by Zamil Akhtar
Pashang rested his head on clasped hands. “It’s no fun making gray men scream. The screams of your daughter and son, though, would be sweeter than plums.”
“I know Mansur isn’t here to hold your leash. Let me caution you, then — don’t even think of looting and raping. When Kyars returns, he’ll chase you across the Endless Waste for stealing a single stone of this blessed city.”
“Where is Kyars?” Pashang stood and approached Khizr Khaz. “Where is Mansur? Where are our overlords?” He breathed deep as he clasped Sheikh Khizr’s shoulder. “You’re right. A dog without its master turns wild — rabid, even. Best help me find my master, then, before it’s too late.”
Sheikh Khizr shook his head. “I don’t know where Mansur is.”
Pashang returned to the dais. “That’s too bad — for everyone.”
Once the great hall emptied, I rushed to speak with Pashang.
“Did you capture Zedra?”
He shook his head. “’Course not. That would’ve been too easy.” He sighed, long and sharp. “Cyra, in council with my tribe, I’ve made a decision, one you won’t like. We’re going to claim our booty and go.”
“You mean…plunder this city? But this is my home!”
“Your home is the Endless. Without Mansur, I can’t hold this place once Kyars returns. And my scouts have now sighted his army, only three days away — two if they march at night.” He tugged at his beard. “Fear is not enough — I need a Seluqal, and I lost mine. I’m sure you noticed our support has dwindled, and with news of Kyars’ return, these halls will shortly be empty.”
Right, that might be true. But conquerors, I’d learned, made their own truths. If Kyars arrived in two days, without Zedra’s capture and confession, how could I prove my innocence?
“How disappointing.” I wanted to spit at Pashang’s feet, but my mother always said that was bad manners. “Are you so meek? Craven? Indolent?” I stretched my vocabulary to find a word for how bitter he was making me. “Tell me you’re jesting. After all we’ve done, to just—”
“There’s no one Alanya hates more than me, aside from maybe you. Mansur is likely dead, and Kyars will see we join him. We don’t have any of those fast-firing guns the Philosophers made for the gholam — they say Kyars departed with over five thousand, meaning one in four in his army carries something we simply can’t counter in open battle. I always knew that if I found myself on the losing side, I could betray Mansur and throw his head at Kyars’ feet — that would be enough to save us. But I no longer hold that card, and I won’t lead my tribe into extinction.”
I sniggered. “Then plunder what you will and go. I’ll sit on that chair,” I gestured to the golden divan, “and await my husband.”
He chuckled somberly. “I remember…I remember how you waited for your father to return from a hunt. You’d sit on his bed, keeping it warm. Smell his clothes. Even drink that awful, salt tea he used to make — though you hated it as much as me.”
I so wanted to backhand him. “Is that all you have left? Reminiscence? Home isn’t a place you build in your memories, it’s where you keep your hopes. And for me, that’s the Sand Palace, not some frozen plain hundreds of miles away.”
“You know what the Jotrids hoped for? Why we followed Mansur here? Why we obeyed the Seluqals, in the first place?” He opened his empty hands. “We like shiny things, and we like slaves. This city has it all. Without Mansur here to give us our due, we’re going to take it. If I don’t allow a full day for claiming booty, then the Jotrids will find a khagan who will.”
“There are greater rewards on offer, surely you realize? Stay and help me capture Zedra, and maybe we can claim them. You talked to me about your visions — well, what do you envision about yourself?” I took his hand. “I didn’t walk out on you. I chose your side.” I rubbed his fingers, chaffing on his silver and gold rings. “I can’t find and defeat a sorceress on my own.”
He snickered and shook his head. “Even after everything I did for you, you never chose my side, Cyra. You allied with me while it was convenient, but I realize now you’d sell me to Kyars in a breath if it meant he’d keep you as his sultana. To be honest…I thought you’d be the same caring girl I knew in childhood, but I suppose it’s my fault for seeing you as I wanted to see you…not as the changed person you are. As for my visions…I saw three, and only one has yet to happen. And perhaps…” he shuddered, “perhaps it’s best if that one doesn’t.”
