The City of Brass
Page 47
Her powers were gone. And then she realized what must have been carved into Ali’s cheek.
Suleiman’s seal.
Dara.
“No!” Nahri climbed to her feet. In the center of the ship, Dara had fallen to his knees just like he had when Ghassan used the seal to reveal her identity. He looked up to see the thing that was Ali towering over him, raising the rusted blade over his head. He attempted to defend himself with the zulfiqar, but even Nahri could see that his movements were slowed.
Ali knocked it away with enough force to send the blade flying into the lake and then raised the rusty scimitar again. He started to bring it down toward Dara’s neck, and Nahri screamed. Ali hesitated. She took a breath.
He changed direction, slashing down, cutting clean through Dara’s left wrist and severing his hand.
Separating the ring.
Dara didn’t make a sound as he fell. She could swear he seemed to look past Ali, to gaze upon her one final time, but she wasn’t certain. It was hard to see his face; he’d grown as dim as smoke, and there was some woman screaming in her ear.
But then Dara grew still—too still—and crumbled to ash before her eyes.
28
Ali
Ali knew he was dying when he crashed through the lake’s placid surface.
The icy water sucked him down and attacked him like a rabid animal, shredding his clothes and tearing at his skin. It scrabbled at his mouth and surged up his nose. A white-hot heat burst inside his head.
He screamed into the water. There was something there, an alien presence rooting through his mind, sifting through his memories like a bored student flipping through a book. His mother singing a Ntaran lullaby, the hilt of a zulfiqar in his hands for the first time, Nahri’s laughter in the library, Darayavahoush raising his bow . . .
Everything stopped.
There was a hiss in his ear. HE IS HERE? the lake itself seemed to demand. The turbulent water stilled, and there was a warm press at his throat and chest as the arrows dissolved.
The relief was temporary. Before Ali could even think about kicking for the surface, something snaked around his left ankle and yanked him down.
He squirmed as waterweeds wrapped his body, the roots digging into his flesh. The images in his mind flashed faster as the lake devoured his memories of Darayavahoush: their duel, the way he’d looked upon Nahri in the infirmary, the fiery light that filled his ring as he charged the ship.
Words burst into his mind again. TELL ME YOUR NAME.
Ali’s lungs burned. Two clams were trying to burrow into his stomach and a pair of toothy jaws clamped down on his shoulder. Please, he begged. Just let me die.
Your name, Alu-baba. The lake crooned the words in his mother’s voice this time, a baby name he’d not heard in years. Give your name or see what shall pass.
The image of the hated Afshin was swept away to be replaced by Daevabad. Or what was once Daevabad and was now little more than a burning ruin, surrounded by an evaporated lake and filled with the ash of its people. His father lay slaughtered on the marble steps of the wrecked royal court, and Muntadhir hung from a smashed window screen. The Citadel collapsed, burying alive Wajed and all the soldiers with whom he’d grown up. The city burned; houses burst into flames and children screamed.
No! Ali writhed in the lake’s grip, but there was no way to stop the awful visions.
Skeletally thin gray beings with vibrant wings bowed down in obedience. Rivers and lakes dried up, their towns overtaken by fire and dust while a land he recognized as Am Gezira was swept away by a poisonous sea. A lonely palace grew from Daevabad’s ashes, spun from fired glass and molten metals. He saw Nahri. Her face was veiled in Nahid white, but her dark eyes were visible and filled with despair. A shadow fell over her, the shape of a man.
Darayavahoush. But with black eyes and a scar across his young face, lacking the handsome grace of a slave. Then his eyes were green again and older, his familiar smug smile briefly returning. His skin flared with fiery light, and his hands turned to coal. His eyes were golden now and utterly alien.
Look. The visions started to repeat, lingering on the images of his murdered family. Muntadhir’s dead eyes snapped open. Say your name, akhi, his brother begged. Please!
Ali’s mind spun. His lungs were empty, the water thick with his blood. His body was shutting down, a fuzzy blackness encroaching on the bloody visions.
