Tahir didn’t give the shitani any time to lick her flesh though. He lunged toward the woman and grabbed the demon. Then he gave Shahrazad a wicked-looking dagger.
“You’ve earned this. It’s yours, Princess,” he said. Then he dropped the demon at her feet.
I love you, my queen—it started to say. She barely had time to realize it spoke to her while she was in human form before she jumped at it, blade extended. It leaped away, but she was faster—or more determined.
My queen! it pleaded. Do not hurt me!
She wasted no time slicing it, ripping its abdomen until hot blood drenched the sand.
When she looked up, she saw that Tahir was finally untying his sister, helping her to her feet. The queen, apparently still dazed, remained speechless as Tahir rubbed her clean with his cloak. The muscles on his back slid deliciously as he took the shirt from his back and slid it gently over her.
“Tahirdro,” the woman said. “Is it really you?”
“It is.” He bowed to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” he said, turning toward Shahrazad.
“Do you know the pegaz?” the queen asked, pulling the shirt down to her knees. She looked as regal wearing these soldier’s rags as Shahrazad’s aunts and cousins did in their wedding finery.
“Yes,” Tahir said. “Queen Kalila, this is Princess Shahrazad, Daughter of the Sultan of the Land of the Moon.” He bowed and gestured toward Shahrazad. “And Princess Shahrazad, this is my sister, Queen Kalila, co-ruler of House Kulwanti of the Land of the Sun.”
“Please,” the queen said to Shahrazad. “Call me Kalila.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Kalila.”
“But why did you change from pegaz form?” the queen asked in a majestic voice. “Surely not on my account. Perhaps you fight better as a woman? Are you a Warqueen?”
“I—” But Shahrazad didn’t know what to say. Killing the shitani was much easier in pegaz form.
“Princess Shahrazad is not a pegaz by her own choosing.” Tahir turned toward her. “Badra cursed her. By day she’s a winged horse—by night, she’s a woman.”
“But of course she has a choice,” Kalila said.
Tahir looked at her a moment, as if he might disagree, but then he bowed and said, “As you say, my queen.”
And it occurred to Shahrazad that she’d never once seen a woman generate subservient behavior from a man—not before this.
“Tahirdro,” Queen Kalila said, “don’t act like a camel’s cock. I’m not pulling rank on you—I’m telling you your princess has a choice.”
“I don’t see how.”
“It’s day and she’s in woman form—by her own choosing.”
“I—” But Tahir looked confused and didn’t finish his sentence.
“May I retrieve your bridle?” she asked, approaching Shahrazad with an outstretched hand. Shahrazad took her hand in response. Who could deny this woman?
“Of course, Kalila. But why?”
The queen gracefully retrieved the thing, handing the emerald-encrusted bridle back to her. “I would recommend that you not lose this. It gives you control.”
“The bridle?” Tahir asked. “She removed the bridal and broke the curse?”
“I believe the curse still stands,” Queen Kalila replied, her voice soft. “What I mean is that if you or I slipped this bit between our teeth, nothing would happen.”
“But the bridle allows me to control it.” The sense of wonder she felt made her words seem dreamy.
“You’ve been cursed.” Kalila nodded, her lovely chestnut hair gleaming in the sunlight. She wore no crown, but Shahrazad could so easily imagine it. “Although maybe some would consider the freedom of this bridle a blessing.” The expression on her face made Shahrazad see the other woman envied her wings.
“What do you mean?” Tahir asked. “She changes into a pegaz.”
“At my will,” Shahrazad clarified, looking at the mountains. Then she laughed, remembering the moment the magician touched her, how she wished for exactly this freedom. “The magician was correct, you realize,” she said to Tahir. “When she said she’d grant our hearts’ desire.”
“What do you mean?”
“You wanted your sister.” Shahrazad gestured to the woman. “I wanted freedom.” She held up the bridle. “And what of you, my queen?” she asked. “Has your wish been granted?”
