A Desert Torn Asunder

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  On the Tulogal ships, the crew reached the catapults, the ballistae. As they began loading them, Zaghran spread his arms wide, an expression of peace. “I say to you one last time, stand down. Submit.”

  But the words were hardly out of his mouth when Tanzi flung her arms to the sky and cried, “Let loose!”

  On Çeda’s left, she heard the thrum of Emre’s bowstring. An arrow streaked through the air and was buried in the chest of the Tulogal crewman aiming their forward ballista. Another arrow flew, blindingly quick, and sunk into a crewman about to reach a catapult at the ship’s stern. More arrows were launched from Storm’s Eye. In a blink, a half-dozen Tulogal crew were downed.

  Zaghran and Tanzi retreated behind the skiff lashed to the side of the ship. Other Tulogal warriors, men and women, released war cries, high ululations, and returned fire. Catapults flew. Iron cat’s claws soared through the air, snaking and twisting toward the Red Bride’s skis. The farther ships launched clay fire pots. They arced high, trailing smoke.

  By then Çeda had a tight hold on the desert’s power. She called upon it, sending a gust of wind and sand that threw off the trajectory of claws and fire pots enough that none of the claws struck their ships’ struts, and only one of the fire pots hit the deck of Storm’s Eye. Jenise had the Shieldwives ready with blue dousing agent, and they quickly put the fire out.

  Arrows streaked through the air. The wind Çeda had drawn upon fouled many launched from both sides, although some made it through. Warriors fell. One man, launching arrow after arrow from the vulture’s nest of Zaghran’s ship, was caught in the throat by an arrow from Emre. He fell, spun along the far shroud, and was lost behind the ship as he plummeted to the sand.

  Sümeya and Kameyl were whirlwinds. They blocked arrow after arrow with their shields, one of which, despite the high winds, had been headed for Çeda’s belly.

  A ballista bolt tied to a hawser sped toward the Red Bride. Çeda tried to direct the wind against it, but all it did was alter the bolt’s course so that it fell across the deck instead of the foremast’s rigging. The Tulogal crew cranked the windlass that would reel the hawser in and draw the ships toward one another. They were hoping to board, to overwhelm the Bride with superior numbers. But Kameyl was already on the move. As the Bride was pulled ever closer to the Tulogal ketch, she ran along the gunwales and with a roar sliced her curved black shamshir across the hawser, freeing the ships.

  Çeda, meanwhile, took a deep breath and spread her arms wide. She reached toward the sand in front of the Tulogal ships. The desert’s heat was now her anger. The very dunes bowed to her will.

  She forced the sand ahead of the Tulogal ships to soften, to welcome rather than support. In moments, the flat stretch of amber ahead of the four ketches turned to slipsand. Instead of gliding over it, the ships’ skis sunk beneath the surface, ploughing great furrows. The ships slowed precipitously, then came to a lurching halt as the skis sunk so deep they were lost beneath the surface.

  The crew were thrown forward. They slid over the decks. Many near the fore, unable to halt their momentum, were thrown over the bow. Falls like that could cause serious injuries, but the sand below was soft as flour. Those who fell were all but swallowed by it, the sand exploding in golden fans around them.

  As the swaying of the masts and rigging quelled, Zaghran and Tanzi rose. Çeda headed to the Bride’s stern, where she cupped her hands to her mouth. “Think on my words,” she shouted. “We are all of us in grave danger from the desert gods. That is what we must unite to fight against, not one another.”

  The shaikh and his wife said nothing in reply, and soon they were dwindling into the distance as the Red Bride and Storm’s Eye sailed on.

  Chapter 7

  Ramahd Amansir leaned against the rough, mudbrick wall of a saddlery in Mazandir. Beside him was Cicio, his stalwart companion. The two men were similarly dressed. Both wore trousers, shirts made of light, breathable cloth, and black leather boots, the style common in their homeland, the southern kingdom of Qaimir. Ramahd had his long brown hair pulled back into a tail, while Cicio wore a brimmed leather hat with a black plume, the sort that had become more popular among the sandsmen of their country.

