The Bloodprint

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  She slung Daniyar’s pack onto her shoulder.

  A heavy knock sounded against the doors.

  Elena hurried to answer it, dragging Arian and Gul with her.

  “Support her from the other side,” she said to Arian.

  They moved through the door into a space that opened onto a warren of alleys, lit by the sputtering torches of soldiers. A covered cart was waiting with an escort of a dozen Ahdath.

  Elena shoved Gul at the soldiers.

  “Take her.” The words were a command. “The Khanum doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Gul muttered against the gag.

  The commander of the squad was a sharp-eyed man with long, fair hair, and a high-planed face in the manner of the Ahdath.

  “Who sends her?”

  “Semyon.” Elena spoke with a truculent confidence. “And Alik, too, if you must know.”

  Gul continued to struggle.

  “She doesn’t look like much.Why does the Khanum want her?”

  “Why don’t you ask her, Illarion? If you feel so inclined.”

  Illarion’s men laughed. “A spitfire, this one,” one of them said. “Bold enough to know you by name.”

  “You have the advantage of me,” Illarion said, intrigued.

  “Anya,” she answered. “Now will you take her or will you continue to dally here pointlessly? There are girls awaiting instruction in the hall.”

  Illarion looked at Arian.

  “And this one, what does she say?”

  “She answers to me, not to you. If you intend to delay further, make sure the Khanum knows it is your choice to do so, not mine.”

  She thrust Gul’s struggling body at him so that he had no choice but to take hold of her. He issued a curt instruction to his men. Gul was locked inside the cart.

  “Good night, Captain.”

  Elena turned on her heel, carrying Arian along.

  “Not so fast, Anya.” Illarion caught her by the arm. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” He tugged at the strap on her shoulder. “The pack. I was told to send the pack, as well.”

  “By whom?” Elena shrugged off his hand. “Because I was told to deliver it to your Commander. Before the Khanum sees it.”

  It was a gambit. A desperate one. But Elena’s face was smooth and disdainful, giving nothing away.

  Illarion studied her cold expression.

  “You aren’t beautiful and pampered like the others. What purpose do you serve in the Gold House?”

  Elena raised her eyebrows. “I train the pampered ones, the ones you and your soldiers dare not dream of. But thank you for the reminder, Illarion. Should the Commander grant you the privilege of access, I will remember your words.”

  Illarion’s mouth twisted in a wry smile.

  “I’m certain that you will.” He reached for the pack again. “How is it you’ve received an order from Araxcin that I am not privy to? You’re a woman of the Tilla Kari. I’m his second in command.”

  His voice was not quite bland enough to conceal his skepticism.

  Elena didn’t hesitate.

  “Then as second in command, Captain Illarion, Commander Araxcin must have told you where he spent his afternoon—and with whom.” She indicated Arian. “But I beg you, please do question him further. I am told he is a great one for sharing stories about his conquests.”

  Arian could see from Illarion’s face that nothing could be further from the truth.

  “Perhaps you would care to ask him now?” she said sweetly. “You could join us inside.”

  Illarion shook his head, knowing when he’d been bested.

  “Keep your prize, Anya. Whether the Commander and the Khanum have a new object to battle over is no concern of mine.” His eyes raked over her. “But I will remember your face. And soon, perhaps, my turn will come.”

  Elena shrugged, an exaggerated gesture of unconcern, before she turned her back on him.

  “I will count the hours, Captain.”

  Her own smile was bitter, as she heard his laughter recede into the distance.

  “Come,” she said to Arian. “We’ll wait until their caravan is gone.”

  When they had found safety inside an alcove close to the doors, Arian pressed the other woman for answers. She felt vulnerable without her armor and riding clothes.

  “Who are you? How did you know to look for me here? Why are you helping me?”

  The other woman kept an eye out for the presence of others, prodding the door open with her shoe. The sounds of the cart began to fade.

  “I told you, my name is Elena. My sister, Larisa, will answer your questions.”

  “How did you know about Araxcin? The captain might have caught you in a lie.”

