The Bloodprint

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  But would Zerafshan promise an escort to Marakand if his men were going to war with the north? She turned to Daniyar.

  “You’re the Authenticate. Was he sincere?”

  Daniyar stared at her, studying her shadowed face.

  She found herself looking back at him, mesmerized.

  He was reading her.

  Her uncertainty, her self-doubt, the susceptibility of her feelings. His thoughts moved swift and sure, like a vulturine blade through the softness of flesh.

  She held herself still, forgetting Turan’s presence in the tent. Daniyar’s eyes dropped to her mouth.

  A stinging color flooded her face.

  “He didn’t mislead us,” Daniyar said after a moment. “His war will wait upon our task if he sends his brother as our guide. What troubles me is how to find the Bloodprint once we’re beyond the Wall. Can you speak to this, Turan?”

  “The puzzle box will aid us.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Turan spoke simply. “The High Companion told me as much. I have never doubted her.”

  Daniyar produced the box from his traveling pack. It was six-sided, the lajward etched with geometric motifs, a repetition of stars and rectangles that represented the infinite span of the heavens, but that suggested to Arian a kind of cloistering, trapped and closed off, like the alleyways of a maze.

  It had no hinges or lid that Arian could see.

  “Have you worked this?” she asked Turan. “Can it be opened?”

  “For many nights, over many months. It did not yield its secrets to me.”

  “And Ilea tells us nothing beyond the fact that the box can be used to find a tomb. What tomb? Why does it matter? How is it connected to the Bloodprint? Unless—” Arian reached out to take the box from Daniyar, studying the fine lines etched upon its surface. Something about the markings was familiar to her. “You said the Bloodless take the Bloodprint to its resting place. Could this tomb be the resting place?”

  “Perhaps at one time.” Turan’s tone was doubtful. “But I do not think a manuscript would endure in such an environment. I would expect the Authoritan to keep the Bloodprint close at hand after losing it once. I know only that the tomb lies in Marakand.”

  Arian pondered this. “But Ilea did not tell you how to open it.”

  “She did not know,” Turan said, quick to defend the High Companion.

  Or Ilea had reasons for keeping her knowledge secret, reasons she wasn’t prepared to share with Turan, any more than Ilea and Rukh had told Arian anything about the Cast Iron, the Bloodprint’s binding. Arian said nothing to the others of the secret the Alamdar had confided. She thought of the blue key, the third piece buried deep in the tunnels of the Sorrowsong.

  Would it unlock the Cast Iron? Was that its purpose? And if it did, what of the secret to the Cast Iron the Alamdar had entrusted her with?

  Daniyar took the box back from her hands, his fingers shaping its sides.

  “The lines are interlocked. They remind me of something I’ve seen before.” He traced a finger over the white lines, picking out a single image. “Do you see it? It’s a chair.”

  Buried within the pattern, the white lines resembled a chair, a series of stars crowning its back like a fan.

  “It’s not a chair,” Arian whispered. “It’s the Black Throne.” She stared at Turan, amazed. “It explains how Ilea could have learned about the One-Eyed Preacher’s palimpsest. The Black Khan must have told her. There must be something in the histories at Ashfall.”

  “I don’t think this is meant to represent the Black Throne. Look.” There was a note of wonder in Daniyar’s voice. He held up the box so all could see. “Six sides. And above the throne, six stars. I’ve seen this before. In a manuscript I found in a market stall in Maze Aura, describing the Verse of the Throne.”

  A throne to comprise the heavens and the earth.

  Six stars, six sides, the significance of six, the symmetry of the Verse of the Throne, the only verse of the Claim to describe the virtues of the One.

  There is no one but the One. And so the One commands.

  “Do you know the six virtues? Did your manuscript name them?”

  But the Silver Mage was uncertain, recounting what he could from memory.

  “Life, knowledge, dominion, power, and will. But there is one that escapes me.” His voice had slowed, and Arian could see that he was searching through his memories, grasping at something just out of reach. His fingers pressed against the sides of the box, counting to himself. He stopped again at five.

