by Tia Reed
* * *
Yazmine couldn’t look. Not while that beast did the unspeakable to a boy younger than she. An unbearable sadness had been eating her since she discovered Timak’s plight. And what could she do about it? Nothing. She floated outside the portal, stared at the waves and sang to him, not sure if it helped. When he finally drifted to sleep, she sat on a moonbeam and wept, incredulous that she could still shed tears. One by one they fell, mingling with the salt of the ocean and achieving absolutely nothing. The waves did not swell, nor the fish alter their course.
Why? She wanted to scream. What is the point? What was the good of Mahktos planting her here if He forbade her to help? She might as well have stayed on the earth, where she could do some good. In human form, she could buy the boy, hire mercenaries to steal him, or assassins to kill that vile pretender. As a genie…you may not interfere. That was the only instruction the others had given before apprenticing her to a brusque couldn’t-care-less who wouldn’t even trust her with his name.
Who was she fooling? Brought up a baker’s daughter, she would never have known of Timak’s plight. She would never have collected enough coin to do any of the things she had just imagined. Frustration mounting, she kicked at the water, splashing spray against the porthole.
“There’s fish a’flying,” a sailor scrubbing the deck said.
“Yer be a fool,” another replied. “There’s djinn about. Don’t yer feel that still wind?”
Yazmine kicked again, splashing the pair with water. She would buffet them with waves if they sat back while that brute tortured the boy. To the scums with the dreaded salt on her toes. What had she been thinking to say yes to the god? On earth, she could have helped others. Like the beggar she had given her ma’s fresh baked loaf, or old Josar, whose cottage she had scrubbed when he lay abed with fever. What was the point if she couldn’t interfere?
Frustration was building in her like a storm. It twirled her out over the ocean, faster and faster, until the water beneath was no more than a blur. Her fury dragged the waves from the sea, twisting them around her as she rose into the sky, weaving cloud through the water and moonbeams through the mist. At last, she collapsed on a moonlit wisp, shivering, though it was not from cold.
She blinked as a waterspout whirled past her, a school of fish rippling around its edge. Astounded, she forgot to concentrate. She fell into the ocean with a resounding splash. Salt water enclosed her, soaking, stinging, abrading. Draining her newfound magic from the rose-pink crystals in her joints. She thrashed for the surface, praying the ship was gone, using her last breath to cry for help. Salt water surged into her lungs. She splashed, coughed, spluttered when, “There!” the chilling shout came. “Tell the cap’n to heave to. We’ll catch us our fortune t’night.”
The ship listed as the tiller cranked the rudder. Yazmine dove. She would swim deep down before she would let those brutes capture her. She would drown herself, and go to Mahktos a different way.
The god must have guessed her intent. The waters parted, and a hand plucked her from the tainted depths.
“Dimwit.”
She swallowed disappointment. It was only the indigo djinn who had saved her. He laughed as the galley tottered at the edge of the trough while she dangled at arm’s length, the back of her pink bodice between his thumb and forefinger, coughing water from her lungs.
“Don’t hurt them. Please don’t.”
He pulled his nose long in distaste. “Oh, very well.” He flicked his free hand and the waters closed. The ship rocked in the turbulence, but the captain yelled, and the sailors lashed ballast, and it righted itself with a creaky shudder.
“Did I not warn you about salt, you tick on my behind?” Indigo said as she shivered and dripped. “I should throw you on deck just to teach you a lesson.”
She closed her eyes tight, and pressed her fists into her face. Mahktos alone knew how lucky she was Indigo chose to toss her into storm clouds where the moisture rinsed her clean.