  Across the dusty street, a boy guided a colt in circles with light flicks from a training whip. Cicio had caught wind of a stablehand, the boy’s sister, who’d been telling everyone a wild tale about the goddess, Tulathan, visiting a woman along Mazandir’s northern edge. At the time, when they’d found her, she’d refused to say anything. But then, a day ago, a note had arrived, an offer to meet, assuming the reward was still good.

  “She should be here by now,” Cicio said in Qaimiran.

  “With the coin we’re offering,” Ramahd said, “she’ll come. Have a little patience.”

  “Patience, he says . . .” Cicio spat onto the street. “This fucking desert stole all I had.”

  Ramahd chuckled. “Your coffers weren’t exactly overflowing when we arrived.”

  “Maybe not, but I swear to you, if we don’t make some progress, I’m likely to find an oud parlor and start drinking until someone starts a fight.”

  “Until you start a fight you mean.”

  Cicio shrugged. “I don’t care who starts it.”

  Ramahd didn’t reply. It would only rile Cicio up. The tolling of a bell drew his gaze to a series of blocky stone buildings, the remains of Mazandir’s original caravanserai. Around the buildings, dozens of ship’s masts jutted upward like the spears of an approaching army. He and Cicio had passed them on their way to the saddlery. The majority of the ships moored there were owned by the desert tribes. Others hailed from Sharakhai and Qaimir. There were even a few flying the pennants of Kundhun. For the first time in a long while they were largely trading ships, not ships of war. Life in Mazandir was returning to normal, due in large part to King Hektor’s decision to withdraw from the caravanserai.

  The Qaimiri fleet was still nearby. King Hektor, long worried that Malasan or even Sharakhai’s royal navy might attack, had insisted the bulk of the fleet wait until all Qaimiri warships had gathered. Only then would the fleet set sail, assured all would survive the journey back home.

  After the wild events in Sharakhai, Hektor had given Ramahd a ship and a crew to command so that he could hunt for Meryam. But forty ships were already anchored to the south of Mazandir. When the stragglers arrived, King Hektor would order them south, Ramahd included, abandoning his vow that he would do everything in his power to see Meryam brought to justice.

  How much time did that leave? A few days, perhaps. A week at the most. “It feels like we’re giving up,” Ramahd said absently.

  Cicio followed Ramahd’s line of gaze. “Can you blame him?” Cicio waved to the stables. “Maybe he’d have given us more time if we’d found anything beyond the word of a fucking horse hand.”

  As if summoned by his words, a girl of sixteen came jogging out of the stables. She had a dimpled chin and wild hair. She was tall for her age, taller than Cicio. Her trousers, baggy shirt, and straw hat were common in Mazandir, but her dark skin, more than anything, marked her as a child of the desert.

  “Took you long enough, ah?” Cicio said, switching to Sharakhan.

  “I told you to wait by the apothecary,” she said with a surly expression. “The master caught sight of you yesterday. Made me slop the stalls and brush all the horses again before he’d let me leave.” Without waiting for a reply, she walked briskly down the street.

  Cicio laughed as he launched himself after her. “You can buy a—what you call it? When you sew designs in cloth?”

  “Embroidered,” groused the stablehand.

  Cicio snapped his fingers. “Embroidered. You can buy embroidered kerchief with the reward, ah? Sop up all your tears.”

  She glowered while heading toward the edges of the caravanserai.

  “Why did you decide to come forward now?” Ra
mahd asked her.

  “What?” The girl seemed distracted.

  “For the reward. We offered you money weeks ago.”

  “Give me the money and I’ll tell you,” she said.

  “Story first,” Ramahd replied.

  She came to a stop and stared at him, perhaps debating whether or not to press. Then she shrugged, pointed to the way ahead, and resumed her brisk pace.

  They passed through a cluster of squat, mudbrick homes and arrived at a stretch of terrain dominated by ironweed, scrub trees, and pools of water. In the distance lay the desert’s endless, rolling dunes.

  The girl pointed to one of the nearest pools. “I saw the woman walking from the trees to the edge of the black pool, there.”