“I wanted to see what the world had to offer before I settled in to rule next to my mother,” the woman said, without apology. “My mother’s a difficult person to satisfy, and I wasn’t certain I wanted to try.”
A week ago, Shahrazad would have had no sympathy for such a selfish wish, but now…now, she saw that being forced to rule was just as imprisoning as being forbidden.
“Somehow,” Tahir said, “I think we’ve all been granted what we wanted, but…”
“But our heart’s aren’t contented,” Kalila finished.
“And each of these granted wishes have come at a terrible cost that we’ve yet to pay. Furthermore, we have larger problems on the horizon,” Shahrazad told them.
“Shitani,” Tahir said.
Shahrazad nodded. “Thousands of them, coming this direction.”
“But the augury said if we restored my sister within a month and day, the shitani wouldn’t invade the Land of the Sun.”
“A trap. Another machination,” Shahrazad said. “But again, do we have a choice? We should fly her to your land and see if that doesn’t break the spell.”
“I doubt very much it will,” Queen Kalila said. “Badra uses her dark thaumaturgy to manipulate omens and augurs—it’s one of the many ways she maneuvers people.”
Shahrazad nodded. “We’d come to a similar conclusion.”
We love you, our queen.
The voices whispered in her head, much softer than in her horse form, but she couldn’t help but run her fingers to her temples.
“Are they coming for you?” Tahir asked, taking her hand in his.
Shahrazad nodded.
“I hear them, too. They continually invite me to rule them,” he said in a tight voice.
“We must tell my father,” she said. “Even if he wants to behead me, he must prepare the armies. The shitani are more numerous than we ever considered. Even with the Raj’s support, we might not defeat them.”
“The Warqueen Abbesses could help,” Tahir added, looking at his sister.
Kalila thought for a moment. “Princess Shahrazad’s palace stands between the shitani and the Land of the Sun,” she noted. “If we place the Warqueen Abbesses in the Land of the Moon, they’ll protect the Land of the Sun.”
“We’ll all fly to the Land of the Sun,” Shahrazad said, deciding.
“But I’m not going home,” Queen Kalila said. “I can’t.”
“But you must.” Determination hardened Tahir’s jaw. “You can’t abandon your home.”
“Tahirdro,” she said, caressing his face. “I was never going to be a good leader. And if I leave, perhaps Queen Kulwanti will grow a spine and establish you in my place. You are the leader. Just because you have a cock…”
“You can’t—” Tahir started to say, but Shahrazad interrupted.
“Will you go to the magician then?” she asked Kalila. “She’s been pushing your brother and me to her arms. Has she been pushing you?”
“I’ve been pushing myself,” Kalila said, shaking her head so that her dark skin shimmered in the noon light. “I’ve never wanted to rule the Land of the Sun. Perhaps I could rule the demons.”
“But Badra,” Shahrazad said. “She’s evil.”
“She’s not as evil as she is tired. If I replace her, perhaps she’ll leave the rest of you alone.” Kalila gave a weak smile and added, “Although I cannot imagine a future more loathsome.”
Tahir looked at her a moment, then struck her. The blow was firm, but not overly hard, and Kalila crumpled to the ground like an empty sack.
Shahrazad gasped in horror, but Tahir shook his head and
rubbed his hand. “She really wasn’t a good leader,” he said.
“But to bring her home and force the issue?” Shahrazad couldn’t justify the unfairness of it. “Against her will?”
“I doubt my mother will make her rule,” Tahir said. “I’m sure Kalila will slink away at some point.”
“But then why?” She gestured at the unconscious woman.
“For my mother. She believes her auguries like you believe the sky is blue. If I didn’t return my sister and the shitani invaded, she would always believe she’d failed her land, that she didn’t do enough to restore Kalila to the throne.” He paused and then said, “She’ll think I failed the land.”
“So now she’ll know the truth.”
Tahir shook his head. “Who knows what the truth is. I’ll still do everything in my power to stop the shitani invasion.”
“The Warqueen Abbesses?”
“Exactly.” He slung his sister over his shoulder. “If you fly us to the Land of the Sun, I will procure us one more army.”
