Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  For better or worse, I had earned the right to be there, a woman among women; at least for the moment. But when it was over, when the cosmetics were scrubbed from my face and my elaborate braids undone, I donned my old attire. I claimed it was because I intended to hold a training session with a handful of the Queen’s Guard, which was true enough, but it was not the whole reason.

  I wanted to know what it felt like to slip from one identity to another in the same skin.

  I wanted to see myself anew.

  Queen Adinah’s mirror yet stood in the Hall of Harmonious Beauty. I approached it a second time.

  This time I saw a fierce scowling boy in a rough-spun white woolen tunic and breeches, ready to take on the world, hands callused from squeezing rocks and gripping the hilts of the weapons that hung about him. A young man armed to the teeth, a young man who had knelt to Pahrkun the Scouring Wind and offered up his face in perfect trust, awaiting the sting of the viper’s tooth and the scorpion’s tail and their deadly venom coursing through his bloodstream.

  A boy who had not flinched, and lived to bear the shining marks on his cheeks because of it.

  As before, Zariya came alongside me, and this time our gazes met in the mirror in silent understanding. “You know I adore you both, don’t you?” she said softly to me.

  I nodded. “I do.”

  The following morning, I transformed back into a girl.

  The dark blue dress and outer robe were indeed more modest. It was a thicker weave of silk and the material did not cling and flow in such a suggestive manner. Zariya painted my eyes and braided my hair herself, as expert as any maidservant. “Be careful,” she said before pinning my veil in place. “Don’t do anything foolhardy out there.”

  “I won’t,” I promised. “I’ll have no safe means of changing disguises, so I won’t be searching for the Mad Priest today. I’ll see what the Shahalim have to say regarding the death-bladder venom instead.”

  While I was able to conceal my zims under the dress’s generous sleeves and my dagger under my robe, as well as twine the garrote around my braids and my heshkrat around my sash, dressing in women’s attire meant I had to forgo my yakhan and kopar. Still, after being pelted with rocks, I thought I would be safer venturing into the city partially armed and unrecognizable than I would be with my familiar weapons.

  Yesterday, I had told the Queen’s Guardsmen on duty at the door to the women’s quarter that I was leaving to meet with my mentor, Vironesh, and they had not questioned it.

  Today, when I told them I was about an errand, it was different. They looked uncertainly at each other and bade me wait while one of them fetched Captain Tarshim, who eyed me up and down.

  “What’s this errand you’re after?” he asked me.

  “It is no concern of yours,” I said coolly. “Am I not free to come and go as I please?”

  Captain Tarshim frowned. “Under the circumstances, I’m not sure what the protocol ought to be. It may be reckoned unseemly.”

  Anger stirred in me. “I am the same person I was yesterday, Captain. I am not one of the royal women of the House of the Ageless. I am Princess Zariya’s shadow, the chosen servant of Pahrkun the Scouring Wind, and I could kill you in a dozen different ways without breaking a sweat. Do not think to dictate my comings and goings.”

  With a grimace, he gestured for me to go.

  No one spared me a second glance after I left the women’s quarter. The Royal Guards I passed in the halls of the palace gave me cursory looks, but there was nothing of interest in a lone woman in modest attire. Once I gained the streets of Merabaht, the same held true.

  During Brother Yarit’s training in the Fortress of the Winds, I’d never developed a full appreciation for the power of disguise. Oh, I understood it on an intellectual level—it was Brother Yarit’s disguise that had allowed him to take Brother Jawal by surprise in the Trial of Pahrkun—but I’d never felt it. After all, we all knew one another in the brotherhood, so it was just so much play-acting.

  Today I understood.

  Nothing about me stood out; nothing about me drew attention. I was an ordinary woman in a city teeming with people, faceless and anonymous behind my veil. I could be anyone.

  It was a heady feeling, tempered only by the gnawing hollowness I felt at being parted from Zariya.

  I made my way past the gracious houses of the third tier and the fine shops and teahouses of the second tier to the sprawl below them, wandering the crowded marketplaces and observing what manner of goods and services were on offer and how the less fortunate citizens of Merabaht bartered for them; trying to grasp the rhythm of their transactions, trying to get a sense of what the single gold bangle Zariya had given me might be worth.