  “Arian,” he said urgently. “Tell me what you know of the Empty Quarter.”

  He set the box down in their midst.

  “What you know also, I suspect. The Empty Quarter was burned during the wars of the Far Range. The holy cities were destroyed. Now it is a place made desolate by time.”

  “But not unpopulated, despite its name.” The note of excitement in Daniyar’s voice caught at Arian. “It was the land of the One-Eyed Preacher once.”

  “Yes. The Rising Nineteen lay claim to it now.”

  “Do you know anything of their philosophy?”

  Arian frowned. “They call themselves numerologists. To them, the Bloodprint is a formula.”

  “But not just a formula.” Daniyar tapped the box. “The verses of the Bloodprint are numbered. We know the Claim from memory alone, from the recitation of an oral tradition.” He smiled at Arian. “And so you are called Oralists. But the Bloodprint arranges the verses of the Claim in numerical order. It numbers them. Here, let me show you.”

  He pressed his index finger down hard over the second star that appeared above the throne on the surface of the puzzle box. A pressure inside the box gave way, creating a small space between the upper half of the box and the lower. Daniyar rotated the upper half clockwise two full rotations. A series of clicks and whirrs could be heard from within the box. The white lines broke apart, the image of the throne vanishing as the pattern on the surface shifted, diminishing the throne to open up the stars.

  One of the stars was missing. Five stars remained.

  The Silver Mage sought out the fifth star. He pressed the star five times in succession. The jewel-green box shuddered under his touch. And then, as delicately as with the peeling of an egg, the surface surged upward and folded back upon itself, exposing the small, dark chasm within.

  Nestled inside was a fragile scroll sealed with dark green wax.

  None of them dared touch it.

  The Silver Mage offered the box to Arian, his hands a little unsteady.

  “There is much to discredit about the Nineteen, but they are correct in one thing: the numbering of the verses matters. Beside the description of the Verse of the Throne, a number was inked on the page. Two, two, five, five.”

  “The second chapter,” Arian guessed. “The two hundred and fifty-fifth verse.”

  A throne to comprise the heavens and the earth.

  With trembling fingers, she reached for the scroll. As soon as she lifted it from the puzzle box, the chasm sealed itself with a sigh.

  With careful pressure, Arian applied the tip of her dagger to the seal. Hardly daring to breathe, she spread the scroll before them, using only her fingertips.

  A curious sight met her eyes.

  At the top of the scroll a single word appeared, followed by an unfamiliar symbol.

  Самарканд.

  Beside it, three small circles were stacked like a triangle inside a five-point star.

  Beneath this, a pattern similar to the one on the surface of the puzzle box was sketched out in lines and rectangles. At irregular intervals, a flower, a leaf, or a star appeared beside one of the rectangles. At the very bottom of the scroll, a small dome had been inked in a vivid turquoise green.

  Arian looked first at Daniyar, then at Turan. They couldn’t read the word written on the scroll. She alone held the power of it, of a world she had not truly believed existed until this moment. The name of an ancient city f
rom a time before the wars of the Far Range, the wars that had severed the old world from the new.

  From legends we come to loss, from loss to wonder.

  But wonder was a distraction they couldn’t afford. She felt her thoughts turn bitter, as she recognized that her calculations were little different from Ilea’s or the Black Khan’s, both of whom had withheld the truth to further ambitions of their own.

  “It’s written in a language of the Transcasp.” She turned to Turan. “A language I don’t read fluently, but I know what the word represents. It points us to a city.”

  Even as she said it, Arian knew she was sharing with them the smallest part of the lore passed down by the women of her family.

  “What city?” Turan asked, his voice hesitant, as if he didn’t want to know.

  A pang of conscience smote her. These were the bravest and most loyal of her friends. But the secrets kept by Hira had stolen the hopes of many.

  “Marakand.”

  She didn’t give them the city’s ancient name.

