Leviathus was not about to let Mattu Halfmask sink his claws into the Draiksguard.
He wondered whether the Zeera had ever seen such a strange troupe, and upon what stage their stories would play out. His father’s ward, Matteira, would no doubt have written them all into a puppeteer’s play for the amusement of their great-grandchildren. He smiled to think of it.
How, he wondered, would she portray her twin? His smile faded as he looked at the man himself.
Mattu Halfmask wore the face of a fennec today. The oversized ears and pointed face lent an air of sly mischief that suited him well. Leviathus saw more than one of the Ja’Akari eyeing the man with speculation, and wondered whether those girls hoped more for a peek under Mattu’s mask, or his kilt. He hid a smile and wished them much luck. Mattu’s secrets were notoriously well guarded.
As were those of Hafsa Azeina.
The woman who had been closer to him than his own mother stalked the edges of the camp like a wraith, silent and brooding, her face a masterpiece of maskery beyond even Mattu’s skill. He saw her at mealtimes, she and that big cat of hers that had the other cats cringing in his presence. He saw her riding during the day off to this side or that, farther from the party than Leviathus thought safe, and she brought back meat more often than any other hunter.
He saw her every night in the healer’s tent, when he paid his visit to Sulema. During those times she sat on her haunches silent as death, eyes staring out as if she looked upon some dark and distant landscape. It was so difficult for him to reconcile soft memories of warmth and moonsilk with the reality of this harsh woman with skin spotted like a cat’s, and the scent of blood clinging to her robes.
Her little apprentice, Daru, was another story begging for an audience. Such an unlikely pair could scarce be imagined outside of a Dae-tale—the cat-woman and the mouse-child who feared and loved her. For wherever the sorceress went, his eyes followed, and he seemed to tremble in Zeina’s shadow as if he expected her to eat him at any moment. Leviathus could never remember having felt such fear, not even when he was small and his father had taken him to the coast to watch the sea-bears hunt, and he felt sorry for the boy. The dreamshifter’s apprentice had a hard path ahead of him, and likely a short one. Neither the Zeera nor the Zeeranim seemed tolerant of weaklings.
* * *
On the seventeenth day of their journey, when they had reached the point along their route closest to Nar Bedayyan and just before turning east toward the Great Salt Road, Leviathus found a circle of short standing stones and built his fire in the very midst of them. The shadows danced to the song of the dunes, looking for all the world like young girls dancing in a ring around the Seeding fire, and he settled his back against a sun-warmed rock with a skin of wine to one hand and a bag of scrolls to the other.
He was distracted. Sulema’s color had been good, and she had begun to mutter and cry out in her long sleep. The healer thought she would wake soon and had ordered them all out so that she might rest, which made no sense to him at all. He wanted to be close when she opened her eyes, wanted to hold her hand and talk to her and see that she was still in there. One of his father’s grooms had taken a kick to the head, years ago, and had woken from the long sleep with a mind as empty as a sucked egg. Leviathus could not bear the thought of his bright sister snuffed out so, not when he had finally found her.
He sighed and pulled out a scroll at random. It was a treatise on the emperors of Sindan.
“The Palace of the Last Dawn,” it began, “is the oldest man-built structure in the Known World, and said to be among the most beautiful. Slave-built over the span of two hundred years or more, said to be haunted by the spirits of those who died during its construction, the Palace of the Last Dawn lies at the heart of the Forbidden City and has never been seen by human eyes. The first Daemon Emperor, Daeshen Baichen Pao, also known as the Golden Fist…”
Leviathus raised his free hand to rub between his eyes. He needed knowledge, true knowledge, not a storyteller’s conjecture. He did not need to know the color of the Daemon Emperor’s windows—or the fit of his underthings—half as much as he needed to know how many soldiers the emperor had at his disposal.
Look, here the idiot referred to the fourth emperor as Daeshen Tiachu. Unless the current emperor was more than three thousand years old, which hardly seemed likely, his father’s venerable mistress of records either needed to retire or find herself a new scribe.