NO, the lake hissed, desperate. NOT YET. It shook him hard, and the images grew more vicious. His mother brutalized, given over to hungry crocodiles with the rest of the Ayaanle while a crowd of Daevas cheered. The shafit, rounded up and set on fire in the midan. Their screams filled the air, the scent of crackling flesh making him gag. Muntadhir pushed to his knees and beheaded before the yellow eyes of a jeering group of ifrit. A mass of unknown soldiers pulling Zaynab from her bed and ripping her clothes . . .
No! Oh God, no. Stop this!
Save her, his father’s voice demanded. Save us all. The iron bindings grew weak with rust and then burst apart. Something metallic was pressed into his hand. A hilt.
A pair of bloody hands wrapped around his sister’s throat. Zaynab’s terrified gaze locked on his. Brother, please! she screamed.
Ali broke.
Had he been less certain of his imminent death or had he been raised in the outer provinces where one was taught never to speak their true name, to guard it as they did their very soul, he might have hesitated, the request immediately understood for what it was. But assaulted by the images of his brutalized family and city, he didn’t care why the lake wanted what it must have already learned from his memories.
“Alizayd!” he screamed, the water muffling his words. “Alizayd al Qahtani!”
The pain vanished. His fingers closed around the hilt without him willing them to do so. His body suddenly felt distant. He was barely aware of being released, of being pushed through the water.
Kill the daeva.
Ali broke through the lake’s surface but did not gasp for breath; he did not need it. He climbed up the ship’s hull like a crab and then stood, water streaming from his clothes, his mouth, his eyes.
Kill the daeva. He heard the daeva speak. The air was wrong, empty and dry. He blinked, and something burned on his cheek. The world grew quieter, gray.
The daeva was before him. Part of his mind registered shock in the other man’s green eyes as he raised a blade to defend himself. But his movements were clumsy. Ali knocked his weapon away, and it flew into the dark lake. The djinn soldier in Ali saw his chance, the other man’s neck exposed . . .
The ring! The ring! Ali changed the direction of his blow, bringing it down toward the glowing green gem.
Ali swooned. The ring clattered away, and the sword fell from his hand, now more a rusty artifact than a weapon. Nahri’s screams filled the air.
“Kill the daeva,” he mumbled and collapsed, the blackness finally welcoming him.
Ali was dreaming.
He was back in the harem—in the pleasure gardens of his mother’s people—a small boy with his small sister, hiding in their usual spot under the willow tree. Its bowed branches and thick fronds made a cozy nook next to the canal, hidden from the sight of any interfering grown-ups.
“Do it again!” he begged. “Please, Zaynab!”
His sister sat up with a wicked smile. The water-filled bowl rested in the dust between her skinny crossed legs. She raised her palms over the water. “What will you give me?”
Ali thought fast, considering which of his few treasures he’d be willing to part with. Unlike Zaynab, he had no toys; no trinkets and amusements were given to boys groomed to be warriors. “I can get you a kitten,” he offered. “There’s lots near the Citadel.”
Zaynab’s eyes lit up. “Done.” She wiggled her fingers, a look of intense concentration brewing in her small face. The water shuddered, following the motion of her hands and then slowly rose as she spun her right hand, whirling like a liquid ribbon.
“You can’t do it,” Zaynab said self-importantly. “You’re a boy. And a baby. You can’t do anything.”
“I’m not a baby!” Wajed uncle had even given him a spear shaft to carry around and scare off snakes. Babies couldn’t do that.
The screen of leaves was suddenly swept away and replaced with his mother’s angry face. She took one look at the bowl, and her eyes flashed with fear. “Zaynab!” She yanked his sister away by her ear. “How many times have I told you? You are never to—”
Ali scurried back, but his mother wasn’t interested in him. She never was. He waited until they had crossed the garden, Zaynab’s sobs growing distant, before he crept back toward the bowl. He stared at the still water, at the dark profile of his face surrounded by the pale sunlit leaves.
Ali raised his fingers and beckoned the water closer. He smiled when it began to dance.
He knew he wasn’t a baby.
The dream receded, swept back in the realm of childhood memories to be forgotten as a sharp bite of pain tugged at his elbow. Something growled in the very recesses of his mind, clawing and snapping to stay put. The tug came again, followed by a burst of heat, and the thing released.
