When Jackals Storm the Walls

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Çeda’s mind was working madly, the pieces of the puzzle all fitting into place. “Because they were forbidden from reaching the farther fields while mortals were not. We were given the blood of the old gods. That’s why the young gods need us. We create the portal and they pass through.”

  “Then why not just use our blood in some grand sacrifice?”

  Çeda motioned eastward, into the darkness, “When I was in the fortress below Mount Arasal, I heard Nalamae speak to Yerinde. She said that there was something Yerinde had failed to consider, that she, Nalamae, had had time to reflect on her binding to this world, while Yerinde had not. She said she’d come to embrace it while Yerinde feared it above all else. Nalamae had somehow bound Yerinde to this world, to the mortal plane, and it enraged Yerinde, enough for me to approach. ‘When I die,’ Nalamae said, ‘I will return. You, however, will simply cease to be.’”

  Ihsan considered her words. “You’re suggesting it’s the binding she was worried about. That’s why the gods step so carefully? Manipulate man too overtly, and they bind themselves to the mortal plane, thereby preventing themselves from stepping through the portal?”

  “Just so,” Çeda said. “The only question now is how it will be triggered, and what can be done to prevent it.”

  “Stop the tributes,” Sümeya said, “and the crystal can gain no more power.”

  “Perhaps,” Ihsan replied, “but try protecting league upon league of the blooming fields. Eventually some of the tributes will reach the twisted trees.”

  “Then we destroy the trees,” Sümeya said.

  “That’s risky,” Çeda said. “For all we know, the crystal is ready and awaiting a trigger. Burning or cutting the trees may provide just that.” She told them how, after freeing the asir, Mavra, and her family from the blooming fields, she’d ordered them to tear up the trees they’d lived beneath, thinking it might free them from the hold the blooming fields had on them. But they’d no more begun than Çeda had felt a presence. “It was Yerinde. She felt expectant, almost hopeful, as if she wanted us to destroy the trees.”

  Nalamae held her staff in a white-knuckled grip, as if it were her only lifeline in a world of deadly currents. “So what do we do?”

  “We continue as planned,” Çeda said steadily. “We go to the valley. We see if your memories can be returned to you. With them might come your power.”

  Ihsan and Sümeya nodded. Nalamae, however, looked lost.

  “You agree, I presume?” Ihsan asked her with a note of forced optimism.

  When Nalamae spoke again, her voice was listless. “What else is there to do?”

  As she stood and walked away, Çeda, Sümeya, and Ihsan shared worried looks. They were all thinking the same thing, Çeda was sure. Nalamae’s awakening had come, but perhaps too late. There might be too much of Varal the shipwright and too little of the goddess of springtime’s bounty for this to work.

  Chapter 35

  WHEN MERYAM WOKE on the silo’s dirty, seed-strewn floor, Yasmine’s arm was draped over her while Yasmine herself snored softly. The morning birds chirped. The cool air smelled of must and shit and piss.

  The light from the hole high above, brightening with the new dawn, shed light on the heap of the cloth rope Yasmine had braided the night before. Their abductors weren’t going to be fooled forever. Sooner or later they’d notice their petticoats were gone, or they’d spot the braided rope, and then it would all be over. They’d have lost their chance at escape. They’d likely be beaten for their trouble, and the gods only knew which of them would get it worse: Yasmine for having orchestrated the escape attempt, or Meryam, to teach them both a lesson.

  Carefully lifting Yasmine’s arm, Meryam slipped from her embrace. After a brief spell of searching for a comfortable position, Yasmine fell back to sleep.

  Meryam immediately took the bundle of rope and began throwing it high into the air, hoping to send it over the support beam as Yasmine had done the night before. It didn’t go nearly high enough, though, and came pattering back down to the dry earth. Each time, Meryam glanced at Yasmine, nervous that she would wake and tell her to stop.

