by Melanie Rawn
“If I had my sketchbook, I’d show you. The sentries took it. I was only making the drawings for—”
Qamar waited, hiding a smile. At length, when the boy said nothing more, he finished for him, “For the grand great tile wall that will tell the story of victory over the Sheyqa. You are ambitious. Tanielo!” he called. “Find the guards who found this young man, and restore to him his sketchbook!”
“At once, Sh—Qamar,” he amended hastily, for as adamant as Qamar had been about his title before, now he had given even stricter instructions that no one call him anything but his name.
Turning his attention back to the boy, he asked, “Do you mix your own glazes? Or perhaps the inks for your drawings?”
“I am an artist. There’s no more imagination goes into mixing colors than there is in boiling water.”
“I think you may be wrong about that.” He opened the case of inks and pulled out a bottle. “Have you ever seen this color, for instance? Or this?”
The boy was indeed an artist. His blue eyes lit with longing at the diversity of inks, and his fingers actually reached for them before he remembered they were not his. Not yet his, Qamar thought. Not quite yet.
“You may be interested in the recipes, Jaqiano, for when you create your depiction of victory.”
“Not just that—not just a single scene. I’ll do a whole wall, as you said, but it will be the whole battle, a series of images, each tile moving seamlessly into the next.”
Qamar remembered the beautiful garden of tiles his grandfather had ordered and the fountain that had not worked, and then had worked, and then had died once again. And the Haddiyat who had died in agony with the burning of a page.
Jaqiano mistook his silence for skepticism. “I can do it,” he stated. “I will do it.”
“I haven’t a single doubt that you will. But perhaps you will oblige me, do me a great favor.” He gave the boy a self-deprecating smile, a shrug. “Before you return to your fellow soldiers, would you be so kind . . . ?”
The portrait looked exactly like him. Not that he had expected anything else, but still—it was an extraordinary experience, looking into one’s own face. Nothing like a mirror, he discovered: when he felt his own brows arch and his own eyes widen with surprise, the portrait did not respond as a reflection would. And all the tiny flaws that inevitably distorted glass were not to be found here. It was his perfect face he saw. Perfect.
Jaqiano watched him react, a smug grin spreading across his face. He had reason for his arrogance. Each subtle black line that delineated face and body was a stroke of brilliance. Delicate washes of ink defined golden skin and dark eyes, the flush of blood in cheeks and lips, the threads of silver in black hair, the shadows that marked the bones of his face. These were Qamar’s eyes, dark and beautiful; these were his shoulders, his hands, down to the tiny scar left by a burning feather so many years ago. Down to the topaz leaf ring and the al-Gallidh pearl.
Yet there was more to the artist’s self-satisfaction than pride in his own skill. It was as if this young man with the not-quite-ugly face had, in replicating the beauty of another, taken some of that beauty unto himself. The perfection of this portrait could not exist without him. He could rightly claim a share in that perfection.
Equally fine was the rendering of Qamar’s plain white tunic, the brown trousers of lightweight wool. Feeling their softness against his body, he was convinced that a fingertip touched to their likenesses would feel just as soft. The gleam of polished leather boots was also taken from life, but the sash around his waist—white with green and glittering gold stripes—was entirely of Jaqiano’s doing, suggested by Qamar and interpreted by imagination.
There was no background to the portrait, not even the suggestion of the willow leaves that sheltered him. Only darkness. In all the long hours of the night that it had taken to complete the picture, the lamplight had not wavered, providing a steady soft glow. The work contained time, for it had taken time to make—yet there was no sense of time within it, no specific shadows that would mean morning or afternoon or evening.
Qamar stared at himself, and after the first shock, he realized he looked much older than he’d expected. He didn’t remember these lines radiating out from the corners of his eyes, the furrows of determination crossing his forehead. It was still a beautiful face, just not in the way he recalled it.
They were both exhausted, of course. Qamar poured out the last cold cups of qawah, and they sat with the picture lying atop the closed case of inks, looking at it in silence as they drank.