He was right that I’d changed and that I hadn’t chosen a side. Even now, I hedged. If Pashang had captured Zedra, I wouldn’t mind if he ran. It was all I needed him for, and perhaps I’d made that too obvious. I’d neglected to cover my bitter truths with sweet deceits, and that could cost me — a lesson to remember.
Pashang said, “You know how a warrior knows his commander is committed to the fight? He scorches all behind him — every field, village, burg, and bridge, so there’s naught for his enemy nor his own to find comfort in. Want me to stay and fight with you, Cyra? Then burn your comforts down.”
“My comforts?”
“The old sheikh, Khizr Khaz. Ask him to stand here, in front of everyone in this great hall, and terminate your marriage to Kyars.”
I could never! Khizr Khaz believed in me. He could make Kyars see the truth. And yet, without Zedra captive, without her willing to confess her crimes, what proof was there?
“Pashang, if I did that, what place would I have here, in my own home?” I’d be doubtless joining the losing side. Pashang was right — the Jotrids could smash a few thousand defenders with their numbers, pillage the city, be kings for a day…but they couldn’t defeat Kyars’ fully provisioned, fast-firing, and heavily armored gholam army. Only now, considering my own stakes, did I understand what the Jotrids had to lose.
Pashang pouted like the boy who’d lost a foot race to my brother, except now a brown beard hid his sour chin. “See? You don’t believe we can win. You’d be giddy for Kyars to destroy us, so long as you get what you want — a place at his side, and your soulshifter enemy in chains. You couldn’t care less if I were planted beneath the sand, nary a red tulip to adorn my shrine.”
“That’s not true, I—” I choked on how right he was. Perhaps it was inevitable that Pashang and I parted ways, here and now, as our paths no longer joined. And yet, I didn’t want that. He’d shown me a new world — a power from the stars — when he’d taken my hand the day we smashed through Qandbajar’s wall.
“You and me, Cyra.” What was he insinuating? “Want me to fight the soulshifter, fight Kyars, give me something to hope for.” He let out a jittery breath. “Give me a home.”
“I need time to think,” I said, turning away.
“You have the day.” Pashang began to walk away. “In the meantime, I’ll be out there, making sure my men don’t overstep. Even pillaging has rules.”
Who else could I talk to about this but Eshe? My only confidant...and yet, he didn’t know about my star-seeing eye. How could he, then, understand my dilemma?
I ran into Vera in the hallway. She’d just bathed, her hair wet and fragrant.
“Have you been doing what I asked?”
She gazed at the flower-patterned tile. “Sultana, I was with Pashang earlier. He invited me into his room…for coffee…actually.”
I pressed my hands together, excited. “That was fast. You’re so good.”
She shook her head. “No, sultana. The thing is, all he did was ask about you. He knew I’d been your handmaiden and so wanted to know all your likes, your dislikes, your habits. He wasn’t the least bit interested in me.”
I sighed, disappointed. “You’ll have to try harder, Vera. Your task is to learn about his desires, not tell him mine!” I came to her ear. “He’ll be drunk on victory tonight. Make sure you’re in his room, or you’ll be punished in mine.”
She nodded, keeping her gaze low. “Of course, whatever you ask. But…do you want my advice?”
“What’s the advice of some Ruthen
ian strumpet worth, these days?” I grumbled at myself. Of course, I was trying to be mean — this girl had bled me on behalf of a witch, after all — but I didn’t want to be Mirima, for Lat’s sake. “Just say what you will.”
“You should talk to Pashang. You should go to his room, not me. He’ll tell you whatever you ask.”
I snickered. “I’m not a base little whore who spreads her legs for whoever holds her leash that day.” But truly, I needed to leash my tongue, lest she resent me.
“I don’t mean anything so vile. Just talk to him. He would tell you things he’d never tell me. Believe me, I know when I have a way in and when I don’t — and I don’t with Pashang.”
“But I do?”
Finally, she looked me in the eye — with some force, too, like a kitten with its back to the wall. “You do, and you know it.”