* * *
For once in her dreary life, Kordahla was grateful the ride home presented nothing more diverting than mundane news of Verdaan’s capital, Pengari. The day had certainly held enough excitement to satisfy her for an eight-day, and small Daesoa’s rising had kindled a desire for home. When deq Ikher began to gasp at the palace walls, she tuned out and let her eyes rove over the city. As fabulous as the lofty barriers were, as formidable as the row upon row of iron spikes topping them stood, the giant carvings on the outer face mirrored those on the inner to a groove. A lifetime in their confinement tended to dull the wonder. For Kordahla, the ragtag streets adjoining the wide Royal Way, with its border of palms and generous footpaths, were infinitely more curious than the images of long past Shahs slaughtering at war, reclining in lush gardens and presiding over court. In the light of the two full moons, the whole area assumed a romantic ambience. She looked up. Small Daesoa was just brushing larger Dindarin. In all the fuss, she had forgotten it was a major moon. The first day of each month was the one moment in their perpetual journey across the heavens the two full lovers stole a glancing kiss. It was an auspicious time for courtship, if you were not a Terlaani princess forced to entertain a vile suitor. A princess could not help daydreaming about a dashing Myklaani Prince who would escort her about the livelier parts of town before asking for her hand. It certainly beat listening to the drivel spawned from deq Ikher’s mouth.
So, when a fish dropped out of the sky and slapped into her lap, Kordahla could only stare in bemusement. The day was turning decidedly odd. The fish flapped about, gills pumping as it struggled to breathe. Delayed surprise set in, and she hesitantly tried to secure it, but the fish slipped to the paving where the poor thing continued to thrash. She barely had time to return Vinsant’s startled look when another knocked him on the head. He looked about, as though seeking a prankster, fixed his eyes on the back of Levi’s hooded head, and snorted when three more fish plummeted onto the Majoria’s shoulder. Before Levi had turned, a veritable shower of fish assailed the party. Hands shot into the air to ward missiles from heads as the horses shied, their hooves treading on soft bodies, squishing scale, fin and guts into the paving. At the edges of Royal Way, the cheering commoners fell silent to stare in disbelief. Then one boy raced forward and dived on a large fish. He rose with it clamped triumphantly in two hands, no doubt anticipating a succulent dinner.
As abruptly as it started, the shower of fish ended. A number of the creatures yet flailed on the ground, grappers all she noted with surprise, dark tops delineated from light bellies by a reddish stripe. The hesitant crowd edged toward the saltwater treat and, at her suggestion, Mariano ordered the group pick their way out of the bounty so that the less fortunate might claim their windfall. Quite literally, she thought with no trace of amusement. She made the sign of the warding but dropped her hand when Vinsant scoffed, jumped off his horse and grabbed a wriggling fish.
Levi and Arun, she noticed, had already dismounted and were casting their glowing crystals about the clear skies. Around them, the crowd chanted haunting praise to Vae’omar and Vae’oeldin for their bounty, even though it was not the hour for prayer. Nor was the air chill. For all the utter madness she had just experienced, for all the magic the Majoria was spelling, she, the most sensitive of her family, sensed no still wind. Only when she caught the Majoria’s slight shake of his head did disquiet seize her. Why that should be, she could not say; the absence of djinn should have been an unequivocal cause for relief. As the party covered the final distance home, the heightened attention of the mahktashaan to every deep shadow, to each faint sound, to every gust of wind, only served to intensify her foreboding.
Her brothers rode as subdued as she, Mariano assuring the gobsmacked deq Ikher that fish were not part of a Terlaani welcoming ritual but once. The Verdaani messenger’s incessant questioning had worn on all their nerves and, in the end, they played deaf. Anyway, contemplating the oddity was far more entertaining than responding to the drivel from their irksom
e guest’s mouth, even if Kordahla could conceive no explanation. No rational one at least. Mahktashaan and priests always preached that the ways of gods and djinn were beyond the figuring of mortals.
They rode over the moat into the palace gardens in silence. Never before had she been so appreciative of their confines, or the grooms who took her mount. She snapped a sprig of apple blossoms as they walked to the oak doors and breathed deep, letting the soothing lap of Lake Sheraz against the eastern palace walls wash her fatigue away.
“I’m sure the tale will make an amusing subject for one of these tapestries,” she said, as her shoe rang on the tiles. “You will excuse me,” she added, deflecting Vinsant’s demands to burst upon Father before dinner with the extraordinary tale and the salty proof that sat under his arm.
“Was that not the diversion you were seeking, sister?” Mariano called after her.