  Realizing she needed another approach, Meryam balled the rope up before launching it. It went much higher this time, unwinding itself as it went. It would have dropped nicely over the beam had it not bumped against it on the way up. She tried again, and this time it fell neatly across the beam and unfurled on either side like the unveiling of the new banners along the sides of Redhawk Tower.

  Gripping the rope tightly, Meryam took a deep breath and began to climb. She was panting heavily by the time she was halfway up.

  Below her, she heard Yasmine stir. “Meryam?” she said sleepily, then much louder, “Meryam, don’t!”

  “I have to,” Meryam said without looking down. She’d started to realize how high up she was. Look down, and she would lose all hope.

  “You’ll fall!”

  “I won’t.”

  “They’ll see you.”

  “Not if I’m quick.”

  She’d almost reached the hole. Her forearms were shaking from the viselike grip she had on the rope, and she thought they might give out, but finally she made it to the top. The feeling of weightlessness and visions of her fall returned in a rush as she stared at that blasted opening in the stones.

  Swallowing hard, she reached one arm out and grabbed its bottom lip, and this time she kept tight hold of the rope until she was sure she could transfer her weight over. Even still, she nearly slipped, only barely catching herself by shoving one arm through the hole and curling it over the lip like some long, makeshift hook. Her fears of falling were still strong, but she took heart from the simple fact that she could feel the chill morning air and smell the scent of decaying leaves from the forest.

  With a great heave, she wiggled her head and shoulders through. Then pushed until she was out to her waist.

  “The rope!” Yasmine called, muffled now that Meryam’s body was blocking the way.

  “I know!” Meryam called back, and used one leg to hook the rope. Wriggling one hand through the hole, she was able to grip it and pull both ends through, then she was out and slipping down until she’d reached the frost-covered ground.

  She checked the silo door, but the rusty padlock was still there, secured. She wondered if she might sneak into the house and get the key.

  “Go, Meryam!” Yasmine called from the opposite side. “You have to get help!”

  Meryam knew Yasmine was right, but she found herself rooted to the spot.

  “Meryam, so help me, if we’re caught because you’re too scared to run, I’m going to kill you.”

  Tears streamed down Meryam’s face. “I’ll be back, Yasmine. I swear I will.”

  “Just go!”

  Meryam nodded, and then she was off, sprinting toward the forest, certain that she would be spotted at any moment. But she wasn’t, and soon both farmhouse and silo were hidden by the trees. It was a terrible, harrowing day. One filled with fear that she’d made a horrible mistake in leaving Yasmine there.

  She made it to the village of Oreño and thought of asking for help, but the fear that their abductors might have allies was strong and she skirted wide of it, found the river, and followed it to Maracal, then hiked through the forest beyond until she spotted the walls of Santrión. She’d been alternating between walking and jogging for hours, but when she saw Redhawk Tower, she ran until her muscles burned and her lungs ached. She kept running as she headed through the palace’s private forest, past the hedge maze, past the pavilion that had yet to be taken down. She ran until she collapsed on the back steps leading up to the palace proper, where the palace guards spotted her.

  As day gave way to darkness, she was whisked into her father’s study and placed by a roaring fire to warm and tell her story. Her mother and father listened, until her mother said it was enough and that wh
at Meryam needed now was rest. Her father, King Aldouan, relented and left them to see about guiding the search toward the farmhouse Meryam had described.

  It was two days before Meryam saw Yasmine again. Two days filled with a gnawing certainty that the men would beat Yasmine once they realized the king’s men were onto them, or that Yasmine would be killed in the rescue attempt. Meryam wondered what would become of the men. Had they been captured already? Would they be hung from Redhawk Tower as the Kings of old had punished those who challenged their rule? Meryam hoped so. They deserved it. She’d watch and she’d spit on the earth below their feet when it was done.

  Finally, while Meryam was sitting by the hearth in the great hall, Yasmine returned, bruised here and there but otherwise clean and wearing a dress Meryam didn’t recognize, as if Mother had commissioned one for Yasmine’s return.

  Meryam sprinted into her sister’s waiting arms. “They found you!” she said into the bodice of Yasmine’s dress.