  Once I was satisfied that I wouldn’t make an utter fool of myself in the transaction, I chose an old rag merchant whose eyes were shrewd but kind above her veil. One thin gold bangle bought me a drab brown ensemble of coarse linen, a woven basket in which to carry the items, and a handful of silver and copper coins in change.

  “My thanks, old mother.” I settled the basket in the crook of my arm and stowed the coins in an inner pocket of my robe. “Do you know where I might find the Lucky Tortoise teahouse?”

  She pointed toward the northeast. “Somewhere over there on the second tier, I think.”

  The desert tribesfolk navigate by way of fixed landmarks, and Brother Merik had taught me to do the same. I had allowed myself to be overwhelmed by the city on my first outing.

  Now, I paid closer attention and felt a sense of the city’s staggered landscape begin to settle into me.

  Many of the establishments billing themselves as teahouses were clearly serving more than tea. These were the places of which Brother Yarit had spoken with such fondness, the sound of music and laughter spilling from their open doors along with clouds of hashish smoke and the lingering scent of savory foods and date-palm wine, indicating much merriment was to be found within.

  When I found the Lucky Tortoise, I saw that it was not such a place. It was a quiet, staid establishment tucked into the northeasternmost corner of the second tier. A hanging sign with a creature I took to be a tortoise marked its presence.

  I entered it and saw clay jars of tea labeled with painstakingly written signs lining the shelves behind the proprietor’s counter. Men and a few women sat cross-legged at low tables, sipping tea and murmuring together.

  The proprietor, an ordinary-looking man of middling years, glanced up at my approach. “Yes?”

  I cleared my throat. “I beg your pardon, but do you carry three-moon blend?”

  His gaze sharpened. “For special occasions, yes.” He beckoned to a veiled woman who was attending to the clients. “Belisha, escort the lady into the storeroom and show her our selections.”

  She saluted him, and indicated that I should follow her.

  There was no storeroom, but rather a passageway that led to a residence surrounded by high walls. In an antechamber, Belisha made a palm-downward gesture indicating that I should wait there. I did, and presently she returned to escort me into a sitting room where an elderly man awaited me.

  Despite the wrinkles that lined his face, his eyes were clear and keen and markedly suspicious. “Welcome, my lady. Who are you and why do you come seeking the three-moon blend?”

  Taking a seat on the carpet across from him, I unpinned my veil and revealed my face.

  He drew in his breath in a sharp hiss. “Lukhan’s shadow! I know who you are. Why are you here?”

  I blinked. “Lukhan?”

  The old man shrugged, his narrow shoulders rising and falling. “You know him by another name, of course. So. What is it you seek of the Shahalim?”

  “Fifty years ago, Prince Kazaran was poisoned with death-bladder venom,” I said. “I wish to know if someone commissioned the Shahalim to steal the venom, and if so, who it was.”

  The old man’s eyes were as hard as pebbles. “Do you know so little of the Shahalim Clan that you actually think
I would answer that question?” he asked me with contempt.

  “I am only trying to protect my charge,” I said to him. “Brother Yarit—Lukhan—said I could ask the clan for help if I needed it.”

  “Help, yes.” He shook his head. “This is not asking for our services. This is asking us to betray the bedrock of the principles by which our clan has lived and prospered for hundreds of years. Our silence is a sacred trust, a matter of gravest honor. And you should know it,” he added in an accusatory tone. “Your own Brother Yarit, my favorite nephew, Lukhan, chose to face the Trial of Pahrkun rather than betray a client.” He jerked his chin at me. “Do you suppose the Royal Guards did not come asking questions of the Shahalim when the Barren Teardrop was stolen? Should I have answered their questions? It would have saved an innocent man’s life.”

  What he said was true, and I realized that it had been a mistake to come here in the naïve hope that the Shahalim would aid me, but his demeanor angered me. “You are quick to boast of your clan’s honor,” I said. “And yet it was one of your own who betrayed Brother Yarit, was it not?”