“That’s the last of it, my king,” a female voice said. A light sheet fluttered over his body.
“Cover him well,” a man commanded. “I would spare him the sight as long as possible.”
Abba, he recognized as his memory came back to him in a shambles. The sound of his father’s voice was enough to drag him free of the fog of pain and confusion miring his body.
And then another voice. “Abba, I’m begging you.” Muntadhir. His brother was sobbing, pleading. “I’ll do anything you want, marry anyone you want. Just let the Nahid treat him, let Nisreen help him . . . by God, I’ll bind his wounds myself! Jamshid saved my life. He shouldn’t have to suffer because—”
“Kaveh’s son will be seen when mine opens his eyes.” Rough fingers tightened on Ali’s wrist. “He will be healed when I have the name of the Daeva who left those supplies on the beach.” Ghassan’s voice turned colder. “Tell him that. And pull yourself together, Muntadhir. Stop weeping over another man. You shame yourself.”
Ali heard the sound of a chair kicked away and a door slammed shut. Their words were meaningless to Ali, but their voices . . . oh, God, their voices.
Abba. He tried again. “Abba . . . ,” he finally choked out, trying to open his eyes.
A woman’s face swam into view before his father could respond. Nisreen, Ali remembered, recognizing Nahri’s assistant. “Open your eyes, Prince Alizayd. As wide as you can.”
He obeyed. She leaned in to examine his gaze. “I see no trace of the blackness remaining, my king.” She stepped back.
“I-I don’t understand . . . ,” Ali started. He was flat on his back, exhausted. His body burned; his skin stung, and his mind felt . . . raw. He looked up, recognizing the tempered glass ceiling of the infirmary. The sky was gray, and rain swirled on the transparent plates. “The palace was destroyed. You were all dead . . .”
“I’m not dead, Alizayd,” Ghassan assured him. “Try to relax; you’ve been injured.”
But Ali couldn’t relax. “What about Zaynab?” he asked, his ears ringing with his sister’s screams. “Is she . . . did those monsters . . .” He tried to sit up, suddenly realizing his wrists were bound to the bed. He panicked. “What is this? Why am I restrained?”
“You were fighting us; do you not remember?” Ali shook his head, and his father nodded to Nisreen. “Cut him loose.”
“My king, I’m not certain . . .”
“I was not asking.”
Nisreen obeyed, and his father helped him sit up, swatting his hands away when Ali tried to pull off the white sheet that had been tucked around him like swaddling cloth. “Leave that be. And your sister is fine. We are all fine.”
Ali glanced again at the rain beating against the glass ceiling; the sight of the water was oddly alluring. He blinked, forcing himself to look away. “But I don’t understand. I saw you—all of you—dead. I saw Daevabad destroyed,” Ali insisted, and yet even as he said the words, the details were already starting to escape him, the memories pulled away like the tide while newer, firmer ones replaced them.
His fight with the Afshin.
He shot me. He shot me, and I fell in the lake. Ali touched his throat but felt no injury. He started to shake. I shouldn’t be alive. No one survived the lake, not since the marids cursed it thousands of years ago.
“The Afshin . . . ,” Ali stammered. “He-he was trying to flee with Nahri. Did you catch him?”
He saw his father hesitate. “In a manner of speaking.” He glanced at Nisreen. “Take that away to be burned, and tell the emir to come back in here.”
Nisreen rose, her black eyes unreadable. In her arms was a wooden bowl filled with what looked like bloody lake debris: shells and rocks, mangled hooks, a tiny decayed fish, and a few teeth. The sight stirred him, and he watched as she left, passing by two larger reed baskets on the floor. A dead gray tentacle the size of a viper shared one with roughly torn waterweeds. The toothy jaw of a crocodile skull peeked out from the second.
Ali drew up straight. Teeth sinking into my shoulder, weeds and tentacles seizing my limbs. He glanced down, suddenly realizing just how carefully the sheet had been tucked around his body. He grabbed for one end.
His father tried to stop him. “Don’t, Alizayd.”
He tore it away and gasped.
He’d been scourged.