  “I know their rotations. Araxcin and Illarion are never on the same patrol. Illarion was at the eastern gate today. He’d have no way of knowing Araxcin’s movements.” She shrugged again. “I took a chance.” She aimed a quick look through the narrow opening of the door. “It’s clear. We should go.”

  Arian shook her head. “I don’t know where you’re taking me, but I need to find the Blood Shed. My friends are there, they need my help.”

  “If they were taken to the Blood Shed, they’re already dead.”

  The matter-of-fact words stabbed Arian.

  “And even if they haven’t been killed, there’s a full patrol mounted outside the Blood Shed. Araxcin comes to interrogate the man they took to the Shadow Mausoleum. We have to hurry,” she insisted. “Illarion’s not quite as stupid as the others. The switch may not fool him.”

  “I thank you for your help, but I must take my own path.”

  Suddenly, the silver dagger was at Arian’s side. In her borrowed silks, Arian could feel its point against her ribs.

  “You’re coming with me. Larisa needs to see you. She promised the Black Khan.”

  Arian froze in place. She remembered the silky voice with its cryptic promise.

  I have men in Marakand who will help you find the Bloodprint.

  Reading her face, Elena said, “If you want answers, you’ll have to come with me.”

  44

  Under the cover of night, Arian was led down cobbled pathways that twisted in on themselves, sometimes sloping, sometimes climbing, dank and covered in darkness despite the ambiguous sliver of moon and the fugitive wind that chased them.

  Night catches us, Arian thought. What of Daniyar and the others?

  The alleyways grew narrower, dwellings on either side crowding together, their rooftops meeting, their haphazard awnings listing in the wind.

  Elena moved through the streets, marking a rising path through mud-bricked domes and towers aslant from their foundations, rare and surprising blue-green tiles flashing from the darkness. A city of the missing, forlorn, and forsaken.

  They came to a halt before a dwelling buried between two storefronts. Its awning dipped over the door. Elena rapped against the door, four quick hard knocks.

  A small wooden panel at eye level slid open. Elena held up her bracelets. The door gave way, admitting them into burgeoning darkness. The room they passed through was small and cramped. Arian could sense the presence of a motionless crowd, pressed up against each other, though no one spoke.

  Elena tugged Arian along with scant regard for the flimsy nature of the slippers on Arian’s feet.

  “Hurry.”

  They climbed the set of uneven risers that passed for a flight of stairs to the roof. The house was on a hill. On the side that fronted the street, it faced a turquoise dome. The city lay sprawled before them, the Wall glowing with countless fires.

  As Elena had warned, the Registan was filled with soldiers, the Ahdath Arian had dismissed as disorderly now a disciplined force between the Shir Dar and the Blood Shed.

  An agonized cry rent the night.

  Arian recognized the voice as Wafa’s.

  “Please.” She turned to Elena. “My friend is alive, I must reach the Blood Shed.”

  “There is nothing
you can do for your friend,” another voice said. “No one escapes the Blood Shed.”

  Arian looked around. Two figures materialized against the darkness, their hoods outlined by the wan light of the moon, a man and a woman. The woman took Arian’s hand.

  She was of the same slight build as Elena, with a thin, lined face and hypnotic blue eyes. She was dressed in hunting clothes, a leather vest and close-fitting breeches covered by a dark cloak. Both she and the man beside her wore the same bracelets as Elena. And like Elena, the woman’s arms were pitted with scars. The same dark circle, outlined in white, was pressed into her neck.

  “You found her then.”

  “Ruslan was right.” Elena’s voice filled with a sudden warmth. “They were sending her to the Khanum.”

  The woman in the shadows studied Arian’s face.

  “I can see why. Semyon is not quite the imbecile I took him for.” She let go of Arian’s hand. “You are safe, Companion. I am Larisa Salikh. The Black Khan sent us to find you.”

  Arian examined the man who stood beside Larisa—tall, thin, with a pockmarked face and tilted eyes that burned. A ragged scar ran from the corner of his left eye to his jaw.

  A note of surprise in her voice, Arian asked, “You are the Black Khan’s ‘men’?”