  The old man’s face hardened further. “That is a clan matter and it has been dealt with accordingly. Belisha! Show her.”

  The silent woman came over and lifted her veil. Opening her mouth, she showed me the stump of her severed tongue.

  I felt sick. In the desert, a matter of honor would be settled with fists or swords, but never this deliberate mutilation. The woman lowered her veil, and now I saw that her eyes above it were filled with sorrow and regret.

  I pinned my own veil back in place and rose. “I am sorry for wasting your time,” I said to the old man. “I did not mean to impugn the honor of the Shahalim Clan. I do but seek to fulfill the duty with which Pahrkun the Scouring Wind charged me, by any means possible.” I paused. “My mentor, the last living shadow, has a term for this. Honor beyond honor, he calls it.”

  Unimpressed, the old clan leader shrugged again. “If there is nothing else, Belisha will escort you out.”

  She led me back the way we’d come. Now I felt awkward in her presence. What did one say to someone who’d committed such a profound betrayal and been punished so grievously for it?

  And yet had she not done so, Brother Yarit wouldn’t have been caught. Seven years ago, someone in the House of the Ageless would have taken possession of the remaining cache of rhamanthus seeds, and the balance of power among the Sun-Blessed would have shifted.

  Brother Yarit would never have stood the Trial of Pahrkun and been chosen by the Scouring Wind as the next Seer.

  I would never have been trained in the arts of the Shahalim Clan.

  These were thoughts that made me shiver to my core. I remembered the madness that Brother Yarit had displayed when the Sight came upon him, the way he drew feverishly in the sand with his dagger, muttering, So if this, then that; but if this, then that, trying to puzzle out a future too vast and shifting for a mortal mind to encompass.

  I wondered if Brother Saan had Seen Belisha’s betrayal and what would come of it among the glimpses he had been afforded.

  At the door to the teahouse, the maimed woman turned to me, positioning herself in such a manner that my body blocked hers from the view of the proprietor or any of their clients. Her gaze caught mine, then she blinked once and glanced downward in a deliberate gesture.

  I followed her gaze.

  Come tomorrow, she signed with her right hand. Drink. Do you understand?

  I inclined my head to her. “Thank you for your time.”

  Taking my leave of the Lucky Tortoise, I returned to the Palace of the Sun to report my findings to Zariya.

  She listened with appalled fascination. “Well, I suppose the clan had to punish her, but how awful! Why do you suppose she’s willing to take the risk of betraying them again to aid you? Revenge?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t see how this amounts to revenge. After all, she doesn’t even know what I mean to do with the information.”

  “Why, then? And what do you mean to do with the information, my darling?” Zariya added. “Tell my father?”

  “That’s a good question,” I said slowly. “It’s not as though we’ll have proof, she wouldn’t even have been alive at the time. And I don’t want to do anything that would get her punished or killed for trying to help us.” I thought about it. “I’ll tell Vironesh and let him decide. He has the right to know.”

  “Very well, then. I must confess, I don’t want the responsibility.” Zariya examined the basket full of garments I’d purchased, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t suppose these have been washed in recent memory, have they?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “That’s part of what will make them an effective disguise.”

  She set them aside. “Let’s store these in the garden where Nalah won’t come across them.”

  I returned to the Lucky Tortoise the following morning and ordered a pot of hibiscus tea. I kept my eyes lowered and affected a whispery tone, concerned that the proprietor would recognize me as the woman who’d inquired about three-moon blend yesterday, but the famed Shahalim powers of observation didn’t extend beyond a veil. He bade me seat myself, and in a few moments, Belisha brought over my pot of tea and a cup on a wooden tray. She set it down and left without any indication that she’d recognized me, but when I lifted the brass teapot to pour myself a cup, I found a scrap of paper folded small beneath it.

  I palmed it unobtrusively and sat sipping tea, listening to the conversation in the teahouse. It seemed the Children of Miasmus had struck twice in the night, dumping a shipment of Barakhan silks into the harbor and overturning a wagonload of wheat intended for the palace.