He put the scroll back and chose another, this time selecting a work that was meant to be a playful ballad. For in fiction, as in the best of lies, lay many important truths. This particular scroll was a master’s piece by the mysterious scribe known as the White Crow, and had come to his father’s libraries all the way from Khanbul.
Leviathus had been fascinated with Khanbul as a child, likely because the thought of a Forbidden City had caught his imagination. He had been a boy drawn to the forbidden: sweetcakes before dinner, the Queen’s Atrium, the women’s baths. Come to think of it, those things were still fascinating.
He grinned to himself.
Daeshen Tiachu had sent a trade delegation to Atualon some years back. Leviathus had expected to find them exotic, even frightening. He had not expected to find them beautiful—but they were, every one of them, even the ones who peered through veils with eyes too large or too round or too vibrantly colored to belong in a human face. They moved with an eerie grace and spoke with voices harsh as a crow’s laugh, or sweet as the ocean sighing at sunset, and managed to convey damnable arrogance with exquisite courtesy so that not even the volatile Ka Atu could be anything but charmed. They had come into his presence bearing arms, and had walked away bearing gifts.
These days Atualon imported a great amount of Sindanese pearls and jade, amber and bamboo, and enough wormsilk to clothe every man, woman, and child in Atualon. In turn, the wagons bound for the Far East were laden with the wealth of the mountains—red salt and white, gemstones and black iron, spidersilk, and, most precious of all, saltware.
The kilns of Atualon were famous for the urns and jars fashioned of red salt clay. This clay, when fired, would keep food unspoiled for weeks, and water sweet for years. In a world seared by a dragon’s song, the red salt clay was life itself.
Leviathus yawned over the scroll, beautiful as it was, and reached for the next. Better to dance with the enemy than dance to the enemy’s tune. Better still to learn the steps of the dance before the music begins.
“What are you reading?”
Leviathus looked up, startled. The boy was a mouse indeed, to move so silently. He unrolled the scroll further, that Daru might better see the delicate letters and vibrant illustrations.
“The Dreams of Dragons. My tutors would be furious.”
The boy tipped his head to one side, eyes bright with reflected flames.
“Why?” He spoke Atualonian, and his words were only lightly accented. Leviathus smiled. Of course, any student of Zeina’s would be well tutored.
“I should be reading histories. This is a ballad.” He recited:
“Listen, O my people, to the Dreams of Devranae daughter of Zula Din, that
brought boundless grief upon the Zeeravashani. Many a brave warden did
it send hurrying down the road to Yosh, and many a Warrior did it yield a
prey to wyrm and serpent, for so were the counsels of the Grandmothers
fulfilled from the day on which Davvus, king of Men,
and great Devranae, daughter of the Huntress, first set eyes upon one another.”
The boy smiled and tucked his hands behind his back in a stance familiar to any schoolboy. He answered, in a voice as pure as a mountain stream:
“And which of the Four was it that set Beauty before the Beast? It was Thoth, son of Eth
and Illindra. He was angry with the sons of Men and set
a geas of love to doom the people, because Jesserus father of Davvus
had mocked Iftallan his priest. Now Zula Din had
come to the houses of Men to free her daughter, and had
brought with her a thousand of her Hounds: moreover she bore in her hand the
Bow of Akari, and wore upon her brow a crown of blackthorn, and she
sounded her horn for the blood of the Baidun Daiel, but most of all the man Davvus,
who was their chief.”
Leviathus shoved the scroll back into the bag and laughed.
“Well played, boy. That will teach me to measure my own shadow against the sun. Sit down, sit down. It is always a pleasure to speak with another scholar. You are young to have read the Dreams.”
The boy sat across the fire from him, flushed with the praise.
“I was often sick as a child. The dreamshifter would tell me tales to shut me up.”
“To shut you up, or to put you to sleep? Aeomerus was a tedious old fart. Though this White Crow tells it well.”
