The Impossible Contract

by K A Doore

  “The second sign from G-d was a burning tree. As they passed a stunted acacia, the only one of its kind for miles, the tree caught fire. But the flames didn’t harm it and instead it grew taller and straighter and its withered brown leaves became green. Again, the marab couldn’t decide what G-d wanted of them. But Essif knew. She broke off a branch from the burning tree, which did not diminish in the least, and walked the perimeter of the circle of blood. The marab saw what she did and each broke off a branch of their own. As they walked, the locusts were drawn to the light, only to burn up in the fire.

  “The third and final sign from G-d was a salt-white camel, its hair as fine as dust, eating the branches and leaves of a thorny bush. Even this final time, the marab couldn’t agree on what G-d wanted them to do. But Essif knew. She tore off the branches and leaves from the thorny bush and ate them. She was filled with the spirit of G-d. The sajaam, enraged that they couldn’t leave the circle or engulf the marab with their swarms, lashed out at her with their wind and their fire, but they could not harm her.

  “The marab saw what Essif did and each tore off the branches and leaves from the thorny bush and ate them. The spirit of G-d filled them. Thus empowered, they stood up to the sajaam as the demons railed against them. The sajaam scoured and bloodied their skin with sand and blinded their exposed eye, but the marab and Essif stayed firm.

  “When the sajaam had exhausted themselves, Essif reopened her wound and spilled blood beneath their forms. This fixed the sajaam to the spot. With the power of the marab and the spirit of G-d, Essif bound the sajaam and transformed them to towering black stone. The sajaam were imprisoned within these rocks for all eternity for their folly. Now the rocks stand as a warning to any who might try to usurp G-d. And as a reward for her faith and devotion, G-d bestowed upon Essif and her heirs the gift of healing.”

  Mo’s voice fell silent, but her story took longer to fade from the room. Heru looked up from his notes, the base of his palm black with ink from his hurried writing.

  “That’s a pretty story, but I have doubts as to its accuracy. Still, I wonder if perhaps Djet heard a similar story. If he has, then he’ll try to find the location of these rocks instead of an opening to hell.” Heru pressed a thumb against his nose, smearing it with black ink. “The woman’s name was Essif. Now—where have I heard that name before?”

  Heru rifled through the scrolls, pulled out one, and smoothed it flat. It was a map of the Mehewret Empire, which included not only Ghadid and the other crescent cities, but also the Wastes. While most of the map showed mountains, washes, dune fields, caravan routes, wells, and the names of towns and villages, the Wastes were only a stain of empty white parchment. Almost empty—a few mountain ranges had been sketched in its center, but they had no names.

  “Essif, Essif, Essif,” muttered Heru, stroking his thumb across the vellum. The thumb stopped over one mountain range straight west and innumerable miles distant from Ghadid. Heru snapped his fingers. “Fetch Senousert. I require everything he has on the Aer Essifs.”

  20

  Thana would forever remember the subsequent week as a haze, those warm moments before a dream was fractured by reality. If only it could have lasted longer.

  On the one hand, the days she spent with Heru and Mo in the Imperial Library were tedious and dull, testing and stretching Thana’s patience further than ever before. Heru insisted on transcribing and combing through even the most insignificant details, to the point where Thana wished on more than one occasion that methodical planning and calm execution hadn’t been drilled into her since birth, because oh how she wanted to simply stab Heru.

  But the evenings were something altogether different. When the slaves came around with their lamps that first day, it had been Mo’s idea to take a break. They’d left Heru with his stack of scrolls and scribbled notes and ink-stained hands and wandered out of the palace. No one had tried to stop them. No one had cared.

  The river was just on the other side of the gardens. Thana heard the rush of water before she spotted the river beyond the trees, impossibly wide and blue. Then the path spit them out onto a wider street which ran right beside the river’s edge. Dusk was settling heavy as a cloth, but the city showed no signs of slowing down. Even as they left the safety of the palace gardens and crossed the road, people pushed past, merchants called their wares, and children laughed and yelled and screamed.