Come to us, Tahir heard in his head. Be our Dark Father. Fuck us. Rule us.
He shook his head in consternation, pushing their voices from his head. To get to the Land of the Sun from here, they’d fly over the Amr Mountains, a first for him. If they’d been riding or walking, they’d have gone around the jagged monstrosities.
For a heartbeat, a heady thought rolled through his mind as his sister clung unhappily to his waist. Forget lands ruled by men, or lands ruled by women. What if they established a land where men and women ruled together, side by side? Young girls wouldn’t need to learn to keep their eyes downcast like Princess Shahrazad did. Young boys wouldn’t be castrated like the boys in his land were.
His utopian thoughts were brushed away by the swoop of Shahrazad’s wings as she banked steeply.
“What is it?” he asked, looking down. They were over the Amr Mountains now, mountains too rugged for most people to cross on foot or by horse, and a huge flat valley opened in their center.
And then he saw.
“What is that?” Kalila asked from behind him.
An enormous palace existed in the center of the valley and dozens of outlying buildings dotted the perimeter. What looked like horse or camel paddocks decorated an area, and a cool, blue pond filled nearly a third of the valley. Even from this height, he could see white ibis plumes as the birds fished the water. But no human dwelled in this secluded land.
“It’s fantastic,” he said, and Shahrazad beneath him nickered in agreement.
We love you, our king. Come to us. Come to us!
Tahir looked down, amazed at how loud the voices were. And then he saw the reason why. What looked like every shitani ever spawned was scrambling up Amr’s first cliff, heading directly toward Shahrazad’s land, just as she’d said.
“If it was their land, it isn’t any longer. It looks as if they’re leaving,” he said.
Our king, he heard, we love you!
As if she were in pain, Shahrazad shook her head and whinnied.
“What’s wrong with her?” Kalila asked.
“She hears the shitani. I think the voices hurt her.” He leaned forward, urging her to speed. They needed to get away from them now.
Then a thought occurred to him. He’d seen Kalila’s face in the spinning orb. “Don’t you hear them?” he asked.
“Not very clearly, and they’re easy to block out,” Kalila said. “Do you?”
“Yes, and the closer they are, the louder they are. I think it’s even worse for Shahrazad, especially when she’s in horse form.”
“That’s terrible,” Kalila answered. “And here we are flying over a writhing nest of them.”
“We’re leaving.”
“You didn’t have to hit me, you know,” Kalila said, jabbing his ribs. “I would have come with you.”
“I was afraid you’d go to the Cavern of Thieves.”
The two demons cackled in his hand despite the fact they should have died long ago given the way he squeezed their wretched necks.
“Would that have been such a bad thing? Perhaps the demons would have left the lands in peace.”
“The magician is a liar,” Tahir said. “Nothing she says can be believed.”
“So what do you suggest?” she asked, archly.
“War. We will kill each and every last one of them. We’ll vanquish them, erase even the memory of them.”
Kalila said nothing for a moment, then she hugged him tightly. “If anyone can accomplish such a task, brother, you can.”
Her confidence in him choked him. He could forgive Shahrazad for believing in him—she didn’t know him, not really. She didn’t know his home, his mother, his weaknesses and failures. But Kalila did. She’d known him since the day he’d been born.
And she believed in him.
“Look,” Tahir called. “Home.” Their palace appeared on the horizon, its tall blue minarets welcoming.
“Does it feel like home to you?” Kalila asked. “It doesn’t feel that way to me.”
“I’m sorry I ran you off. I didn’t mean for you to leave. I just thought you could pick your own Impregnator without mother’s help.”
“Oh, Tahirdro,” she said, running her hand over his shoulder. “You didn’t make me leave.”
“Of course I did. All those queens chasing after you to get Impregnated by their sons. I thought if you put your foot down, they’d give you some room to breathe, live your own life for a few years.”