Daru burst out in shocked laughter, quickly smothered. He did not seem a child who laughed often, or easily, and Leviathus was glad to hear it.
“I like the Dreams. And I like Siege of Dreams.”
Leviathus thought he could guess why. “Davvus was a great warrior.”
Daru nodded eagerly. “I wish he had found the dragon. Do you think we ever will? Find her, I mean.”
Leviathus raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”
“Ah, you answer a question with another question, like Dreamshifter.” The boy rolled his eyes. “Next you will say my mouth is too small to speak of such big things.”
“And not to cast your fishing net at a dragon. And not to shoot an arrow at the stars.” Leviathus laughed. “Zeina used to tell me those same things when I was your age.”
The boy’s jaw dropped and his eyes goggled so they seemed in danger of falling out of his head. “You were her apprentice?”
“Not at all. I am surdus. Do you know what that means?”
Daru looked down at his feet. “It means you cannot see magic.”
“It means I cannot hear magic,” he corrected him, “although it is much the same thing. Hafsa Azeina is… was… she is married to my father.”
“She whaaaaat?” The boy’s voice was an incredulous squeak. “You lie.”
“Sometimes,” Leviathus admitted, “but not about this. Zeina is my father’s most beloved wife. When my mother died—”
“She is a wife?” the boy squeaked again. His face had gone three shades of pale. “What kind of man would marry her?”
Leviathus could not help it. He burst out laughing. “You make it sound as if my father had taken a lionsnake to bed. She was not a dreamshifter then. She was just a girl from the Seven Isles of Eiros, and wed to him to seal an alliance. They fell in love and he set his other concubines aside for her. It was quite the scandal.”
“You do not simply wake up one day and decide to become a dreamshifter. You either are, or you are not.” The boy bit his lip and scowled at a thought. “If Hafsa Azeina was married to your father, that makes you and Sulema…”
“Brother and sister. I am surprised nobody has told you this before.”
“Nobody tells me anything.” The boy sighed, and then his thin face lit up. “I cannot wait to tell Ismai. He will be so relieved. He thought Sulema had chosen you as her…” and he choked, blushing. “I mean, he did not know you were her brother.”
“Ismai, is it? Is that not the young man who got in so much trouble for taming a vash’ai as we were leaving?”
“Tame the vash’ai?” The boy’s eyes threatened to pop right out of his head. “You had better not let them hear you say that.”
“Not tame? How do you live safely among them if they are not tame?”
The boy gave him a look that was pure Hafsa Azeina—mingled patience and exasperation.
“Who told you they are safe? You do not know much about the Zeeravashani, do you? Oh!” He blushed again, red as a pomegranate. “Oh, I am sorry, that was rude. My mouth rides faster than my brain can walk, sometimes.”
“No need to apologize—you are right. I have much to learn, and my tutors hardly know more about the Zeeravashani than I do. Tell you what,” he nodded to the bag of scrolls. “Ride with me during the day and teach me. At night, I will let you read these… if you like.”
The boy’s eyes lit with delight as he stared at the bag of scrolls, but he hesitated.
“You will not forget?”
Leviathus kissed his fingertips and held them up to the sky. “Under the stars, I will not.”
Daru opened his mouth, but the words choked off as his body arched and shook. His eyes grew wide and sightless, lips drew back in a rictus grin. Leviathus lurched to his feet, scattering scrolls across the sand and perilously close to the flames, but the fit passed before he could take a step. The boy looked at him, trembling and panting as if he had run for miles, and tears spilled from his eyes to roll unheeded down the thin face, leaving little trails in the dust.
“Sulema!” the boy gasped, scrambling to his feet.
Leviathus dropped the scroll and ran.
SEVENTEEN
Sulema had hung suspended, away from song and sun and sand, for as far as she could remember. Wrapped head to toe in some soft, silken stuff she swayed back and forth, back and forth in a wind she could neither hear nor feel upon her face.
Free yourself, a voice barked in the darkness. But struggling against her bonds had never done any good, so she slept instead.