  Once they’d crossed the road, the only thing between them and the rushing river just a few feet below was a metal railing. Thana leaned against it, letting it hold her weight as she watched the river run past, mesmerized by its constant motion. This close, she could even taste the water in the air. Mo stayed back, her gaze locked on the greater expanse of the river.

  “It’s so much more than I imagined,” said Mo.

  “It just keeps going,” said Thana and then immediately felt dumb. It was obvious to anyone with an eye, let alone two, that this river held more water than Ghadid saw in a decade. She tried again. “No one here must deal with pain or sickness.”

  Mo tilted her head and looked at Thana sidelong. “Na Tay Khet doesn’t have healers.”

  “What?” Thana frowned at the water. “Does the Empress have something against them?”

  “No, we just…” Mo pursed her lips together, trying to find the words. “Healers are only born near the Wastes, in the crescent cities. And we don’t leave.” She smiled self-consciously. “Well, we’re not supposed to.”

  “You mentioned that before. But why?”

  Mo walked up to the railing and curled her fingers around it. She leaned forward, a few of her braids falling free and tracing the lines of her round face. “There are so few of us to begin with. The drum chiefs feared that if word got out, other cities and people might be jealous. They might take … extreme measures to have a healer for themselves.”

  “Do you think that’s what the Empress wants from Ghadid?”

  Mo pursed her lips, then shook her head. “The Empress wants power. If she really wanted her own healers, she could steal them from the Azal when they come here to trade. She probably has.”

  “I would, if I were her,” said Thana. “To never be sick again, or have to suffer through an injury. You wouldn’t have to fear death with so much water nearby.”

  Mo laughed. “That’s not really how it works.”

  “What do you mean? If you can heal everything—”

  “We can only heal what the body itself could, given time,” said Mo. “We can speed some processes up, but we can’t stop time all together. Even with all the healers and all the water in the world, no one would be immortal. We just do what we can to prevent the preventable.” She turned her head so that she caught Thana in a sideways glance. “Which is why we get a little irate about the particularly preventable.”

  Thana grimaced. “I promise to stay far and away from any dogs.”

  Mo rolled her eyes. “Why don’t I believe you?” She straightened abruptly, then stretched her arm out over the railing. “But … you’re right about one thing.…”

  Mo reached further just as the water crested, which seemed to rise to brush her fingers like a cat. Water splashed across her hand and arm, darkening the edges of her sleeve. Then the wave was gone but a streak of blue remained, rolling up Mo’s arm and across her shoulders and spilling down her body. Mo actually giggled, her dark eyes lighting on Thana’s. She held out one glowing hand.

  Thana took it. The blue spread to her, and with it a gentle, almost warm sensation. The little aches and pains of travel were smoothed away. Even the stress that had been building up in her shoulders and across her forehead was eased, if not entirely forgotten.

  She smiled back at Mo. The blue faded and Thana became acutely aware that she was still holding Mo’s hand. They stayed tethered that way for another heartbeat, hands entwined and gazes fixed. Thana realized Mo was actually, truly looking at her for the first time since they’d met. She dropped her gaze and hand, her stomach flooding with nerves, h
er throat dry.

  What was she doing? She could all but hear Amastan chastising her for getting distracted, remarking on her tendency to fall for pretty faces. But Mo had become so much more than a pretty face and now was not the time to indulge in this incipient crush. A healer of all people, too. Shards and dust, she had the most inconvenient of tastes.

  And yet … her own mother had met her father while on contract. He’d been the mark, for G-d’s sake. What was a little indulgence among all this drudgery?

  The silence seemed to pulse between them, given a life of its own. Thana didn’t know how to break it, was afraid to. Thankfully, Mo broke it for her.

  “Who are you, Thana?”

  Thana laughed, but when Mo didn’t, her nerves flared, hot as embers, and she turned back to the river. “I’ve already told you—”

  Mo waved away her explanation. “Pieces and parts. Hardly enough to explain half the things you’ve done. You said you’re here to keep an eye on Heru for the Circle, but I’ve never seen anyone fight like you did on the sands. You’re fearless. The Azal abandoned us and fled, but you stood up to those bound like it was your job.”