At that, she walked away. I supposed she was right, though I was only trying to make her useful to me, so I could justify keeping her around. Otherwise…I shuddered at the thought of what she deserved. What all traitors deserved, whether in Alanya, in the Waste, or anywhere else.
I let my task distract me from the thought. I checked for Eshe in his room, then remembered he refused to be alone. He was probably with the guards, again. But on the way to the guard lodging, I ran into Ozar, dabbing his sweaty head with a silk kerchief.
“Sultana.” He gazed at me with dismal eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“My wife has tasked me with locating Mirima. But Tekish informed me she wasn’t at the shrine. Where could she be?”
I hunched my shoulders. “Doesn’t your man know? Or has his beard grown over his eyes, too?”
Shaking his head, Ozar resembled a nervous pig. “Hadrith wasn’t fool enough to get caught there. With Kyars army sighted only three days away, he must’ve ridden to them.”
“Well, maybe Mirima went with him?”
“Mirima’s not like you, she can’t ride. Kato and his gholam weren’t there, either, nor were the Archers. Strange, don’t you think? Where everyone went, just moments before we struck?”
It wasn’t all that strange. Better to run than die. With Kyars now known to be days away, only the Order must’ve cared to defend their shrine from the Jotrids.
I put a warming hand on Ozar’s shoulder. “I’m sure Mirima is fine. Everyone respects her. Who could ever hurt her?”
“Things happen midst the fog of war. Horrible things. Curse Zedra for killing Tamaz — he coddled us with his peace, and now here we are, at each other’s throats. For what?”
A spice trader, it seemed, had much to lose and little to gain in war. Perhaps that was why he hedged his bets — he didn’t care who won, so long as someone won. Was I so different?
I was, wasn’t I? As Kyars’ wife, I wanted him to win. But if Kyars wouldn’t uphold our marriage, then I wanted him to lose. But — and I couldn’t believe I was thinking this — if Kyars lost, was Pashang willing to sit the throne…with me as his wife? Two massive uncertainties.
Everything was uncertain, and yet, I had to decide. If I made the wrong choice — no question — I’d end up a head on the wall of the palace I called home. It truly was win it all or perish.
But not for Ozar. He wasn’t trying to win — just survive.
“She’ll turn up,” I said. “Have faith.”
He nodded. “Your strength is a brightness in the fog, sultana.”
I finally found Eshe, outside, sitting below the simurgh statue that was likely larger than an actual simurgh, if they’d ever existed. It was also where I’d bled…where he’d saved me. Come to think of it, the simurgh’s head loomed precisely where I’d watched Zedra use my body to commit horrors, as if my soul were inside it. Quite a coincidence.
A layer of sand now covered the stone ground, and Eshe was drawing patterns in the sand. They looked like runes, with all the stars and lines that resembled things in nature.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
He bade me to sit, but I didn’t want to get sandy.
“I heard they’re going to loot the city,” he said. “You know what my first thought was?”
I shook my head.
“Did I lock my house?” He chuckled. “Isn’t that sad? I was a Disciple in what feels like another life. Our whole reason for being is to help others, and all I care about is my house.”
Eshe hadn’t even had the chance to lock his house. “I forgot to lock it,” I said with a nervous smile.
“Good. I hope the Jotrids take all I own. Maybe then…maybe then I’ll remember how I’m supposed to feel.”
Perhaps it was my fault. I’d put him on this path, given him the hope that he could help. But what we’d done had only hurt…what I’d done…
“Perhaps I was too obsessed with the arcane,” he said, “I forgot the evil in front of my eyes. We should stop them…before the sky fills with screams.”
“How can we stop them? We’re two against a horde. Even Khizr Khaz failed — now he’s their prisoner.”
He seemed to soak in that thought.
“You said it yourself,” I said, “we’re not good people. But we’re not evil, either. Isn’t that so?”
“What is evil, Cyra? Is it not evil to do naught while others are hurt?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. If I had power, I wouldn’t let anyone get hurt. I wouldn’t have let that bitch hurt Tamaz.” I wanted to tell Eshe. Tell him how I’d used my star-seeing eye to save him. “I wouldn’t have let you be hurt, Eshe. Pashang listened to me then, but now…”
I wasn’t being honest, as usual. Pashang had said if I burned my bridges, that he wouldn’t loot the city. I just wasn’t willing to pay that price.