  Tomorrow, I thought, I would resume my search for the Mad Priest; today, I was anxious to know what information Belisha had imparted to me. I finished my tea and took my leave.

  I was tempted to read the scrap as soon as I was clear of the place, but I gauged it wiser to be circumspect. That being the case, I reckoned I might as well wait to share the moment with Zariya.

  In the sleepy hours of the midday rest, it was quiet in the women’s quarter. Cicadas droned in the garden, and occasionally one of Zariya’s little birds uttered a chirp or an unexpected burst of song. I unfolded the scrap of paper and smoothed it, and we leaned our heads together to read what was written on it.

  One word.

  A name, written small but clear in the same painstaking hand that had labeled the jars of tea at the Lucky Tortoise.

  Tazaresh.

  “Tazaresh!” Zariya breathed.

  “You’re surprised?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “I hadn’t thought him so … subtle. Do you suppose it’s true?”

  I shrugged. “They say he’s favored to be named as heir, don’t they?”

  “Yes, they do.” Her dark eyes were grave. “You’re right, it’s not proof. But it’s something. You’ll speak to Vironesh?”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  That afternoon, I met with Vironesh in the barracks of the City Guard, finding him in a foul mood after the latest escapades of the Children of Miasmus. At least it made for a good training bout, something of which I was in much need. When we were both exhausted and panting, leaning on our blades, I informed him that I had something of import to tell him.

  Vironesh heard me out, his expression growing increasingly stormy. “Khai, I told you—”

  I interrupted him. “She gave me a name.”

  He hesitated, and I could see the desire to know warring on his features with the desire to reprimand me for careless meddling. “Whose?”

  I told him.

  Vironesh took a slow, shuddering breath and closed his eyes. “If it’s true, I will kill him for it. Is it?”

  “I cannot swear to it,” I murmured. “Everything I know, you now know. What will you do? Will you tell the king?”

  He opened his eyes and gazed into the distance. “No. Once this latest impending royal wedding has passed, I will find
an opportunity to confront Prince Tazaresh. I will give him a chance to confess and explain himself. If I am not satisfied, I will kill him.”

  “King Azarkal might very well have you executed for it,” I said to him.

  Vironesh gave me one of his hard, mirthless smiles. “If it comes to it, I would welcome it.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Mad Priest had vanished.

  My disguise proved effective. The blue outer robe and headwear were generous enough to cover the ragged brown garments I’d purchased in the market, allowing me to leave the palace dressed as a well-bred lady’s maidservant. Once out of sight of the palace, I had but to shed my outer layers and stow them in my basket to transform into one of the city’s less fortunate denizens.

  It served me well in the places that Fazarah had mentioned: Three-Copper Quarter, the large marketplace in Kabhat Square, the wharves. As she had warned me, these were not places where it was safe for a single woman, but I developed a trick of identifying a pair or trio of women headed in the same general direction and hovering just close enough that a casual viewer would assume I was a member of their company.

  And yet it was all to no avail, for the Priest of the Black Star was nowhere to be found. At least I had become circumspect enough to keep my mouth closed and my ears open. Although there was surprisingly little talk of the fellow or the Children of Miasmus on the streets of the lower levels, the sailors in the harbor were given to exchanging gossip and speculation. From what I could gather, there had been no sightings of the priest since the day I’d been stoned by his supporters.

  If my outings were fruitless, they afforded me a chance to marvel at the rich and varied sights of the city. The harbor with its impossibly tall lighthouse was a source of particular fascination to me. I was still awestruck by the vast expanse of the ocean, and if I had no news to report to Zariya, I could bring her tales.

  I told her about the day a ship with the black-and-white-striped sails of the coursers of Obid docked at the harbor, and how the coursers strode the wharves with more authority than the City Guard, examining shipments and manifests. I told her about the nimble Barakhan sailors who scrambled up and down the rigging of their ships with careless grace, and the Granthian ship with a leathery stink-lizard with a long neck and folded wings perched on its prow to guard its cargo, an incredible sight to see.