She dreamed of the night she and Hannei had walked soft-foot and laughing among the drowsy stallions of Uthrak. The moons lit their way through the endless night like firebugs caught in a spider’s web. She and her friend had braided shining beads into the manes of swift Zeitan and sweet, brave Ruhho. Tradition held that if these beads went undetected until Hajra-Khai, they would be granted breeding rights to the best stallions in the Zeera. They braided their dreams into those wind-knotted manes, and the whispered promise of a golden future. A promise that Akari Sun Dragon would wake and spread his wings over the world once more, that tomorrow would come, and fillies and colts and children, honor and glory and songs at the day’s end, a thousand and one tomorrows alike as grains in a handful of sand.
And if Akari does not rise? the voice persisted. What then, O warrior under the sun? Will you free yourself and bring light to the world? Or will you hang here in the darkness and become meat?
Sulema felt it then, a third presence in the void, felt it as a shiver along the web that held her fast. A dreadful cold emptiness, always angry, always hungry, and it was aware of her now. There were no stallions, no cousins or warriors to help set her free. She had only herself to rely on, and she knew herself to be unreliable.
“I cannot free myself,” she cried out, and the words froze in her throat. “I have tried.”
Have you? I think not. A laugh barked nearby. Sulema found that she could open her eyes, and turn her head. She found herself face-to-face with a fennec, a tiny white fox with ears as big as its head. A creature of the moon, pale and beautiful, with eyes like starlight on the water.
All around them, woven into and out of the darkness further than her mind could stretch, shimmered a vast and intricate web. It was from this that Sulema hung, head-down, one foot tucked behind her knee and hands behind her back.
“Help me,” she asked the fox. “Please.”
Help yourself. Better hurry, he is coming. That one has been looking for you for a long time. The fox tipped her head to one side and swiveled her enormous black-tipped ears.
Sulema realized that she was hanging upside down from an impossible spider’s web, talking to a fox in the middle of nothing. The web went ever on and on, beyond all imagining. Threads of starlight and moonslight and blood and gold shimmered and shivered and pulsed to the beat of a great and powerful song. Silvery globes were threaded all along the strands of web, like beads of magesilver braided into a stallion’s mane, bright little lights that did not detract from the soft dark.
There were black s
trands tangled into this great web, too, strands that pulsed with silent malice, a darkness so bright it burned her eyes. These strands trembled and swayed under the weight of the terrible presence. Something, some vast and evil Thing, had noticed her struggles… and it was hungry.
“Are you real?” Sulema asked the fox. “Or am I dreaming?”
I am neither. I am Jinchua. Are you real? the fox mocked. Or am I having a nightmare? Really, you two-legs have the most ridiculous imaginations. Is this the best you can do? Or the worst?
“If you are a dream, you are the most annoying dream I have ever had.” Sulema closed her eyes. “I am going to wake now.”
What is your hurry? You have been asleep most of your life. Safe in your mother’s tent, in a cradle of bones, dreaming to the sound of a bloody lullaby.
Sulema fought the strands that bound her arms, and began to spin slowly around. “You leave my mother out of this!” Even as she said the words, an image flickered across some of the closer globes—a monster with the head of a horned cat, glaring at her with her mother’s eyes. In its hand it held a blade of dark flame, though whether it meant to free her or slay her Sulema could not have said.
Would you turn her out? The fennec lolled her tongue in a sardonic smile. That might not be wise. You deny her even as the heart’s blood of your enemies burns sour in her mouth. Would anyone else find such value in your life? I think not. That one would have made a good fox.
“I do not have to listen to you,” she told the fox. “You are nothing but a dream, and when I wake I will tell Hannei all about it and we will laugh.”
Will you laugh when next you meet Hannei Two-blades? I think not. You will not wake at all, if you do not free yourself quickly. He is coming, and the song in your blood is driving him mad with hunger. Nobody can wake from the dream after they have been torn to pieces and gobbled up.
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