“It doesn’t take a sorcerer to inflict suffering,” Eshe said. “When men join to take what they believe is theirs but isn’t, that’s calamitous enough.”
So true. Ultimately, the Jotrid horde was a worse catastrophe than myself or Zedra, and if I couldn’t spare my home that, what good was I?
“Eshe…Pashang told me he’d spare the people if I asked Khizr Khaz to dissolve my marriage with Kyars. And I didn’t do it. It’s not you who’s evil, it’s me.”
He looked up at me with soft, trembling eyes. “I can’t tell you what to do. It’s your life. A hard heart is easy to live with, but a soft heart never stops bleeding. Which one have you?”
I nodded, fully understanding. Eshe saw the whole, like a bird perched on a tower, while I was always stuck in the muck. I needed his perspective, lest I escape that muck only to find myself in a fire of my own making.
Perhaps if I hurried, I could catch Pashang. I ran through the garden, toward the palace gate, heaving the while. Once there, I asked the guard, “Where’s Pashang?”
He took me outside the gate and pointed to a cluster of walled villas aside the thoroughfare in which great viziers lived. Most were made of limestone, whereas the rest of the city was mudbrick and sandstone, and so gleamed like pearls in the dirt.
I ran over and found an open gate, Jotrids going in and out. One carried a porcelain vase with strange, colorful fish painted on it in the style of the Silklands. Sapphire-encrusted diamonds and emerald diadems were dangling out the overstuffed sack of another Jotrid, who was also chugging a waterskin with the sour stench of kumis.
I stepped between them and into the open gate, then through the villa door, which was surrounded by limestone columns and a fragrant rose garden.
Inside the high-roofed villa, a Jotrid man and woman guarded what looked like a family: a middle-aged man in a relaxing, silk caftan, his wife in a big, silk sleeping shirt, two teenage daughters, tears trailing kohl down their faces, and a handsome boy of no more than twelve years. They stood together in the middle of the room, hands clasped, as evermore Jotrids went about tossing their possessions into big, horsehide sacks.
Pashang was upstairs, in a pearl-themed bedroom, sitting on the bed’s silk sheets. He was holding a puffy pillow and…sniffing it?
He tossed the pillow away, what little of his cheeks shown aside his beard turning red. He resembled a boy caught touching himself. “Earlier,” he cleared his throat, “you seemed rather disinclined. Why the sudden change?”
“What will you do to that family downstairs?”
He smiled. “Is that why? You’re aching for these people? Do you know where the limestone comes from to build a villa like this? All the way from the Karmaz Mountains. Slaves cut out the rocks and carry them down, breaking their backs the while. These people don’t deserve your tears, Cyra.”
“What will you do?”
“The girls are ripe. The boy is hairless. We have a system — my riders will throw bones, just how you toss dice. The winners will get firsts, the next highest seconds, and so on. It’ll be orderly — no one will be hurt, who doesn’t resist.”
No wonder Khizr Khaz didn’t like these Jotrids. “They are Latians, Pashang. Have you no regard whatsoever for our faith? You can’t rape believing men and women!”
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll gift plenty of Jotrid babies to the Ethosian Quarter, too.”
I wanted to suffocate him with that pillow he’d been sniffing. “That’s not what I meant! Stop this at once! Everyone in this city, whether worth a thousand diamonds or a single stone, are my people! How dare you touch them? Call off the looting, now!”
He stood and loomed over me, his breaths dry on my forehead. “Or what? Do you know whom you’re speaking to? Have you even a flickering image of the things I’ve done? Looting your beloved city is a mercy. I could fill the river with blood and decorate your streets with skulls, if I so desired.”
I stared up at his vengeful eyes in fear. I backed away until I hit the wall. “I told you…I’ll do what you ask. I’ll tell Khizr Khaz to end my marriage. Follow through on your end and spare my city. You’re a man to be feared, for true, but aren’t you more? Show me who you are, Khagan Pashang.”