  “Surely a Companion of Hira does not believe that men alone are capable of command, though I’m not surprised you were misled. Rukh takes pleasure in twisting the truth.”

  There was a grim acceptance of reality in the other woman’s voice that was familiar to Arian through her own experience. Larisa Salikh had been at war. And not just on this day, but for many months or years. There was suffering in her face, and a poised calculation that came from having to wait out a course.

  “We have an arrangement with the Black Khan, just as we have an arrangement with the Buzkashi. But we serve only our own ends, as we see them.”

  Questions filled Arian’s mind, questions she suspected Larisa Salikh could answer. She would have to use the Claim. She had no time for prolonged discussion.

  She opened her mouth to speak, arranging phrases in her mind, phrases that would search out vulnerabilities and elicit truth, words forming within her throat.

  The man named Ruslan stepped closer, a dagger in his hand. Elena shadowed the movement at once, her eyes hungry on his face.

  Larisa Salikh smiled a bitter smile.

  “The Claim doesn’t work on us, so don’t bother. I’m not your enemy. I’m here to help you find whatever you’re seeking. Then I’ll be about my business.”

  “What is your business?”

  “The same as yours. Protecting the women of my city. Doing what I can to undermine the Authoritan, fighting a war.”

  “Don’t say anything else,” Elena warned her sister. “We don’t know this woman.”

  Larisa removed a roll from the belt at her waist. At first, Arian thought it was a scroll, a written message, some unexpected communication from the Black Khan. But the other woman struck a match against her leather boot and touched it to the roll. It was a leaf-crop called timbaku, commonly smoked among soldiers. Larisa drew on it, expelling smoke from her lungs.

  “You must not doubt everyone, Elena. Some strangers can be friends.” She drew on the timbaku again. “A Companion of Hira, particularly this one, shares our work and our vision. She’s the one who hunts the slave-chains.” Larisa tapped the ash from the roll. Its gray residue vanished into the wind. “You must forgive my sister—she worries for me too much.”

  “With good reason,” Ruslan said. Elena flashed him a grateful look. He missed it, his attention fixed on Larisa.

  As Larisa raised the timbaku to her mouth, her bangles clinked together. A stray bit of memory came to Arian. There was a rumor she’d heard of the northland and dismissed as a kind of fable. But Elena, Larisa, and Ruslan wore the bracelets. Their faces and bodies were pitted with scars. And they moved with the speed and agility of those who’d learned to anticipate an ambush.

  In the history of the northland, there was a man who’d given his life to facing down the Authoritan. The man’s name was Salikh.

  “Your bracelets,” Arian whispered. “Do you follow the Usul Jade?”

  Ruslan placed a protective hand on Larisa Salikh’s shoulder. Larisa dropped her leaf roll to the ground, extinguishing it with her boot.

  “You’ve heard of us, then.”

  Arian shook her head. “Rumors, nothing more, from slave handlers whose caravans I tracked. They spoke of a teaching practiced beyond the Wall, known as the Usul Jade—a corruption of the High Tongue. And the Ahdath spoke of Basmachi. Did they mean you?”

  “Yes, it’s what we call our fighters. Whereas, Usul Jade means the ‘New Method,’ a philosophy taught by my father, a scribe of the Shir Dar.” Larisa’s sense of loss was evident as she spoke. “The Usul Jade challenged the status of women in the northland. My father tried to end the slave trade. He was put to death for his pains.”

  “Larisa inherited the struggle,” Ruslan said. “She’s fulfilled her father’s vision.”

  Larisa’s mouth turned down at the words. Ruslan squeezed her shoulder, a wordless gesture that brought a scowl to Elena’s face.

  “I was ambushed by the Ahdath—it was Elena who kept the resistance alive. Without Elena, there would be no resistance.”

  “Yes,” Ruslan said softly. “And Elena pioneered your rescue from Jaslyk.”

  “Jaslyk?”

  “Jaslyk Prison.” Larisa gave Arian a crooked smile, revealing a mouth full of broken teeth. “Where the Ahdath held me and drugged me for more than a year.” She held up her arms for Arian to see. “Given a choice, I would have preferred the Blood Shed.”

