The Seal

by J F Mehentee

  ‘You liked that?’ Emad said.

  Aeshma giggled, his thick neck disappearing into his broad shoulders.

  ‘Are you laughing at my daughter, young man?’

  Widow Sharo righted her stool, her eyes never leaving Aeshma. Meanwhile, Sona waited for the stallholder to wrap her ladle.

  Emad saw how dark rings had formed beneath the widow’s eyes. He’d misjudged how much of her auric energy he’d need for the spell and had taken too much.

  ‘He doesn’t mean to be disrespectful,’ Emad said. ‘Please sit down before you fall down.’ He then explained what he’d done and apologised for not asking permission before mingling their auras.

  The widow sat, put down the ladle, reached into her tunic and pulled out a pouch. She opened it. Emad glimpsed two silver siglos. The corners of her lips rose. She smiled at Aeshma.

  ‘When you think about it, it is funny,’ she said to Aeshma. ‘My daughter has a straight nose, and I got a free ladle.’ She grinned and then started to cry.

  ‘Some people get a little emotional when they lose some of their auric energy,’ Emad said. ‘I still have some I need to return to you.’

  The widow dabbed at her eyes. She looked over her shoulder at her daughter who stood waiting, a hand covering her nose. She held up a hand, then turned back to Emad.

  ‘Keep it,’ she said. She emptied her pouch and pushed the two coins across the table.

  He didn’t need her money. Enough of her auric energy remained for him to conjure several gold darics. Emad regarded the bags filled with fruit and vegetables. He slid one coin back to her.

  ‘That’s all I need,’ he said. Before she could protest, he added, ‘Go home and get some rest. And if anyone asks what happened, tell them the Divine Light answered your prayers.’

  12

  Roshan saw tables and benches arranged under an awning and knew she’d found the teahouse. Men occupied most of the tables. Some drank tea and most ate from the communal plates of rice and bread, and dishes of aubergine stew and goat stew. The aromas of garlic, turmeric and coriander made her mouth water.

  Roshan spotted Prince Emad’s cousin, Aeshma, first. His bulkiness reminded her of Behrouz. The prince, his back to her, held open a bag into which Aeshma dropped wooden animals. Roshan remembered the wooden brick on the floor of their room.

  Aeshma hadn’t yet dropped a camel into the bag when he caught Roshan’s approach. His crooked mouth resembled a snarl, and Roshan might have hesitated if not for Aeshma’s large, friendly eyes. The prince turned to see who or what his cousin stared at.

  Unlike his brother, the king, Prince Emad possessed a full head of hair. His cheeks dimpled when he smiled.

  ‘If you want a table, you can have this one,’ the prince said. He nodded at the vacant table beside him, a shoulder bag slumped on the bench underneath. ‘We were just leaving.’

  Roshan shook her head. Earlier, back in Iram, Yesfir had explained that Derbicca’s humans knew Emad and Aeshma were daevas. Except for the daeva residents, no one knew he was a prince.

  ‘Yesfir sent me to find you,’ Roshan said. ‘She’s waiting for you at your place.’

  The prince didn’t reply. He stared at her as if trying to figure out who or what she was. Roshan took a step closer and tugged a little at her left sleeve to reveal the silver bracelet and her white crescent-shaped scars.

  The prince canted his head, his eyes and mouth slits.

  ‘Have we met before?’ he said.

  She shook her head, although there was something familiar about this daeva.

  He’s the king’s brother, she reminded herself.

  Roshan glimpsed scarlet among the shoppers, weaving between the stalls.

  ‘What is it?’ the prince said. ‘What did you see?’

  She couldn’t be certain, and neither could she be too careful. Had he followed her?

  ‘Administrator Arman,’ she said. ‘Or someone dressed like him. I’m not sure.’

  The prince swept the rest of the wooden animals into the bag.

  ‘We have to go,’ he said, sounding annoyed. Aeshma whimpered. Without looking up, the prince added, ‘Go back the way you came. We mustn’t be seen together.’

  All at once, she felt dozens of eyes watching her. She cast furtive glances left and right. People continued to wander the bazaar, and those lunching concentrated on their food, drink and conversations.