“You gave me the strength to leave,” she corrected. “I knew no matter how firmly I resisted, I’d never gain any freedom. And then I heard mother scheming with Queen Casmiri to Impregnate me against my will…” Her arms, wrapped around his waist, moved as she shrugged. “I ran. Or rather, the magician took advantage of my discontent.”
“I’m sorry still,” Tahir said after a moment of silence.
“I’m still running back to the Cavern of the Sixty Thieves the first chance I get.”
“That will be mother’s problem.”
Rule us! he heard again. We love you. Come to us!
But he was going home. By the time they reached the center of their land, a gaggle of laughing girls ran beneath them, accompanied by toddling boys. He knew the older boys were inside, many of them working or recovering from their dreaded surgeries.
By the time they approached his palace, the swooshing sound of Shahrazad’s wings reverberating in his head, his mother and her entourage waited in the courtyard, her blue robe immaculate in the early afternoon sun.
“I would be pleased if you landed here,” he told Shahrazad, and she did, with as much grace as she had the first time in that oasis all those lifetimes ago.
His mother bore herself with such a regal air that Tahir was not at all surprised when Shahrazad oriented toward Queen Kulwanti and stopped just before her.
“Mother,” Prince Tahir said in his public voice. “I’m rejoiced to see you again. May God hold you in his eyes.” With a grand gesture, he added, “I’ve brought your beloved daughter, Queen Kalila.”
He watched his mother take Kalila in, and her gaze returned to him. He saw…surprise at his success. “Son,” she said finally, “I too find my heart gladdened at the sight of you. I praise God for holding you as dear in his eyes as I do.”
He blinked at her warm greeting, surprised at the public showing of her affection. He slid from Shahrazad’s back and then helped his sister dismount.
“And daughter,” Queen Kulwanti said, “it is also a delight to see you. I hope your year of meditation brings you home in a peaceful mind.”
“It does.” Queen Kalila curtsied to her mother. “I’m rejoiced to see you, mother.”
An awkward silence held court for a moment, and then Tahir said, “I bring you a gift.” He held up his fist of demons. Obligingly, they cackled, although how they did that through his death grip around their necks, he didn’t know.
Do not abandon us, our king, he heard as their eyes locked on
his. We love you. We worship you.
“Thank you,” Queen Kulwanti said. “I trust they bring some…benefit.”
“Besides the beauty of their faces?” he asked. “They do. But perhaps it is a feature best described in private.” Especially if she planned to use their invisibility spit to spy on the other houses as he would have.
She nodded and gestured toward Ayoob the eunuch, who stepped forward to retrieve them. “Is the glorious pegaz a gift as well?”
“She is not,” Tahir said, slipping the bridle from Princess Shahrazad and allowing her to transform for all to see. “This is Princess Shahrazad, daughter of the Sultan of the Land of the Moon.” Once her transformation was completed, he added, “Princess Shahrazad, this is my mother, Queen Kulwanti, ruler of House Kulwanti and the Land of the Sun.”
“Ah,” the old queen said, nodding to the princess. “I’ve longed to meet a daughter of the moon.”
“Greetings, your majesty,” Shahrazad said in a clear voice that rang throughout the courtyard. She curtsied with neat grace. “I bring greetings from my land to yours. Your son, Prince Tahir, has made a great impression, and we greatly anticipate working together to rid both our lands of this scourge.”
Tahir paused. Shahrazad had made the “we” in her statement sound royal, suggesting that she and her father found Tahir in their favor. It was a good tactic with his mother, and it made Shahrazad seem more powerful than she might actually be.
It made Tahir sound powerful, too.
“By scourge,” the queen asked, “I understand you to mean shitani. Is that correct?”
“Yes, my lady.”
Queen Kulwanti’s eyes met his, and he could feel the question she didn’t want to ask in public. Was the worry of this scourge warranted?
And his mother, the most powerful ruler in several generations, wasn’t asking Queen Kalila.
“Perhaps you would like to refresh yourselves,” the queen said, “then join me for an early dinner?”
Tahir approached his mother and kissed her hand formally. “We don’t have time, mother, but we need to speak.” He said these words for only her to hear.
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