“I’m ready,” she said, grinding her teeth.
Azalel, bent in an odd shape, walked in a little circle on the pads of her fingers and rubbed herself against Fatima’s legs.
“Are you sure we have to collect the mapmaker first?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Very well. It will end badly. What a pity Vikram isn’t here! I don’t make promises or sacrifices or grant wishes or any of those sorts of things. I’m the wrong kind of jinn for that. None of it interests me.” She rumbled in irritation and slipped out of the tent into the moonless hour. Fatima hesitated on the threshold, her feet deep in the yielding furs, holding on to the dry warmth within a moment longer, and then followed Azalel out among the sleeping men.
Azalel walked silently between the white canvas tents, leaving no track in the dew.
Put your feet where I do, came her voice in Fatima’s head. One step at a time. I have turned you sideways so that the men see only what they expect. A camp girl, a serving woman, a fishwife on her way to the harbor …
Fatima trained her eyes on Azalel’s feet, the same color as the blue hour, their soles looking bloody with mud. The sight of them made Fatima giddy. The camp around her dimmed. She saw shadows, forms only slightly darker than the night itself, moving among the tents; when she looked at them, they paused to look back, staring across the distance between them through pinprick eyes.
Don’t linger, said Azalel mildly. Or my brothers and sisters might decide they like you too much to let you go.
Where are we? asked Fatima.
Halfway, came the answer.
A shape, heavy and earthy, lumbered toward her, clothed in a spattered gray cloak and reeking of onions. Fatima watched it for several moments before she realized it was a man—a soldier, on his way to piss perhaps, or to begin preparations for breakfast, or returning from a night in a brothel. He was all out of proportion, his limbs long and hanging like those of an ape, yet he lacked the vitality of any living thing, so that he struck her the same way a boulder in a field might: he was a feature in a landscape, a heap of moving mud.
Is this what we look like? asked Fatima in horror. Is this what we look like to you?
The man paused, frowning, and turned in a half circle.
Move back, snapped Azalel. You can’t very well hide if you let him run smack into you.
Fatima stumbled backward and let out a little shriek when her heel caught on a tent stake. There was a ringing hiss as the soldier drew his sword. Then a clawed hand clapped itself over Fatima’s mouth and pulled her away, drawing her into an intangible fire, muffled and suspended above the ground, and held her there for a moment that stretched out so long that Fatima forgot to breathe, until the soldier muttered a prayer and spat a ball of phlegm at the grass, and continued on his way between the damp outworks of canvas and steel.
Fatima went slack with relief. She leaned into Azalel, held up by eddies of warmth like the air above hot coals.
Pretty child, said Azalel half pityingly, stroking her hair. You want so much and are given so little. Forget your mapmaker and all the clay men like him. Come with me to the Empty Quarter. It’s nearly as beautiful as you are—everything fashioned from quartz and song and light from the oldest stars. Come with me and I will teach you to drink fire. You need never lay eyes on anything made of mud ever again.
So delicious was this offer that Fatima said yes, or thought yes, in an impulse over which she had no control, and felt Azalel dot her neck with delighted kisses, and saw the sky overhead grow bright, crowded with points of light on a canvas of pale violet. The tents of the men gave way to hills of white sand that billowed and glittered coldly in the starlight.
I promise you, said Azalel, I will deny you nothing. I will be a better master than any you could have had on earth.
At this, Fatima stood up, searching for the ground with her toes for several disorienting moments before she found it. She pulled away from Azalel, who was now little more than a pillar of flame, and blinked as hard as she could to replace the alien stars with the world that had preceded them. She felt wounded in a way she could hardly justify: the jinn had said herself that she had no honor, yet Fatima had taken her promises at their apparent worth.
“No one offers me peace or safety except to keep me as a possession,” she said aloud. “No one reaches out to me except to take what little I have.”
The pillar of flame gnashed its teeth. Fatima could see the tents of the camp again, and the muddy track that wound between them, and on unsteady feet, she began to walk away.
“Wait,” called Azalel. “Stop—I’m sorry. It’s only my nature. Please stop. If you’re caught, my brother will be cross with me.”