  “Marakand?” Daniyar echoed, his silver eyes grave.

  Her voice was sad as she answered him.

  “A place we were destined to find. A city behind the Wall.”

  “Why destined?”

  “‘Use the box to find the tomb,’” Arian quoted harshly. “Don’t you see?”

  But it was clear they didn’t. They had spotted the throne on the surface of the puzzle box more easily than this. Arian held up the scroll. The light from a small stove flickered against its texture, causing the pattern to dance.

  “This is the map of a graveyard. We were sent to Marakand to find it.”

  38

  Morning brought about a quick and hurried departure. Daniyar and Turan, two members of the Shin War, spent the rest of the evening scouting the Aybek’s army, seeking to understand the forces at play. Their verdict was chilling. If an army this size was about to descend from the Cloud Door, the combined might of the Army of the Right and the Army of the Left would bring to the Wall a catastrophic war.

  War is the unmitigated effort of one people against another.

  She had censured Zerafshan for refusing to disrupt the Talisman’s slave-chains. How did she account for this, then? What did this mighty army prepare itself for? And why hadn’t Zerafshan defended himself, if he was planning a full-scale assault on the Wall? He’d insisted that the Buzkashi’s point of contact with the Wall was separate from the route traveled by the slave-chains, but surely any war against the forces protecting the Wall would spread to encompass the Talisman. And the women ransomed beyond the Wall.

  What of their fate?

  What of her sister’s fate?

  Lania had been beautiful. Had she spent her life languishing as the captive of a Talisman Commandhan, or had she been sold behind the Wall to service the soldiers of the Ahdath until, too broken to be of use, she was sent to die in the Plague Lands?

  Another revelation of Zerafshan’s that had robbed Arian of peace.

  Had Lania ended her days in the Plague Lands? Or was she still alive somewhere behind the Wall? And why did the Authoritan send any woman to the Plague Lands, as Zerafshan had claimed? The Plague Lands were poisoned by the wars of the Far Range. Nothing could grow in those lands, the rampant spread of disease curbed by the building of the Wall.

  Arian’s thoughts circled back to her sister. To Lania, sweet-faced and kind, an Oralist of the Claim, perhaps not as gifted as Arian herself, but soon to be selected as a Companion of Hira. She had been ten years older than Arian when the slave handlers had taken her, a fate that would have been Arian’s, as well, had her parents not hidden her in time.

  A fate Turan had rescued her from, watching over her from afar.

  She was riding beside him now, Wafa and Sinnia behind her, Daniyar scouting the path ahead with Zelgai and his men. Several more of the Mangudah followed at the rear.

  Turan had ridden beside her in silence all morning, pondering the mysteries of the scroll.

  “A map is nothing without a key,” he’d said, without disputing her conclusions.

  Arian pointed at the small dome, inked in the color of turquoise.

  “This dome is the key.”

  He hadn’t pressed her for more, but she could see his desire to speak further. She had no wish to speak of Marakand, Ilea, or the map. She found Turan’s devotion to Ilea disturbing. No friend of the High Companion’s had enjoyed the reward of constancy. Ilea saw members of the Council as tools to be used to further her furtive agenda.

  Turan was a man Arian was learning to value. She wished him safe from Ilea’s machinations.

  “You are troubled, Companion,” the captain said, breaking his silence. “Do you fear what lies ahead?”

  Turan studied the road as he spoke. The temperature was warmer, the ground beginning to thaw beneath the hooves of the horses the Buzkashi had supplied.

  Arian spoke softly, not wanting the others to hear.

  “I think more of the past than the road ahead,” she answered. “I was thinking of my sister, Lania. You must have known her, if you knew my parents.”

  Turan’s head snapped around. The ligaments of his jaw and neck tightened, emotion coloring his face. But when he spoke, his voice was mild.

  “You’ve been searching for her. It’s why you hunt the slave-chains.”

  “If they were going to kill her, they would have done so that night, just like they killed my mother.”