  Without a word or acknowledgement, Roshan turned and, as nonchalantly as she could, re-entered the narrow street she’d emerged from earlier. Only when she was halfway along it, the two-storey buildings either side of her casting the street in shadow, did she hurry.

  She arrived at a junction. If she turned left, she’d head towards the temple. Right led back to the prince’s one-room dwelling. As she was due at the municipal building within the hour, time was running out. Roshan turned right.

  She hadn’t gone far when Roshan felt the hairs on her neck rise. Roshan stopped, knelt and pretended to fish a stone from her boot. She glanced over her shoulder, then rose. The street behind her was clear. Roshan tilted her head back. No one stood on the buildings’ flat roofs. Even if there were someone following from the rooftops, they’d have to jump between buildings and clear the breadth of a street.

  Stop worrying, she told herself, then hurried along.

  The chill never left her. Outside the door to the grey brick terrace the prince lived in, she checked either side of her and—just to be sure—the rooftops. A magus could weave a cloak of invisibility around themselves, but to hold Core power over such a long walk would be excruciating and require a dose of diluted poppy juice to numb the pain.

  If you’ve been followed, it’s too late. They know you’ve come to see Emad.

  Roshan gave the door a gentle rap.

  ‘It’s Roshan,’ she said, her mouth close to the door.

  The door swung open. The prince looked past her, his gaze flicking left and then right.

  ‘I might have been followed,’ she said.

  ‘Well, then, don’t just stand there like you’re a barnacle,’ the prince said, ‘get inside.’

  With no idea what a barnacle was, Roshan sidled past him.

  Yesfir stood over a seated Aeshma, her open hands held above his shoulders. On seeing Roshan, he waved and snarled.

  ‘Uncle Emad has agreed to return to Iram,’ Yesfir said.

  ‘For an hour, maybe two,’ the prince added, stuffing a pair of leggings into a bag. He saw Roshan watching him. ‘Aeshma can sometimes have…accidents.’ He glowered at Yesfir. ‘The visitors Fiqitush keeps sending will get me into trouble with the administrator, Arman. He has all the daevas watched, you know. I’m only coming back with you so I can tell that brother of mine to leave us alone.’

  ‘Yes, Your Highness, Uncle,’ Yesfir said.

  Aeshma pointed at Emad and giggled.

  ‘You’re a highness,’ he said, his shoulders bobbing.

  Emad shook his head.

  ‘Now he’ll say that in front of others. Thank you very much.’

  ‘You’re—’

  Aeshma raised his arm so quickly, he fell backwards and off his stool, Yesfir barely avoiding being crushed.

  Aeshma’s shriek made Roshan’s ears ring. The prince rushed to his cousin and grabbed him by his still-outstretched arm and hauled him up. Aeshma shrieked again.

  ‘Eagle man, eagle man, eagle man,’ he cried. His index finger jabbed in the door’s direction.

  Roshan turned to see a vertical oblong of blue-grey smoke floating in front of it. Although its outline shifted, Roshan thought she recognised arms and legs.

  ‘Eagle man,’ Aeshma yelled, then cried. ‘Eagle—’

  The smoke floated a little higher and then passed through the door.

  A cloak of invisibility was one thing; a magus passing through a door was impossible. Whatever it was, it had seen what it had come to see. With no time to ask if the others had seen it, Roshan lifted the latch, flung open the door an
d charged outside.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ she heard Emad say.

  Roshan spotted the smoke cloud drifting away to her left. She sprinted after it, hoping it continued to follow a horizontal course and not a vertical one. The cloud swung right and onto Derbicca’s main street and disappeared behind the stalls. Roshan followed, the stallholders unaware of the passing smoke.

  Up ahead, the cloud’s edge glanced the shoulder of a potter arranging his pots and bowls. The man’s body snapped to attention. He turned his head and looked over his shoulder, his eyes having rolled back into their sockets.

  Roshan skidded to a halt, her hand clamped over her mouth.

  ‘Leave them be, Roshan,’ the potter said, his voice a growl. ‘The djinn and daevas are doomed. You can’t help them.’

