord Amansir. Always.”

  Ramahd was certain Hamzakiir was about to say he couldn’t help, but then his eyes slid to the shadows. The girl had returned, holding one of the cranes in her open palm. Behind her, a boy the same age was holding the other between pinched fingers. They wanted a show. They wanted to play. Hamzakiir stared at them, then began to cry. He did so for long moments, moments in which the children backed away, perhaps feeling they’d done something wrong.

  Hamzakiir, meanwhile, wiped away his tears. He took a long, deep breath. Then he stared at Ramahd with a dawning clarity of purpose in his eyes. “Go on, then. Tell me this fool plan of yours.”

  Ramahd did just that, taking his time, explaining everything so that Hamzakiir could see it was no half-baked scheme. Over the course of the story, Hamzakiir stared into the middle distance. He composed himself, became still, serene as a windless oasis. Then a change took place in him that was as surprising as it was encouraging. His jaw worked. His brows pinched. A wicked gleam came to his eyes. Ramahd had worried that Hamzakiir’s appetite for revenge had been beaten from him during the months of torture at Meryam’s hands, but here he was, purposeful once more, a fire pot lit, ready to explode.

  When Ramahd finished, Hamzakiir stroked his beard, separating the wiry strands. “It isn’t a bad start”—his eyes were alive, as if his mind could hardly contain his thoughts—“though I have a few humble suggestions, if I may.”

  Ramahd stopped himself from smiling, but only barely. “Go on.”

  Chapter 20

  IHSAN AND THE OTHER Kings reasoned that to remain anywhere near Baük risked being discovered, so they set sail for a line of rocky hills three days north and made camp near a clear spring that trickled into the desert. The following morning, Cahil led Ihsan into the cutter’s hold, where there was a table with straps on it. It was a surgeon’s table but reminded Ihsan more of the fiendish confessional slabs Cahil had kept in his palace on Mount Tauriyat.

  Cahil went to a foot locker. “Sit,” he said as he opened the lid with a rough flick of his foot. Ihsan did, while Cahil took a bottle of araq from the locker and held it out. “Drink.”

  Ihs
an accepted it and pulled the cork, which released with a reverberating thoomp. Cahil, meanwhile, reached back into the locker and retrieved a gleaming steel clamp and a leather-wrapped bundle. After setting the clamp down on a work table with a clank, he undid the buckle on the leather bundle and unrolled it to reveal a set of scalpels, saws, pliers, and an unnerving collection of gleaming steel needles. Seeing it all, Ihsan took a good, long swig of the araq, then another.

  When he tried downing a third, Cahil took the bottle from him. “Sand and stone, we don’t have that much araq. This is going to take some time.” He set the bottle on the table. “You have the elixirs?”

  Ihsan handed him five metal vials, each filled to the brim with the fabled elixirs King Azad had created before he died. They were the last of the ones Nayyan had given to him in the blooming fields, shortly before he’d ridden into the desert with the Blue Journals.

  Cahil stared at them. “This is all you have?”

  No, I have a galleon filled with more, Ihsan signed. It should be here any day now.

  Cahil sneered. “Five won’t be enough.”

  It will have to be.

  “Well, that’s not up to you, now is it?” Cahil stared at the vials in disbelief, as if he were reliving all that had happened since their fellow King, Azad, had brewed the elixirs. Feeling Ihsan’s eyes on him, he glanced up, then jutted his chin toward the table with a sneer. “Lie down.”

  Do you really need to strap my hands down? Ihsan had come to view his hands as his gateway to the world. Losing the use of them, even for a short while, would make him feel infinitely more powerless than he already did.

  Cahil stared at him in disbelief. “Assuming you really want me to do this, yes! I won’t have you fouling things up because you can’t control yourself, and believe me, you won’t be able to.”

  Resolved to do whatever it took to get his tongue back, Ihsan lay down, and Cahil proceeded to tighten the straps—forehead, neck, wrists, waist, and finally his ankles. To this point Cahil had seemed bored, but the more tightly Ihsan was strapped down the more his eyes seemed to brighten, particularly as he inserted the metal clamp into Ihsan’s mouth to hold his jaws wide.