She turned to reply, walking backwards in a most unladylike manner. “May more fish klonk you on the brains,” she said, not caring a hoot for decorum. Her reply drew a laugh from both her brothers. She joined in when she saw the scandalized expression on their guest’s face.
Chapter Four
The summons left Kordahla apprehensive. Very much an incidental part of the Shah’s court these days, she rarely received requests for her presence save at the odd dutiful supper and the obligatory royal event. Now a mahktashaan guard with a mauve crystal around his neck was informing her of His Majesty’s demand for an immediate and proper audience, which could only mean one thing: a reprimand for yesterday’s behaviour. Her hand hovered over the lilac veil her handmaid Karie had laid out on the curtained daybed, a shade lighter than her damask shalvar kameez, but she decided against donning it. The Shah had never insisted the women of the court wear the garment except at formal gatherings, a concession to her progressive mother she had heard tell. She had heard other whispers, too, of his desire to gaze upon the ubiquitous charms of the women under his thumb. Well, Kordahla was not about to admit to wrongdoing by meekly covering her head today. This particular veil could remain draped over the colourful woollen cushions she and her handmaids had spent countless hours embroidering.
She spent the entire walk down the vaulted stone passages fretting about her bare head. The elaborate corbels on the columns only served to remind her how stunningly a headdress could frame a figure. When she arrived at the double ironwood doors to the throne room, she was surprised to find Vinsant there, bright, cheery, and more spiky-haired than usual, yesterday’s prize grapper tucked under his arm.
“I rather thought you would have had that for dinner,” she said, wishing the smelly fish was far removed.
“Not a chance,” he replied. “I’m going to ask the taxidermist to preserve it.” He held it out to her, his eyes wide in mock innocence. “I’d like to gift it to you, to adorn your chambers.”
“Prince Vinsant deq Wilshem, if you ever bring that putrid thing near me again, I’ll make sure it’s dished up to you for your evening meal and you eat every last scale.”
“It’s not that bad,” he said, genuine again as he looked almost lovingly at it. She recognized that look. Here was a puzzle to keep his overactive imagination occupied. “I think I’ll call it Errol.”
The ordered march of four mahktashaan guards interrupted them. They were escorting the two hapless meatball sellers down the mosaic corridor. Fresh blood seeped through the bandage around the older man’s ribs, staining it crimson. He paid little heed as he gawped at the detailed mosaic scenes laid over ceiling and wall in intricate retelling of the fables of old. Kordahla began to ask why Physic Nocrates had not attended to the wound. Then it dawned. There would be no reprieve for these men. The Vae forbid she associate herself with them further. A quick turn of the handle admitted her into her father’s presence.
However much her appreciation of the palace walls might wax and wane, never, ever would she grow accustomed to the radiance of this room. Crystal muqarnas glowing every soft colour imaginable adorned the dome. Arches carved top and base with lotus flowers supported it, and framed small niches the entire way around the chamber. Within each alcove crystal statues of the most intricate workmanship shone from within, their radiance nothing compared to the diamond throne that stood upon a dais of black marble. The throne pulsed with a light that bathed the occupants, but none shone so resplendent as the seated figure in his turban of gold. Her father was a touch over average height, and well proportioned. Combined with the bearing of a long line of shahs, this allowed him to dominate any room he occupied, even in the company of sturdy men.
Kordahla and Vinsant passed Baiyeed deq Ikher, hands behind his back, his mouth agape and cheek twitching. The thick scent of geranium and lemon clinging to the odious man explained the expression. She held her breath. Vinsant sneezed. Mariano, her dutiful, steadfast brother, was standing at Father’s right. He had chosen to proclaim his station by wearing a turban of royal burgundy. His nod as they mounted the dais was not the reassurance she had hoped for. Taking a steeling breath, she paid formal respects to Father – his choice of chamber demanded it – stepped to his left, and clasped her hands to still their trembling. This room was one of ceremony, whether joyous or solemn. Certainly, a simple messenger and the pair of unfortunate miscreants shuffling in did not warrant its use.
The prisoners fell to their knees just inside the door, bewildered beholders of a sight few in the Three Realms had witnessed: The Diamond Throne in its splendour. The Shah nodded, and the light dimmed to a gentle radiance which reflected from the gold-covered walls to lend the room an ethereal air.