Fatima kept going. The mud sucked at her boots and made her wobble, and for a bare moment, she allowed herself to appreciate the ludicrousness of her position.
“Go away,” she called without turning. The mud released her foot with a squelch.
“You’re going to die,” came Azalel’s voice, rich with amusement.
“I’m going to get Hassan,” said Fatima.
There was a sigh or a snarl and Azalel appeared beside her again. She lifted her arm and sheltered Fatima beneath it, letting her long sleeve fall between Fatima and the white tents, so that when Fatima looked to her left, she saw only the piercing starlight of the Empty Quarter.
“Quickly then,” said Azalel. “Dawn is coming.”
Fatima rushed along the muddy path as fast as her sodden boots would allow. The tents were all identical, anonymous; some had armor piled outside, or disorderly weapon racks, or empty plates of food, but there was no sign of Hassan, nor any way to determine where he might be held.
“Where would they keep him?” whispered Fatima.
“Perhaps he’s over there,” said Azalel, who sounded bored. “In the tent with the guards outside and a scribe’s satchel lying in the mud.”
Fatima stopped where she was and batted Azalel’s sleeve out of her eyes. The starlight cleared: beyond it was another tent, larger than the others and set apart. Two men stood before it wearing half helms and holding pikestaffs, their heads nodding above their breastplates. In the mud at their feet, like the limp remains of a carcass on a butcher’s floor, lay Hassan’s leather carry case.
The sight of it filled Fatima with dread. She stuffed her knuckles into her mouth and bit down to keep from screaming. Not knowing what she did, she broke away from Azalel and began to run. The guard to the left of the tent flap, taller and heavier than the other, snapped awake, his head jerking up, his bloodshot eyes widening in disbelief. He lifted his pike.
There was a blur of black-and-gold and the jingling rebuke of small bells. The guard choked and stumbled, dark blood pouring from his neck, the scent of it so pungent that Fatima gagged. Dizzy, she reeled into the second man, who dropped as though felled by a lightning bolt, his throat open to the spine. Azalel stood over her kills impassively.
“Go,” she said, her mouth full of blood.
Fatima went. She pushed through the tent flap into the gloomy interior, blinking impatiently until her night blindness passed.
“Hassan?” she called softly.
There was motion in the darkness. Hassan, kneeling, looked at her with vacant eyes, his skin a sickly yellow. For a moment, Fatima couldn’t understand why he didn’t get to his feet. Then she saw the cord snaking between his wrists and ankles. She fell to her own knees then. Outside, Azalel growled and paced on all fours.
“You’ll bring the whole camp down on you if you don’t hurry,” she snapped.
Fatima ignored her. She tried to draw her knife to cut Hassan’s bonds, but her hands shook too much to manage it. He looked through her without recognition, his body slack, his lips moving soundlessly.
“Say something,” Fatima whispered. Hassan twitched. A wet feeling spread across Fatima’s knee, drop by drop: she looked down and saw a dark stain on the lap of her robe. Panicked, she searched for the source of the blood, folding
back tunic and undershirt and sash, but Hassan’s clothes were clean, his face and arms unmarked. It was only when she looked down at his hands that she understood.
Tiny blades, as light and slim as bird feathers, had been shoved under the thumbnail and fingernails of Hassan’s left hand, the hand with which he wrote and drew his maps. The bed of each nail was a dark crimson, the effect of it oddly beautiful, as though he had decorated himself with henna for a festival, filing his nails to sharp points. The ghosts of his pain slid through her own hands, making them throb in time to her heartbeat. She clenched and unclenched them.
“Hassan,” she begged softly. “Please.”
Hassan blinked and attempted to focus.
“I’m thirsty,” he said. Fatima scrambled backward, searching in the dark; she encountered a small table and heard what might have been a wooden cup fall over and roll away. She grabbed at it, and at the pitcher that stood near it, and poured out a cupful of liquid she couldn’t identify, pressing it to Hassan’s chapped lips.
He drank in hurried swallows, moisture beading on the fringe of his beard.
“That’s mead,” he said in vague appreciation.