  Thana held up a finger. “I had run into them before.”

  Mo puffed her cheeks and threw a stray braid over her shoulder. “Did you practice your knife throwing on them, too? And what about the guards at the gate? How did you escape them? And that disguise, that wasn’t just playing around. That took real skill. My uncle puts on plays for the Telem neighborhood, so I’ve seen what goes into designing costumes. You’ve done that before.”

  Mo’s gaze flicked across Thana’s face, searching for an answer and afraid of finding it. Thana’s stomach tightened into a knot as she watched Mo make the connections. She felt breathless in a way that had nothing at all to do with breath. When Mo’s lips parted slightly in sudden understanding, Thana was almost relieved. At least she didn’t have to tell Mo herself.

  “Are you a performer? Do you play in the fights?”

  Thana swallowed her laugh of surprise, but it still came out as a choked snort. She and her cousins liked to watch the performers put on their shows, especially the fights, which were laughable, contorted parodies of real fights. To be associated with their flamboyant and inefficient displays was an insult, yet Thana didn’t correct Mo.

  “The dogs,” said Mo suddenly, realization lighting up her features. “Oh. Oh. It wasn’t really dogs, was it?” She shook her head. “What a waste of water. You and your friends, hurting each other for fun. And you had the audacity to come to me afterwards.”

  The truth welled up in Thana’s throat, pushing against the back of her tongue. She wanted to tell Mo everything, that she wasn’t some bawdy entertainer, that she had a real calling, just as noble as healing—and just as necessary. She wanted to tell Mo about her great grandmothers and cousins whose bloodied hands had kept Ghadid safe. She wanted to tell Mo about Amastan and Illi and Dihya and Ziri and all her other cousins, ones who weren’t assassins as well as those who were.

  She wanted to tell Mo what had actually brought her across the sands and driven her to fight the guards and infiltrate the palace. That she had a contract to kill Heru, yes, but something else had complicated that simple task. A foolish need to see that the girl she’d just met over the back of a corpse was safe.

  But the confession died in her mouth. She couldn’t do it. If Mo thought that poorly about performers, who only hurt each other by accident, what would she think about an assassin? At least killing wasn’t a waste of water, but somehow she doubted she could make Mo see it that way.

  Thana remembered all too clearly Mo’s righteous anger when they’d first met and she couldn’t bear to see that return after all they’d been through together. If she confessed now, they wouldn’t be able to continue working together. And they needed to, to stop Djet.

  Yes, it was for the best if Mo didn’t know. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  “We try not to get hurt,” said Thana. And it wasn’t a lie, not really. Mo’s assumptions were her own and Thana couldn’t exactly change those, could she?

  Mo rolled her eyes. “You fight for fun.” Then that gaze stole across Thana, lingering on her arms, her neck, before returning to her face. “I can see why the Circle chose you to keep an eye on Heru, though. The endurance and strength you must have from all that training.…” She trailed off, coughed, and looked away. “Is it awful that I’m actually a little glad this all happened? I feel guilty because people have died and there’s a madman on the loose, but if Djet hadn’t shown up, I’d never have seen this”—she gestured at the river, at the city around them—“and I’d never have met you.”

  The flutters Thana thought she’d banished came back with a vengeance. She didn’t know what to say, so she opted for silence. It’d come off as enigmatic, if she was lucky.

  “Can you teach me how to fight?”

  Thana blinked, surprised by the question. She looked at the small healer, braids already cleaned of dust and hands as smooth as silk. She couldn’t imagine her holding a weapon, but then she remembered Mo with the tent pole, swinging at the bound as if her life depended on it. Because it had. This was the first time she’d seen Mo without that makeshift weapon since that fight.

  Mo swallowed, earnest face upturned. “Not with a sword. I don’t want to kill anyone. But if the bound attack again, I need to be able to defend myself. And others.” Her gaze clouded with pain. “Last time, I couldn’t save anyone. I don’t want that to happen again.”