At last Qamar said, “You have done me a greater service than you can ever understand.”
Jaqiano glanced briefly at him, but seemed incapable of taking his gaze from his own work for more than a few moments. “Doing this . . . it was different from all the others. Your inks are supple enough that the lines nearly draw themselves with the pen. And the colors blend almost without effort.”
Recognizing the craving, Qamar smiled. “I have need of them yet, but once the battle is won, come back and I’ll give them to you. Poor enough payment for such work, but—”
“I accept,” he interrupted. “All of them? The whole case of inks?”
“All of them.” He set aside his cup and stretched. “And now I think you had best return to your people. Some sleep before dawn would not be a bad thing. Again, I thank you. And—Jaqiano, do try not to get yourself killed, won’t you? You’re worth far more than your ability to wield a spear.”
A blush stained the boy’s cheeks. “I’m not very good in battle, it’s true,” he confessed, low-voiced. “The first time I was in a fight, I—”
Qamar lifted a hand to stop him. “I fell off my horse and threw up. You can’t have done anything worse than that!” They traded grins, and Qamar finished, “Go, and give my compliments to your father—and to your mother, when you see her again, on having birthed such a son as you.”
“You won’t forget about the inks?”
“I won’t forget.”
When he was alone, Qamar unstoppered several bottles and picked up a fresh pen. With the portrait flat atop the green book, he began designing the border. Talishann after talishann, elegant and potent, gradually framing one side, then two, then three. He kept glancing into his own eyes, and smiling. He took up a finer pen and traced barely visible symbols into the subtle shadows on his clothing, entwined them in the lines of his sash. Only a little while until dawn, only a little while before he would be able to fulfill the mission with which Acuyib had entrusted him, for which he alone had the daring and ambition—
He shook off the momentary dizziness and dipped his pen once more in black ink. Another talishann, and another, along the bottom of the portrait now, adding one to each side so that soon they would meet in the middle and only one would be left, the one he would seal with his blood. Connected through the flowing lines of interwoven symbols, through the fibers of the paper saturated with inks forming his own image—
Perhaps it was the magic, awakening. He would sense the power, feel it, of course he would—he was kindling magic such as no Shagara had ever dared do before, no wonder he was growing dizzy—but in a few moments he would feel other things, he would feel younger, the aches in his fingers and knees gone, and the gray would vanish from his hair and all the lines from his face, not that any of that was important, not really, not compared to the work he would use these coming years to accomplish—his selfishness had ended up having a greater purpose, just as Azzad’s and Alessid’s individual desires had resulted in so much that they had not envisioned—they had changed their worlds, and he would do the same, only he would not have to kill anyone to do it—people would live, they would understand, they would spend their lives in peace, and surely his desire for more years than his kind could expect was a small thing to exchange for what he would tell them, what he would make them understand—
The breath was rasping in his throat. The edges of his vision were turning black, black as the ink staining his fi
ngers, he couldn’t find the little knife he’d intended to use to prick up drops of his blood and so he used the sharp point of the pen—dug it into his thumb—squinted to see that crimson dripped thick onto the last talishann the one that meant life—
He thought he heard Solanna’s voice, through the screen of willow branches he could no longer see, and tried to call out to her that it was all right, everything would be perfect from now on, they would have years and years together, that she was right and he would grow old and there would be lines on his face.
His lips would not move. His head would not turn. He felt a great wrenching pain, heard a shrieking as of a furious storm, and knew nothing more.
She sat with the green book on her knees and the portrait of her husband smooth and beautiful atop it. Nissim had told her what most of the talishann meant. She had looked up the others in the book. She had taken all day to do it. With the battle raging over the hill, a battle for which she cared not at all, she had nothing else to do.