  45

  In hushed voices, Larisa and Ruslan recounted the history of the Usul Jade. Salikh had used his knowledge of the Claim to try to force the Authoritan’s hand. His disappearance and murder had been held up as a warning to others who thought to emulate his ways.

  “The prisons were full,” Elena muttered. “There were many who died defending our father’s beliefs.”

  Salikh’s death had acquired the status of martyrdom. The Basmachi grew in numbers, new fighters recruited each day. Broken families sought each other out, learning the teachings of the Usul Jade, ready to accept the risks.

  And they had paid the price. The Blood Shed had broken hundreds of bodies. The Shir Dar was piled high with corpses of Basmachi. And many more had suffered in Jaslyk.

  Larisa and Elena had taken up the fight, as well, but not without consequences. A Basmachi fighter broken at Jaslyk gave up what he knew of Larisa and Elena. Larisa was captured and taken to Jaslyk. Elena and Ruslan had organized her rescue.

  “Elena is adept at disguise. She infiltrated Jaslyk.” Larisa fingered the mark on her neck. “They place a mask over your head, and then they gas you.”

  Arian learned that each of the three had spent time in the Authoritan’s prisons. In Larisa’s case, the Authoritan had been afraid to martyr her. Instead, he’d had her drugged with strange and mysterious opiates.

  It had taken weeks to revive Larisa from her dependency—the timbaku was its last remnant.

  Arian passed no judgment. Without the comfort of the Claim, who knew what form of oblivion she might have sought? What struck her was that she and Sinnia had felt themselves alone in their struggle, while behind the Wall, others had been battling the same cruelty, the same despair, seeking a chance at freedom.

  In the end, she judged herself. Her struggle had been too narrow. She could have served as a friend to the resistance.

  Now she listened as Elena described their work freeing women from the slave-chains and hiding them away in the necropolis of the Hazing. The living sheltered among the dead when the Ahdath came to call.

  Arian asked after the women of Marakand, wondering why so few were at the Tilla Kari.

  “The women in the Gold House are safe from the soldiers at the Wall, by decree of the Authoritan’s consort. The Khanum
sees they are trained in music and dance before they are summoned to Black Aura to serve at the Authoritan’s court. Araxcin is a member of that court. He comes and goes from the Gold House as he pleases.”

  “And the rest? How does the Authoritan sate the men who guard the Wall?”

  “There are pleasure houses throughout the city where women from the slave-chains are taken and drugged. When they’re broken, they’re sent to the Plague Lands. We rescue as many as we can. Ruslan leads the Basmachi in their raids. We’ve taken many of the Ahdath down, though not enough. It’s why they hunt us through the Hazing, the Tomb of the Living King.”

  “I am looking for a tomb,” Arian said slowly.

  Could she have stumbled upon it? Here in this dark warren, along these blind alleys?

  Larisa’s nod was decisive. “Yes. Rukh told us to help you find whatever you seek.” She considered for a moment. “It will take time—there are hundreds of tombs in this city.”

  Larisa hadn’t asked the Black Khan more, to forestall the questions he might think to ask in exchange. He supplied the Basmachi with arms, contributed soldiers to their cause, without asking about Larisa’s plans for the Ahdath. She preferred it that way. Her congress with the Black Khan was the most frugal exchange of needs.

  Arian reached for the tahweez on her left arm. She had tucked the map from the puzzle box behind it, a last refuge from defilement or disgrace.

  As much as it instilled reverence, the Claim also instilled fear.

  Larisa and Elena took a step back, their eyes wide with disbelief.

  Though they’d known she was a Companion of Hira, the circlets gave them pause.

  “It’s a map,” Arian told them. “A map to the tomb.”

  Larisa and Elena examined it, their heads close together. A finger capped by a dirty fingernail pointed to the dome inked on the map. It was Ruslan’s.

  Arian shook her head. “There are domes everywhere I look in Marakand. Blue-green domes.” She stretched out her hand. “Could this be it?”

  The dome that faced their sheltered roof was crumbled half away.