Fatima heard noise outside the tent: Azalel growled anxiously.
“My love,” she said, “we have to go. I’m going to—I’m going to—” she looked down at his hands and began to cry.
“Let me,” hissed Azalel, pushing past her. She squatted in front of Hassan and took his left hand between her talons.
“Look at her,” Azalel instructed, jerking her chin at Fatima. Hassan, stricken, did as he was told.
“Fa,” he whispered. “She’s got blue skin. And very sharp teeth.”
Azalel grinned. There was a small, terrible sound, like something sharp dragging against a wall, and one of the little blades fell ringing to the ground. Fatima fought the urge to gag. Hassan only moaned, rocking once on his knees.
“That’s right,” soothed Azalel. “Quiet and still and brave. They’ll feel much better on the way out than they did on the way in.” Another blade fell.
“Why did you let her do this to you? Why didn’t you just tell her what she wanted to hear?” said Fatima through her teeth.
“Because it wasn’t true,” said Hassan, too loudly. He looked awake now, his eyes bright and wild. “Because I couldn’t stand the little smile she had when she told me that I was loved, that she hated my sin, not me. I told her I’ve never seen the Devil. I told her I’m more certain of the truth and oneness of God than I am of my own miserable existence. And it made her angry.” He gave a strangled shriek as the last of the blades fell to the ground. They made a bright pile there, blood gleaming upon polished metal. Fatima looked at them as the light danced. There was despair in them somehow: despair in the knowledge that man could make something so beautiful, so precisely conceived, for the purpose of inflicting pain.
“There was a spot,” said Hassan. He was limp as Azalel took his wrists and cut the wire that bound them. “In her eye. Like a speck of dirt or a fleck of ash from a fire, only a thousand times more awful.”
“I’ve seen it,” said Fatima. “It’s helping her, whatever it is. Telling her things. She thinks it’s her own spotless merit.” She got to her feet and forced herself to take deep breaths. She could smell salt as the air shifted to accommodate the rising sun: the tide would be going out soon.
“If we don’t leave now, we’ll never leave,” she said.
“I don’t think I can keep up, Fa,” said Hassan. He sounded drunk, though whether it was from the pain or the mead, Fatima couldn’t tell. “I don’t have the energy for anything besides agony. I can’t summon any more.”
Fatima put her shoulder beneath his and helped him slowly to his feet.
“You’re damn well going to try,” she said.
It was nearly bright enough to read outside. Fatima watched as crisp avenues of light formed between the rows of tents, illuminating churned-up mud and the detritus of war. They would surely be seen: a redheaded, bleeding scribe and a girl as tall as a man could not escape notice, even with a jinn escort to shield them. So Fatima looked straight ahead, ignoring the shouts and curses that disturbed the limpid air as the men around them woke up. She could see their cog beyond the pigsties and washhouses and tents, its little sails askew and unkempt among the larger ships docked at the wharf.
“You can’t be serious,” said Hassan when he saw where she was looking. “Back to the ship? My God, Fatima—where do you suppose we’re going?”
“To Qaf,” said Fatima, clenching her jaw. “To the king of the birds.”
“Don’t you mean Antillia? Avalon? Shambhala? I wish to God I’d never made that map.” Hassan was swaying as he walked and paused to suck on his bleeding fingers as though insensible of danger. Watching him, Fatima felt a thrum of real fear. Even if they escaped, they would not escape intact: the act of saving themselves would leave scars, had left scars. The greatest danger was not that they would be caught, but that Hassan’s own life was less precious to him than it had been the previous morning.
“Hsst.” Azalel halted in front of them and held out her arm. A row of men, all still half asleep, was coming toward them, each pair of legs moving in the same rhythm, so that the clack of armor echoed across the camp, giving an impression less of men than of some machine. Fatima pulled Hassan between two tents. Azalel followed, ushering them over tent pegs and ropes and glancing with deep disgust at the sun struggling to free itself from the mountains behind them.
“Too much daylight,” she murmured to Fatima. “Soon I will be of no help to you.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re nearly there.”
“Are we?”