Which of the Tza’ab had betrayed the Sheyqa, which had stayed loyal to the Empress, and which had decided to fight on the side of their new land, she did not know. Which Joharrans and Cazdeyyans and Qayshi and Shagarrans and all the confused clutter of soldiers had fought with or against or for each other, she did not know. She was certain nobody else knew, either. Those who survived would tell whatever tale would allow their continued survival. They would go home and brag about their courage, their cleverness. Someone would end up taking the credit. It didn’t matter. They would all go on fighting each other until someone emerged who was strong enough to make them stop.
Qamar had thought to do that. She had read it in the first few pages of the book.
Each people belongs to its own land by virtue of oneness with the air they breathe, the water they drink, the soil that grows their food. Over the generations the land hallows their blood. Their blood spilled in its defense hallows the land. And when this has happened, they are the land’s, and the land is theirs. No one may come to claim it who is not willing to live on and with and for it, to take it into his blood and be willing to give that blood back in its defense.
So you must understand the madness, the fatal madness, of believing that to stand in a field means you own that field. That to build a palace on a hill means you own that hill. That to construct a bridge across a river means you own that river. It is not until the field and the hill and the river own you that balance is achieved.
How futile it is, how fatal, to make war for land that is not your own.
“Solanna? I’ve found the boy.”
Miqelo’s voice made her glance around. It was growing dark now. She had been staring at her husband’s face for many hours. Perhaps the battle was over. Probably it was. She didn’t care. “And?”
“He was coming here anyway. Qamar promised him the inks.”
“Did he.” She looked down at the case that she had repacked, all the bottles with their carved stone stoppers nestled neatly together, the extra loose papers folded atop them. “Take them. He can have them.”
“Perhaps you might want to talk to him. He’s a Grijalva, after all.”
“Yes, you already said. It may be that he and I shall meet one day. But not this day, Miqelo. I’ve changed my mind. Not this day.”
She returned her gaze to her husband’s beautiful face as Miqelo came inside the green canopy of willow leaves and picked up the inks, took them away to give to the young Grijalva who had all unknowing helped Qamar do this incredible, insane thing. Not the thing he had intended, of course. But it had happened all the same.
“Did you think you could stop a war?” she asked the portrait. “Did you truly think that? Did you think that if you showed them what was possible—” Her gaze flickered to the talishann so finely drawn, so thick around the borders of the page. Life. Youth. Health. Strength. A dozen more, repeated again and again, signs that originated with the Shagara in his desert homeland and variations discovered by the Shagara in their mountain fortress. The scents of the paper and the inks were still discernable, some of them still pungent. Many of them he had learned from his fellow Haddiyat. Some of them . . . some of them he had learned from her.
“Did you think,” she resumed softly, “to show them the power of this land? And that they could not hope to conquer it, but only to become in time a part of it? That, Acuyib and Claydann and their great game aside, it is the Mother who gives, and the Son who defends?”
She saw her hand tremble slightly as a fingertip traced one of the talishann. There was the faintest tinge of dark crimson to the ink, telling her that this had been the last, the one drawn with his blood. Life.
Eiha, he lived. Just not in the way he’d intended.
A perfect likeness, his inks on his paper, though drawn by a hand not his own; sealed with Shagara symbols and Shagara blood. Youth. Health. Time. Strength. Safety. Permanence. Life. Woods and herbs and flowers and water had intensified the meanings of the talishann, amplified the potency of his blood. The magic had done what he had insisted it do, in the only way it could.
Just not in the way he’d intended.
Opening the book, she used a knife to slit the inside back cover. She wasted another moment looking at the portrait, then slid a protective sheet of paper across it and carefully slid both pages between the leather and the wooden backing. She would glue it closed later. It would be safe enough for now.
He would be safe enough. For now.
She closed the book, locked it, and slipped the small golden key into her pocket. Rising, she held the book to her breast with one hand and took up the dead lamp in the other. Nothing was left behind as she emerged from the willow tree and went to find Miqelo, to tell him she was ready to leave.
He waited for her beside their horses. In the darkness campfires sparked here and there on the hillsides. There was no moon.