No, not scourged, he realized as his horrified gaze ran over his bloody limbs. The marks were too varied to have been made by a whip. There were gashes that cut down to muscle and scratches that barely drew blood. A pattern of scales was etched into his left wrist, and spiky ridges marred his right thigh. Strips and whirls of flesh had been carved from his arms like one might have wound bandages. There were bite marks on his stomach.
“What happened to me?” He started to tremble, and when no one responded, his voice broke in fright. “What happened?”
Nisreen froze at the door. “Should I call for guards, my king?”
“No,” his father snapped. “Just my son.” He grabbed Ali’s hands. “Alizayd, calm down. Calm down!” Nisreen vanished.
Water streamed down his cheeks, pooling in his palms and growing clammy on his brow. Ali stared in horror at his dripping hands. “What is this? Am I . . . sweating?” Such a thing wasn’t possible: pureblooded djinn did not sweat.
The door burst open, and Muntadhir rushed in. “Zaydi . . . thank God,” he breathed as he hurried to his bedside. His face paled. “Oh . . . oh.”
He wasn’t the only one shocked. Ali gaped at his brother; Muntadhir looked like he’d been on the wrong side of a street brawl. His jaw was bruised, stitches held together gashes on his cheek and brow, and bloody bandages wrapped his arms. His robe hung in shreds. He appeared to have aged thirty years; his face was drawn, his eyes swollen and darkly rimmed from crying.
Ali gasped. “What happened to you?”
“The Scourge was offering a demonstration of his title,” Muntadhir said bitterly. “Until you turned him into a pile of ash.”
“Until I did what?”
The king glared at Muntadhir. “I had not yet reached that part.” He glanced at Ali again, his face unusually gentle. “Do you remember climbing back onto the boat? Killing Darayavahoush?”
“No!”
His father and brother exchanged a dark look. “What do you remember of the lake?” Ghassan asked.
Pain. Indescribable pain. But he didn’t need to tell his worried father that. “I . . . something was talking to me,” he remembered. “Showing me things. Awful things. You were dead, Abba. Dhiru . . . they cut your head off in front of a crowd of ifrit.” He blinked back tears as his brother blanched. “There were men defiling Z
aynab . . . the streets were burning . . . I thought it all real.” He swallowed, trying to regain control. More sweat poured from his skin, soaking the sheets. “The voice . . . it-it was asking for something. My name.”
“Your name?” Ghassan asked sharply. “It asked for your name? Did you give it?”
“I-I think so,” Ali replied, trying to recall his scattered memories. “I don’t remember anything after that.” His father went still, and Ali panicked. “Why?”
“You don’t give your name, Alizayd.” Ghassan was clearly trying—and failing—to check the alarm rising in his voice. “Not freely, not to a creature who’s not of our race. Giving your name means giving up control. That’s how the ifrit enslave us.”
“What are you saying?” Ali touched his wounds. “You think the ifrit did this to me?” He gasped. “Does that mean—”
“Not the ifrit, Zaydi,” Muntadhir cut in quietly. Ali watched his brother’s gaze dart to their father, but Ghassan didn’t interrupt. “That’s not what lives in the lake.”
Ali’s eyes went wide. “The marid? That’s insane. They haven’t been seen in thousands of years!”
His father hushed him. “Keep your voice down.” He glanced at his eldest. “Muntadhir, get him some water.” Muntadhir poured him a cup from the ceramic water pitcher on the table behind them, pressing it into his hand before stepping carefully away. Ali clutched it, taking a nervous sip.
Ghassan’s face stayed grave. “The marid have been seen, Alizayd. By Zaydi al Qahtani himself when he took Daevabad . . . in the company of the Ayaanle man who commanded them.”
Ali went cold. “What?”
“The marid were seen by Zaydi,” Ghassan repeated. “He warned his son about them when he became emir, a warning passed down to each generation of Qahtani kings.”
“We don’t cross the Ayaanle,” Muntadhir intoned softly.
Ghassan nodded. “Zaydi said the Ayaanle alliance with the marid earned us our victory . . . but that the Ayaanle had paid a terrible price for doing so. We were never to betray them.”