“It seems you experienced a rather eventful day, yesterday,” Father began with a wink at Vinsant and a stroke of his short, black beard.
Kordahla sighed. Father was incredibly lenient when in a genial mood. The prisoners caught his tone because they tried to look up, a mistake that earned them a clap on the head with the flat of the guards’ blades.
Father wrinkled his nose and frowned. “I did not wish a second look at the fish.”
“Errol. Its name’s Errol. And I was on my way to see the taxidermist,” Vinsant said.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to catch another fish to stuff. I have asked Majoria Levi to examine it.”
“It’s just a fish.”
“That fell from the sky.”
“But…”
Mariano cleared his throat. “I’ll take you fishing for swordfish, Vinsant.”
Vinsant glowered, obviously unconvinced the elusive delicacy was more keepworthy than the grapper he cradled.
Father gave Vinsant a sympathetic look before bestowing a thoughtful one on her. Her nerves fluttered. Something was afoot, and it concerned her. She glanced at deq Ikher who was poised on the balls of his feet, his tic barely noticeable. His keen interest confirmed her suspicions. She took a deep breath and pulled a lock of her walnut hair over her shoulder, wondering what she could say.
“I have received a rather thought-provoking missive from Lord Ahkdul,” Father said, relieving her of the burden.
Kordahla nodded. They had met deq Ikher’s ship for no other reason than to accept it. “Is he pleased with the ship’s progress?” she asked.
“He doesn’t mention it. This concerns another matter entirely.”
“Porrin smuggling,” Vinsant said, rolling his eyes.
Father frowned but immediately returned his attention to her. “As it happens, no. Lord Ahkdul has expressed a desire to meet Kordahla.”
Kordahla’s heart beat more quickly. “If he intends on guesting here, our re-acquaintance is assured.” She would not follow her thoughts to a logical if distasteful conclusion.
Father rose and took her hands. “His words imply he would like to cultivate a more serious relationship. He has even suggested you accompany him to Verdaan for a time.”
She was trembling now, though Father’s eyes were not unkind as they gauged her reaction. She shook her head in disbelief, glanced askance at deq Ikher, decked out in V
erdaani saffron, and kept her voice low, though there was every chance he would hear. “You cannot be entertaining the notion of a marriage alliance with Ahkdul?” Years of forced propriety kept her from saying more. They all knew the rumours.
Father touched the back of his fingers to her cheek, an affectionate gesture from childhood. “Perhaps we shall allow events to run their course when he arrives? You will, naturally, avail yourself of his presence.” His gaze held steady. “And it would be most fitting for you to don the veil while he is here. We would not wish him to think you uncouth.”
The djinn stitched her mouth until Father had turned from her. “Since it is Ahkdul who will be the guest, shouldn’t it be he who adapts to our customs?” She had meant to sound reasonable, to have the air of one asking for instruction in royal etiquette, but her trepidation had coloured the words with a touch of rudeness. As always, the hint of that tone, from a woman no less, wiped the cordiality from Father’s face.
“Perhaps it is time the women of the court resumed the ways of old. I am told you caused quite a disturbance yesterday, and not one Vae’oenka’s most ardent followers welcomed.” His stare shamed her into looking at the green lines through the black marble.
“Umm, that was my fault,” Vinsant interjected, with no trace of remorse. Even his most ill-conceived prank rarely drew more than a mild rebuke from father.
“Yes, and precisely the reason Kordahla will face no consequences. You presumed too far, daughter. This land will adhere to the old practices. We have been blessed with the mahktashaan crystals, and we will honour the god Mahktos for his gift.”
Not fall in decadence like liberal Myklaan, you mean, Kordahla thought, wishing she was a princess of the south. She flashed a query at Mariano, at a loss as to why this intensely personal conversation was taking place before a messenger. Before prisoners, no less.
Her brother’s eyes were as soft as Father’s in pleading for her cooperation. “To protect Terlaan we must address the drug problem. By Vae’oeldin, Kordahla, you fell victim to it yourself.”