  “Of course they did.”

  Meryam pulled away, sensing the haunted note in Yasmine’s voice. “Are you well?”

  “Yes, I’m well.” Yasmine hugged Meryam, but only half-heartedly.

  Late that night, after a strangely stiff meal with mother, father, and Yasmine, during which hardly anyone talked, Meryam went to bed, grateful for Yasmine’s safe return but confused that such a pall had fallen over it. When the palace was finally quiet, Meryam got up and snuck into Yasmine’s room.

  Yasmine suddenly sat up in her bed, throwing her covers aside, a knife in one hand. When she realized who it was, she lay back down and faced the window. “Go back to bed, Meryam.”

  “What happened?”

  “I said go back to bed.”

  “I saved you, Yasmine. I deserve to know.”

  Yasmine’s breath came more and more rapidly. “You want to know what happened?” She sat bolt upright. “He bargained with them, Meryam.”

  “Bargained with whom?”

  “Our kidnappers. They said they were ready to fight. That he had an insurrection on his hands. That if he didn’t appease them, it would turn to civil war in the west.”

  “Will it?”

  “I don’t care if it will. He forgave them! He offered them gold in recompense for their lost land, more than it was worth. He rewarded their kidnapping.”

  “He didn’t.”

  Yasmine stared at her, a dark, judgmental spirit in the night, then lay down and would say no more.

  Meryam returned to bed, but she couldn’t sleep. She got up again and wandered the palace, not really knowing where she was headed until she came to their father’s study, where a low fire burned in the hearth. Father was sitting at the couch, the same couch she’d sat in when she’d returned to the palace. He was nursing a bell-shaped snifter of brandy.

  “My darling daughter,” he said when he spied her.

  “Is it true?”

  “Is what true, dear?”

  “Is it true you gave them money?”

  She could tell from his look that he understood, and yet it took long moments and several awkward expressions, as if he were trying out responses and discarding them in rapid succession, before he replied, “They’ll pay for it in the end, sweet kitten.”

  “They beat us,” Meryam said.

  “A thing I regret. I truly do.”

  “We thought they were going to kill us.”

  “I know, but it would never have come to that.”

  “You can’t know that,” Meryam said. “You were supposed to protect us.”

  The smile he gave her was the sort he used when mother’s family came to visit, fake in every way. “And yet here you are, safe and sound.”

  “And if they come for us again?” Meryam spat. “Will you give them more gold?”

  “Meryam, don’t be that way. This was all a terrible misunderstanding.” He said it as if he were trying to convince himself. He tried to take her hands, but she backed away. He wasn’t even man enough to try again. “It was an unfortunate mistake, but it’s a mistake that’s been fixed. No one is coming for you, and they never will. I promise.”

  Meryam had never thought of her father as weak. She’d ignored the whispers that he was a lamb in lion’s raiment. She’d ignored the excuses her mother had made for his weak behavior when she thought Meryam wasn’t listening. Meryam had always told herself they didn’t know him as she did. They couldn’t see the strength behind his mild manners.

  That image was shattered as she stared at her father, the firelight flickering against his false smile. Hers had been the impressions of a juvenile mind, but now she saw him for what he truly was.

  “You’re a coward,” she said.

  He swallowed. Stared down into the depths of his golden brandy. The silence yawned between them.

  Meryam left him there and took the stairs up to the royal apartments, but instead of going to her own room, she opened Yasmine’s door and climbed into bed with her. She held Yasmine, as Yasmine had held her in that gruesome place. “I’ll not let anyone harm you ever again.”

  A silence followed, like a smile shared between them. “Nor I you, Meryam.”

  Meryam squinted against the morning’s light, blinking sleep from her eyes. Heavy curtains were pulled over the nearby windows, but a breeze blew them wide, allowing the light to sneak into the room in an irritating rhythm.