Fatima stopped and stood straight. They were surrounded on all sides by identical canvas peaks. The pigsties and the muddy foreshore had disappeared, and the masts of the ships at the wharf along with them.
“Damn it all to hell,” she breathed.
Azalel gave a little chiding sigh. She gathered herself, her bells and beads and swaths of velvet, into a pillar of delirium, retreating, or so it seemed to Fatima, behind some invisible screen, so that looking at her was like looking through a lattice at a world into which she couldn’t venture.
“If you had listened to me, you could’ve been aboard your ship by now,” she said. “Instead, you wasted time on this sentimental errand. What a shame! So pretty, so lovely …” She walked away through the maze of canvas, her feet suspended above the ground. Fatima stared after her in speechless fury.
“That ship can’t be crewed by one person,” she shouted.
Tittering bells answered her. Fatima wanted to throw something, to rend her clothes or pull her hair, but the light was emphatic now, and Hassan was standing beside her looking less and less inclined to move.
“Damn all the jinn,” she moaned, grinding the heels of her palms against her eyes.
“That’s not a wise thing to say,” said Hassan.
Fatima cursed him silently and slipped her arm through his. She half pulled him along the narrow path between tents, choosing a direction at random, ignoring the muffled, surprised sounds of the men in their tents as they responded to her voice. Despair drove her as powerfully as hope once had: there was nothing to do, nothing at all, but continue.
“I hated you last night,” Hassan said lightly. “While I was sitting there bleeding and going mad in the dark, I hated you.”
“I don’t care,” said Fatima. The tents ended a short distance ahead; she could see color and sky but little else to tell her whether she was heading toward the harbor or away from it. Stumbling over tent stakes, she broke into a run, pulling Hassan behind her, ignoring the heady, persistent smell of his blood. She ran toward the sky, toward pale yellow and rose slashed by slate-blue streaks of cloud, and toward the morning star that hung above it all like an inferior sun, and collided, at the last moment, with Luz.
Fatima reeled backward and fell solidly at her feet. Luz didn’t move. She was flanked by the gene
ral, silent, his neck bound in linen; four other men, almost boys, stood behind them in chest plates and broad-brimmed helms, their pikes glinting. Luz’s face was rigid; her cheeks were glowing with high, offended color; she wore a sable-lined cloak over her dress; and her hair had been combed and pinned. She had, it seemed, slept well.
“I believed you,” she said, looking down through her lashes at Fatima. “I sang psalms of praise last night because I thought you were ready. I imagined standing beside you at your baptism. I would have made a place at court for you and put eligible gentlemen in your path. But you’ve dashed all my hopes. Your pride and your insolence and your unnatural attachment to this sorcerer have veiled you from God.” Luz looked past her at Hassan, her eyes blank and unmoving save for the parasite lodged beside her left pupil.
“You will tell your secrets,” she said to him. “One way or another. Sorcery is like a fast-growing weed—even if you cut off the vine and the flower, the roots will continue to spread beneath the earth and spring up elsewhere, just like the tunnels on your maps. You received instruction from someone. Perhaps you have given instruction to others. You must tell me who and how, or you will lose your life and any chance you may still have to save your soul.”
Hassan, who had been swaying and sucking at his bloody fingers, drew himself upright. He looked back at Luz with a rage that startled Fatima, transforming his face into something luminous and terrible, a star haloed in a thicket of red curls.
“I’ve already told you the truth,” he said. “Many times over. I am as I am and there seems no point in pretending about anything, since I’m going to die anyway. I will tell you my sins. At eight, I stole figs from a neighbor’s tree and lied about it. At fifteen, I slept with my fellow apprentice mapmaker, who went on to die of rot after he was sent to battle and wounded in the foot. It was then that I began to drink. I drink, I lie with men when I can manage it, yet I spend more time in prayer than you do, judging by the relentlessness with which you’ve pursued us. God knows all my faults, for I tell Him constantly. If you’re going to kill me, do it now. I might be a courtier who slouches and spends too much on clothing and shrinks from pain, but I am not afraid of death. God knows what I am, and I am no sorcerer.”
The Bird King Page 23