  “I’m sure the Empress has a real staff somewhere that she can give you,” said Thana. “I can teach you how to use one to keep the bound away. You’ll still need to use a knife to break their bindings—”

  Mo waved a hand. “Oh, I can do that just fine.”

  Thana thought about the hours they’d spend on the sands, trading blows and getting sweaty. “Great,” she said, perhaps a little too brightly. “We can start as soon as we’re done in the library. Somehow I doubt Senousert would take kindly to us sparring among his scrolls.”

  Mo laughed. She leaned close. Thana stiffened, very aware of the warmth and proximity of Mo’s smaller body. Her gaze kept slipping to those wide lips and she’d become very aware of her own. She wondered if Mo was thinking the same. Did Mo even like women? It baffled Thana that anyone could say no to those curves and those lips and those eyes, so dark and warm and—

  “It’s getting late,” said Mo. “We should probably head back.”

  Thana swallowed her disappointment. “Right.”

  But then Mo slid her hand in Thana’s and that disappointment vanished.

  * * *

  After that first night, their evenings spent walking alongside the river or twisting through the city’s streets stretched longer and longer, until dusk turned to night and Thana’s feet ached come morning. She took care not to talk too much about herself, and instead turned the questions and conversations again and again back to Mo and her life. Thana learned about the test that had revealed Mo’s innate healing ability when she was only a few years old, the seasons since then she’d spent at Enass’s side, rarely allowed to leave, the elevation of her status and the sheer crushing responsibility of it all. Thana realized she’d never really understood what the healers went through. Maybe next time, she would be a little bit more careful during a fight.

  All in all, it was a slow time, calm and quiet. And it was over too soon.

  In the cramped library room, Thana stretched her legs beneath the table, a different mess of scrolls and maps covering its surface. A stale stench wove through the air. Heru pressed his finger against the corner of the map, triumph oozing from every pore. He could have lit up the room with his smug, burning pride.

  “I can say, with almost ninety-four percent certainty, that our old and previously dead friend will be—or is already—headed here,” pronounced Heru, leaning on his finger. “This mountain range in the middle of the Wastes known as the Aer Essifs.”

  “But we knew that
a week ago,” said Thana.

  “We did not know,” corrected Heru. He gestured at the papers. “We still do not know. But we can correlate from our sources and arrive at an appropriate conclusion. And that conclusion will take us deep into the Wastes.”

  Thana bit her tongue. Heru was right; they knew far more than they had at the beginning of the week. Most importantly, they knew now what Djet had discovered shortly before his temporary demise. As it turned out, Mo’s story had been more than just pretty.

  Djet’s own research and notes had been burned along with him, but there were hints and rumors that a copy had been hidden somewhere within the palace, waiting for Djet’s inevitable return. Absent that, Senousert had brought them any histories that even mentioned Djet.

  Unfortunately, many of these were so extreme as to be completely useless. After Djet’s death, his legacy had grown and spread, until he’d become more demon than man. He’d been blamed for the disappearances of marab, the murders of more than a dozen slaves, and even a plague that had desolated an entire town. It was doubtful that he could have been responsible for all of that. After his very public trial and execution, historians had taken to blaming him for anything outside the ordinary. But between the gaps and inconsistencies, they were able to piece together a semi-coherent story.

  In his last year of life, Djet had become singularly obsessed with something beyond his experiments. He’d all but stopped eating, dismissed all of his assistants, and locked himself away in his study. Then he’d approached King To with a strange request: he wanted storytellers from every region of the kingdom.

  The people who went before Djet returned physically unscathed, but refused to talk about what had happened. A pattern emerged: the storytellers came from the region nearest the Wastes and they were spiritual leaders of their tribes—close to, but not quite—marab.

  One day, an old woman arrived claiming to have come from within the Wastes. When Djet asked her his questions, she flew into a rage. The accounts differed as to whether the old woman then disappeared in a cloud of smoke or cursed him, but she vanished and a few weeks later, Djet was caught trying to flee the capital with a dozen of the King’s camels and men, the beasts burdened for a long journey. He was tried and executed shortly thereafter.