  The pools were verged with green grasses and cattails, all save the one the stablehand was pointing to. That one was barren. The grass around it had died, and the muddy earth along its edges was black. It was the pool that held Goezhen’s body before it had miraculously gone missing.

  “The surface was still like glass then, yes?” Ramahd asked.

  The girl nodded, then stepped closer and pointed to the pool’s center. “She walked onto the water and stared down at the dead god.” She touched her fingers to her forehead, a sign of blessing. “She spoke to him for a time.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I wasn’t close enough to hear.”

  The water’s surface, no longer solid, rippled in the warm wind. Goezhen’s body was gone, but it still stank of rot and brimstone. It was why, even though the other pools were untainted, the people of Mazandir avoided them. No one swam in them any longer. No one took water from them to cook or to feed their livestock. They wouldn’t even use it to irrigate crops.

  Ramahd stepped into the dead grass along the pool’s verge and stared into the depths of the water. “What happened next?”

  “I saw the goddess walk down from the heavens along a shaft of moonlight.”

  “Describe her,” Ramahd said.

  “She was taller than any woman or man I’ve ever seen. She had straight silver hair that glowed. It ached to look upon her for too long. She spoke with your queen—”

  “She is no our queen—” Cicio broke in, but stopped when Ramahd raised a hand.

  “She spoke with your lady,” the stablehand revised. “Or I think she did. I heard only soft sounds, like chimes, but your lady would answer as if she’d understood. She said her throne was gone, her magic taken from her. I don’t know what the goddess said next, but your lady seemed to take heart from it.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “She looked angry when the goddess arrived, but by the end there was a brightness in her eyes. Like when you find a copper khet lying in the street.”

  “You said she fell in the water?”

  The girl nodded. “She took off a necklace she’d been wearing and clutched it to her breast. She didn’t seem to want to give it up, but when Tulathan turned and began walking away, she said she could do it. She could leave the past behind. Then she threw the necklace onto the pool. I swear by the gods it shattered at that very moment. Lady Meryam fell right in.”

  “And Tulathan?”

  She pointed toward open sand. “She walked away, lost like moonlight to passing clouds.”

  “And then?”

  She shrugged. “I left.”

  “You didn’t see where Meryam went?”

  “No.”

  “You weren’t curious?”

  “Curious?” She laughed. “I would have left earlier if I hadn’t feared the goddess would see me. With her gone, it was time for me to go. I came back the next day, though. And the next. Just checking up, you understand. One night, when the moons were dark, I spotted men with lanterns. They had horses and a sleigh.” She motioned to the fetid pool, then pressed her fingers to her forehead again. “I saw them drag Goezhen’s body out and haul it away.”

  “Where?”

  She pointed to the open desert. “That way. To a ship, I reckon.”

  “That’s the last you saw of Meryam or her people?”

  “Yes, I swear.” She glanced back the way they’d come. “I really should be getting back.”

  Judging they’d get no more out of her, Ramahd nodded to Cicio, who sent a small leather bag jingling through the air. The stablehand caught it with ease.

  “So why now?” Ramahd jutted his chin toward the purse. “You promised to tell.”

  The stablehand shrugged. “Your fleet’s leaving. Everyone says so. Why not get paid twice before you’ve all left?”

  “Twice?”

  She skipped backward, then raised the hand holding the bag of coins and pointed to the far side of the pool. “Ask him.”

  With that she spun on her heels and jogged away.

  More than a little confused, Ramahd peered beyond the tall grasses on the far side of the pool and saw a man wearing a long black coat and a white shirt with frills at the neck and wrists. There was a leatherbound book in his right hand. He looked familiar, but the almost ludicrously wide brim of his hat was shading his face, making it all but impossible to make out his features.

  As he began walking around the pool toward him, recognition finally dawned. “Fezek?” Ramahd said in disbelief.

  “We are one and the same!” Fezek smiled broadly. It was not a pleasant look. His pale skin was putrid. One eye had clouded over. One leg ended in a wooden prosthetic. It was a step up from the peg leg he’d once worn. Nevertheless, it lent his gait a boneyard shamble, which was rather fitting for a ghul.