“You still haven’t said where Qamar went,” he reminded her. “Or when he’ll come back.”
She held the book tighter. He never left, was the truthful answer. What she said was, “In his own time, I suppose. Come, Miqelo, I want to be far away from here by morning.”
The Sheyqa’s army was defeated.
The Sheyqa escaped, only to die when her ship was attacked by pirates from Diettro Mareia. Some say she threw herself into the sea rather than suffer the dishonor of capture, but others assert that her own qabda’ans murdered her and tossed her body overboard. A niece who had stayed loyal in her heart to her al-Ma’aliq origins became Sheyqa of Rimmal Madar, and her line has occupied the Moonrise Throne ever since.
The fate of Solanna Grijalva al-Ma’aliq is unclear. She may have returned to her Grijalva relations. She may have been killed after the battle or died on the journey home. There is a curious letter in the archives at Hazganni, dated two years after the battle and sent from Ibrayanza, claiming kinship with her husband’s niece, the Empress Za’avedra, and asking for documents guaranteeing safe passage across the border into Tza’ab Rih for herself and her son. But this is undoubtedly a forgery.
Il-Ma’anzuri, having left the seven brief, brilliant pages of the Kita’ab to enlighten his people, chose to emulate his pious grandmother, Empress Mirzah, and spent the rest of his days in solitary devotions, and he was never seen again.
And so I have told you of him, and any telling of his life that differs in any respect from this one is a lie.
—HAZZI NAL-JOHARRA, Deeds of Il-Ma’anzuri, 813
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Basically, you see, it’s very strange sometimes, the way books get written.
Even now I recall perfectly receiving a fax at the Athens Gate Hotel in Athens, Greece. The gist of it was that my agent wanted to know if I’d be interested in doing a book with two of his other clients, Jennifer Roberson and Alis Rasmussen. So, the three of us being friends anyway, we agreed and in January of 1994 met at Jennifer’s house in Phoenix, Arizona. (You may imagine the profundity of Alis’ joy at sitting outside in shorts and a t-shirt
, soaking up winter sunshine; her home was in Pennsylvania back then.) As we worked (and we did work, honest!), we sparked ideas off each other in ways that had never happened to any of us before and had ourselves a fine, creative, splendid time, and a lot of fun.
Not to put too fine a point on it, though, once we were off on the 1996 book tour, we were all flummoxed by the insinuations (and more than insinuations sometimes) that three women couldn’t possibly work together on a book without multiple catfights. Drastic drops in ambient room temperature followed these interview questions—I can remember the first time it happened, when I sort of sat there with my jaw flapping open, Alis’ eyes widened to approximately the size of teacups, and Jennifer’s posture became that of a soldier on parade. (Some people “get their backs up” as the saying goes; Jennifer’s spine becomes a ramrod.) How and what we answered, I’ve forgotten. Essentially, the implication was that nobody thought three women could work together on a project, especially one of this size and scope, without behaving like peevish children rather than professionals who admire and respect each other’s work. Is it cantankerous of me to wonder if that sort of question would be asked of three male writers who wrote a book together?
Looking back, there is one shocking thing about that book. As presented in that original fax, the concept of The Golden Key was “about 50,000 words each.” Clearly, this was ridiculous; the thing ended up being 337,000 words long. And I accounted for about 105,000 of them. Now, many people are skeptical that mine could be the shortest section, but I am occasionally capable of restraint. Kind of.
It’s documented in the faxes we exchanged even before the Phoenix meeting (yes, faxes; not emails), that prior to working out the ideas and plotlines, we were determined that the book would give the readers the experience they expected from our solo novels. Should a reader come to The Golden Key as a Rawn, Roberson, or Elliott fan (or, most desirably, of course, a fan of all three!), we wanted to provide the feel of our individual work while ensuring that the story flowed as seamlessly as possible from section to section. Surely this sort of thing is impossible without knowing, understanding, and liking each other and each other’s work?