  Turan flinched from the words. He took a moment to collect himself before addressing Arian again.

  “The Talisman feared your mother’s power. As curators of a scriptorium, your parents were at risk from the first. Sayah was too well-known. The Council should have protected her.”

  Sayah.

  Arian mouthed her mother’s name.

  No one had spoken it in her presence since the day her mother had died.

  To hear it now on the captain’s lips, spoken with such sweetness and such grief, broke something inside Arian. Something she hadn’t known she was struggling to keep intact. The stone wall erected against her memories, dividing her heart from itself.

  “I miss her,” she said, surprising herself.

  “Then you remember her.”

  “I’ve tried to forget. But her voice is everywhere. It’s in everything I know, everything I’ve learned.”

  “And in the things you refuse to share.”

  Arian looked at him, slowing the pace of her horse.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know more about the map, but refuse to speak of it. You chase Lania behind the Wall, not the Bloodprint. And I think, though the Silver Mage loves you, you would risk the loss of his love to pursue Lania’s ghost because you cannot let her go.”

  The hard shell of Arian’s heart began to splinter, the captain’s words slipping between the cracks. Tears edged out from the corners of her eyes.

  “How?” The tears came thick and hot, streaking her cheeks. “How do I let her go?”

  Turan placed a gentle hand over hers, driving their horses from the road. He used his cloak to wipe the tears from Arian’s face. He held her hand to calm her.

  Ahead of them on the road, the Silver Mage glanced back. And turned his horse around.

  “Lania was beautiful and gifted, though not so gifted as you. She was meant to be a Companion of Hira. If you had not proven yourself more adept, she would have been First Oralist. Then you could have chosen what other Companions have chosen. You could have stayed at Hira under the Council’s protection. But you chose the most dangerous course, chasing after the slave-chains, in pursuit of Lania. You think it should have been you. You whom the Talisman had taken, Lania safe at Hira. You think Lania is the one your parents should have saved, but you should know you are wrong.”

  “How can I be wrong?”

  Turan’s answer was simple.

  “It wasn’t a choice your parents made—you or Lania. They would have saved you both. There was no warni
ng of the Talisman attack. You were closest to the safe room. I don’t know what you witnessed, but try to think back. Try to remember what happened that night.”

  Had Arian ever forgotten?

  The brutal sound of the knock on the door. Her mother’s quick action, drawing her away, urging her to silence.

  Lania and their brother at the door, her father behind them.

  The fateful clamor of swords.

  The blow to her brother, Lania’s screams.

  And the sound. The thudding sound she would recognize anywhere, accompanied by its full measure of dread.

  Her father’s head cleaved from his body, to roll across the blood-soaked floor. Her mother’s body falling at the door to the safe room, shielding Arian even in death. Sayah’s eyes finding her daughter, terrified and mute behind the door.

  The smell of burning.

  A lifetime’s learning set to the fire.

  Rampaging boots, the acrid scent of parchment, the sickening stench of blood.

  Then silence and smoke.

  When Arian came out of her reverie, she was in Daniyar’s arms. He was murmuring a verse of the Claim in her ear, so no one else could hear.

  Be patient in adversity, for the One will not permit your reward to be lost.

  She felt the words seep into her, calming the confusion of her thoughts.

  Turan was watching her, waiting.

  “Did you remember enough?” he asked.

  A memory escaped from the turmoil, the memory Turan had wanted her to see. Her mother calling out to Lania, warning her away from the door, pleading with Lania to hurry to the safe room.

  It was a memory Arian had lost.

  Lania was blameless, for how could she have foreseen the ruinous intent of the Talisman?

  But Arian was blameless, too.

  “Lania opened the door,” she said, after a long silence. “How did you know?”

  “It’s the first thing you said when I rescued you from the fire.”

  Small arms clinging, face and hair singed by smoke.

  Frightened at first by the sight of Turan’s armor. Until he’d smiled at her and held her against his heart, as Daniyar was doing now. Shading her eyes to step around the bodies.