  With a groan she got up and pulled the curtains tighter, then fell back into bed. Soon enough, she realized it was too late. She might be exhausted, but she would no longer sleep. Memories of her dream, of her shock over what her father had done, haunted her. It got her to thinking about Yasmine and the Bloody Passage and Macide and the Moonless Host, and suddenly her mind was alive with sigils. A flock of them flitted through her mind, each with their own magical properties. They complicated one another endlessly, one laying upon the next upon the next, the individual elements combining toward some grand effect.

  It soon became clear she would need to return to the cavern to try some of the combinations before they drove her insane, but she was so very tired. She didn’t know if she could take another day of it.

  Spend one day away from the cavern. One day to restore your peace of mind.

  It would probably help in the long run, but there was so much to do. She was a wartime queen. There were threats to her throne in the form of Ramahd and Duke Hektor II. And there were Mirea and Malasan who, despite her best efforts, were pressing the royal navy ever harder, moving closer toward Sharakhai. The civil unrest in Sharakhai was growing by the day.

  And there was Macide . . .

  It’s him you need to concentrate on, Meryam. Sharakhai won’t be safe until you rid the city of his taint.

  Lifting the lid of the small chest on the bedside table, she took stock of her elixirs. Only three remained. Three. She’d had hundreds at one time, but she’d frittered them all away. No, she reminded herself, not frittered. They’d led her here, to one of the thrones of Sharakhai. And the three that remained might yet lead her to her greatest goal.

  Taking one up, she unstoppered it and downed the contents in one go. Her limbs felt revitalized. Her chest swelled with warmth. Her exhaustion was driven away, as were the haunting echoes of her dream.

  Let’s make it worth it, she said as she prepared herself and headed down to the cavern. Despite her optimism, the day, like all those before it, proved fruitless. She and Prayna tried a dozen more combinations of sigils on the two scarabs, the father and his son. Then a dozen more after that.

  Near the end of the day they found one that did something at last, a sigil Meryam had developed herself. It added a unique combination of quest and desire. As Prayna watched and the crystal shone its violet light, Meryam painted it on the father using his own blood. This time, she’d used a drop of adichara essence as well. In the chair some ten paces distant, the
son, still blindfolded, his ruined ears bandaged, stirred.

  Meryam’s heart lifted as he stood. The hope in her soared as he spun in a circle, as if he’d heard his name being called. This was it. This was what would lead her to the final solution.

  A moment later, however, the son began to wander away from his father. Where he was going and what was drawing him, Meryam had no idea, but it was clear the spell wasn’t working as she’d hoped.

  “Leave me,” Meryam said.

  Prayna looked ready to argue, but then she shrugged, stuffed several sheets of vellum into her leatherbound journal, and strode from the cavern without another word.

  As Meryam sat in the chair before the largest of the tables, the son wandered into the darkness. She let him. She didn’t care where he went. This isn’t going to work, she realized. It’s too complex. She’d focus on other efforts. The offer of peace she’d sent to the desert tribes had been answered only by Shaikh Neylana, and in the most nebulous of ways. She was considering it, and would forward her final decision soon. The gambit appeared to have failed, so she would order the Silver Spears’ Lord Commander to step up his efforts to hunt the scarabs. She’d find some other way to bring the thirteenth tribe to her.

  She touched her necklace, Yasmine’s necklace, but it brought no solace. Touching it felt as if she were defacing her sister’s memory.

  Before Meryam knew it, she’d stood and flipped the table over, scattering the books, the scrolls, the ink, the quills, and the innumerable sheets of scribbled-on vellum. Her terrible, rage-filled scream felt small and inconsequential in the immensity of the cavern, which made her defeat taste all the more bitter.

  Then she went stock still. She stared at the root-lined floor of the cavern, at the sheets of vellum that lay there. Some of the sigils stood out from the rest. Could it be? It seemed impossible, but the longer she stared at them, the more she saw how those particular sigils could be combined into a new master sigil to craft a spell she hadn’t considered before. She gathered the sheets, laid them near the crystal, then knelt and stared at each in turn, running them through her mind. The more she stared, the more she realized how perfect it was, how precisely perfect.