  The potter’s eyes rolled back. As if nothing had happened, he continued to arrange his bowls.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Roshan said.

  Notches appeared in the middle of the potter’s brow.

  ‘Should I, miss? Are you here about the money I owe Accalu?’

  Up ahead, the cloud descended and, once more, touched a seated stallholder, the same man who’d leered at her after her scarf had fallen back. The man jumped up and blocked her path.

  Roshan skirted the potter, summoned Core power and recalled the incantations. The cloud possessed whoever it touched. Whatever it was knew her. While she’d have felt safer with Yesfir than on her own, the cloud had been spying on them. She had to find out why—so long as she kept her distance and avoided its touch.

  The stallholder rose a finger-length into the air and drifted away from his stall. Roshan increased her pace at the same time the stallholder dropped to the dirt without losing his balance. Relieved the lecher wasn’t following her, she saw the cloud drift to the right and disappear down a street.

  She rounded the corner, confident a magus hadn’t woven the smoke and doubtful whether chasing it was sensible. Roshan failed to stop when she saw the blue-grey cloud hovering in front of her.

  The soles of her boots slid over the street’s sandy surface, her forward momentum making it impossible to lean back and avoid the cloud. Roshan screwed her eyes shut…

  …and looks down upon the flat roof of a building. An unusual light she has not seen before in her domain has drawn her to it.

  The light belongs to the auras of newborn twins—human-djinn hybrids. One of them is content and sleeps. The other is cold and weak, no longer able to move or bawl. The warmth from her sleeping brother sustains her, keeps her awake and stops her from closing her eyes for the last time.

  Their auras are unlike any she’s seen before, their beauty enhanced by there being two of them.

  She doesn’t know why she’s sad while watching the female infant’s aura fade and her eyes close. This world will be worse off without their combined beauty, she thinks.

  She draws closer and reaches down. A tendril of blue-grey touches the dying child, releasing the minutest amount of her sabaoth energy into the infant. The child’s aura brightens and her eyes open.

  The child sees her! But she isn’t the only one. At the edge of the room, standing among the shadows, is another sabaoth, a lamassu. Manah has witnessed her folly.

  Roshan gasped. Her head reeled and her heartbeat drummed in her ears. She opened her eyes and, instead of a room, found herself in a dark, narrow alleyway in Derbicca. Farther down from her, the blue-grey cloud hovered as if waiting.

  Whatever the cloud was, it wasn’t a spy. She should return to Yesfir and the prince, put their minds at ease over what Aeshma had seen. The cloud was a sabaoth, one of God’s Host, and they had nothing to fear from it. It was in Derbicca because she was here, because it had—

  The sabaoth disappeared between two buildings.

  Roshan sprinted after it. The gap the sabaoth had disappeared into led to a covered stairway. Roshan pumped her legs as she took two steps at a time.

  The sabaoth had told her to stay away from the djinn and the daevas, that they were doomed. And it had shown itself saving her. Why would it say and do those things?

  The top of the stairs opened onto a flat roof. On it stood a woman hanging washing. The sabaoth floated above her. In the same moment the woman bent down and reached into the washing basket, the sabaoth sunk low enough for her to inhale it.

  The woman straightened, a pair of leggings clutched in her hands. The whites of her eyes had turned blue-grey.

  ‘I am Armaiti,’ she said, then walked away from the stairway and towards the far end of the roof.

  Roshan’s legs shook. While a novice, she had learned about the sabaoth and how they possessed prophets—and the occasional magus—to pass on God’s message or to dictate a new incantation. Centuries had passed since the last recorded possession. Not only was Roshan witness to such a thing, the sabaoth possessing this woman had saved her life.

  ‘That’s right,’ the washerwoman-Armaiti said. She still held the damp leggings in one hand. ‘I saved you. And now I’m being punished. Once, I could simultaneously exist on thousands of worlds. Now I’m trapped here, on just one, robbed of my freedom and reduced to existing in one place at a time.’

  Roshan lifted a foot, the joints in her leg feeling as if they’d fused. She couldn’t place the source of her fear. Was it the sabaoth, Armaiti, the ease with which she’d possessed the washerwoman or something else?

  Don’t trust her.