  Ramahd looked him over, unsure where to begin. He decided to start with the most superficial question running through his head. “What in the great wide desert are you wearing?”

  Fezek stopped dead in his tracks and looked himself over. “Why, do you like it?” The clothes were decidedly Qaimiri but from an era of fashion that had come and gone decades ago. As the seconds passed, Fezek’s hopeful expression faded. “I’d hoped it would put you at ease.”

  In truth, the clothes looked rather ridiculous, but it was an endearing effort just the same. “They certainly make a statement,” Ramahd said, then took a deep breath, wondering how to broach the subject without causing offense. “Fezek, I thought you were lost to us in the cavern. When Anila left—”

  “Oh, I know! So did I! I thought my time on this earth would be cut short. Again. But the fates saw fit to leave me here. They kept me alive for a purpose, I believe. Or Anila did. It amounts to the same thing, either way.” He held up the book in his right hand, as if that explained everything. When Ramahd said nothing, he shook it. “I’ve been chronicling the entire, grand tale!”

  In Sharakhai, Fezek had been composing a sweeping poem in hopes of chronicling his journey with Anila, Davud, and many others as they fought to understand the purposes behind the desert gods’ plans. “Mark my words,” he’d once told Ramahd, “it will become the desert’s greatest epic. It will dwarf even the tales of Bahri Al’sir!”

  “And your research”—Ramahd jutted his chin toward the book—“led you here?”

  “Yes! Well, sort of. I remained in Sharakhai for a time. I got word of a Malasani captain who trades out of the city’s western harbor. I went to him, and I think he was scared of me at first, but once we got to talking, and I told him about a man I once knew”—Fezek leaned in conspiratorially—“a rather close friend, if you get my meaning. But I didn’t tell the captain that. He didn’t seem like a man—”

  “Fezek.”

  Fezek blinked. “Yes. So. Meryam.” He cleared his throat, a thoroughly gruesome sound. “Yosef told me Meryam was looking for a place known as the Hollow.”

  “What’s the Hollow?”

  “A great pit in the desert. Apparently Meryam hoped to buy a set of journals to learn its location, but then her assistant, a comely young woman�
�”

  “Amaryllis,” Ramahd said.

  “Amaryllis, yes . . . She found something in the odd little items Adzin kept around the ship, and Meryam offered to buy the whole thing! I thought you’d like to know where she was going.”

  Ramahd paused, confused. “Are you saying you know where the Hollow is?”

  Fezek’s smile was a ruin of rotted teeth. “I’ve a vague idea, yes.” He paused again, and pasted on the sort of face stage actors use to draw out tension.

  “This fucking ghul,” Cicio said under his breath.

  Ignoring him, Ramahd focused on Fezek. “How vague?”

  “Since the vault’s formation, calling on the departed to have a bit of a chat has become a relatively simple thing. I scoured five boneyards and spoke to a hundred lost souls before I found a cooper who used to crew on a small pirate fleet. He was a pleasant man. He told me a tale of dousing one of King Külaşan’s granddaughters in mulled wine, purely by accident, of course—”

  “Fezek.”

  Another clearing of the throat. “Yes. My apologies. He told me about the Hollow. It lies west of Sharakhai, a day’s sail away, maybe less.”

  Ramahd stood there for a moment, stunned. Meryam would have found the Hollow’s location as well. It was where he had to go. That’s where he would find her.

  It left a burning question in Ramahd’s mind. “So you came to Mazandir and arranged this meeting,” he said. “Why the cloak and dagger? Why not come directly to me?”

  “Well”—Fezek shrugged while avoiding Ramahd’s gaze—“this old playwright wasn’t sure, on the occasion of our long-anticipated reunion, whether you’d . . .”

  Fezek stopped, and Ramahd prompted, “Whether I’d what?”

  “Send me away,” Fezek blurted. “But then I heard the girl telling her tale, and I thought you’d want to hear it. I gave her a goodly sum and bid her find you, hoping it might ease the blow of seeing me again.”

  “Fezek, why would you say that? Why would you think that? You were a great help to us.”