  Roshan stood opposite the possessed washerwoman, aware of the roof’s ledge and the three-storey drop.

  ‘Why are you being punished for saving my life?’

  The washerwoman-Armaiti groaned.

  ‘By saving your life, I interfered with God’s creation and broke a sabaoth law,’ she said. ‘You were meant to die.’

  What kind of god punishes his host for saving a life?

  The question left Roshan disconcerted. Standing so close to the roof’s edge added to her unease. Roshan wanted to step away from the edge, but that meant breaking eye contact. She didn’t want to appear rude or ungrateful.

  The washerwoman-Armaiti held her stare. Her eyes didn’t look at Roshan; they bore into her as if searching for her soul.

  Roshan wanted to leave, run back to the stairs. No, raise a portal, collect the prince and his cousin and return to Iram and Navid. She should be grateful to Armaiti, and yet she felt sure this sabaoth’s intentions were no longer benevolent.

  ‘What can I do?’ Roshan said. Eager to end the washerwoman-Armaiti’s scrutiny, she’d said the first thing to enter her head. ‘How can I help to end your punishment?’

  The washerwoman’s lips stretched.

  ‘I’m touched you’d ask such a thing,’ she said, then shook her head. ‘You should have asked another question, Roshan.’ The washerwoman-Armaiti shrugged. ‘Never mind. I’ll answer your question anyway.’ Her blue-grey eyes turned black and violet flames burst from her irises. ‘You can help me, Roshan, by dying.’

  The washerwoman-Armaiti moved with a sickening, preternatural speed. Unable to react, Roshan only had time to watch the washerwoman’s hand—the one still gripping the leggings—shove her off the roof.

  13

  Sassan exited the fire temple. A guardsman waited for him with the High Magus’s mount. As always, converting the daevas was a subdued affair. Sassan believed God guided him. That didn’t make him a fool—he knew those daevas cared nothing for his blessings nor would embrace the Divine Light or the One Religion. What mattered was Rai’s citizens placing hope in the Divine Light and not djinn magic. Converting the daevas and executing those who refused to convert was God’s way of removing temptation. The Spy Guild’s operatives had their orders, and they would be extra vigilant. Any daeva found practising magic faced execution without a trial, and if they’d woven it for an empire citizen, the citizen faced a hefty fine and five years’ imprisonment.

  Sassan rode briskly through the city, its streets deserted; no doubt, Rai’s citizens were eager for him and the army to le
ave and for normality to return.

  They’ll remember me for executing daevas, he thought. My name will inspire fear, not love.

  ‘God’s love is what matters,’ he whispered.

  He believed that, but it didn’t make bending the daevas to God’s will any easier.

  The guardsmen had packed away three-quarters of the encampment. Three thousand men prepared to depart within the hour. The mess tents had left after breakfast—they’d be pitched outside Derbicca and ready to receive the army later that evening. The operations tent, officers’ tents and high magus’s tent were the last to be dismantled.

  Sassan reached the operations tent and dismounted. Inside, he found General Afacan seated at a lone table. The general stood. Sassan waved at him to sit. He pulled the bench from under the table and sat facing the general.

  ‘Think, speak and act well, General,’ Sassan said.

  ‘Think, speak and act well, High Magus.’

  Sassan rested his golden staff of office across his knees and bent forward.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what I already know, General?’

  Afacan nodded.

  ‘Two days ago, a member of the Spy Guild overheard a conversation in the city’s slum district—it’s where the older daevas live. There are no buildings in that district but tents. The spy saw a flash of light come from inside a tent close to the alley he watches from. He knew it belonged to a portal, and it wasn’t too difficult to make out the conversation inside. The djinni warned the daevas we were coming. Also, he advised them to leave Rai and head east. Once they reached open desert, they’d be met and transported to their new home, a city called Baka.’

  Sassan leaned back and gripped the golden staff with both hands. He had a good memory and didn’t recall ever hearing of such a city.

  ‘Last night, I checked the names of all the empire cities by satrapy,’ the general said. ‘Unless I’m missing a tablet, Baka is not an empire city. It could be anywhere.’

  Sassan rose. His thighs and calves ached from standing all day.