A Desert Torn Asunder

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Alansal was not simply powerful, she was someone around whom the gears of the world turned. But just then she looked lost.

  “Please,” Davud said, “remove the stone. Then you and I can visit Chow-Shian together.”

  With practiced ease, Alansal wrapped her hair around her wrist, formed a bun, and stuck it through with the two pins. With slow, deliberate movements, she reached down and picked up the fallen jade stone. Holding it to her lips, she breathed a sharp puff of air onto it, and just like that, the larger stone on his head fell away. Davud caught it and stared at it in wonder for a moment, then handed it to Alansal.

  “Come. I fear Chow-Shian has little time.” She swept from the room. “And the Kings are owed a measure of justice.”

  Chapter 15

  Meryam stood amidships on The Gray Gull, staring at the horizon, hoping to spot a particular rise of rock. From the ridges of snaking dunes, the gusting wind threw spindrift skyward in long, swirling plumes. The scene looked like an artist had run out of blues and greens to paint a windswept sea and had decided to render it in amber and ochre instead.

  Including the captain, her crew numbered eight. They were patriots, one and all, committed to Meryam’s cause. They’d proven so time and time again, protecting her from King Hektor’s spies in the city, and yet Meryam found herself relieved that they were out in the desert, alone, where the opportunity to betray her to Queen Alansal or the Sharakhani Kings was nonexistent.

  The Gull crested the next dune, the bow dipped, and Meryam’s stomach lurched—one beat of the miserable rhythm that had plagued them for hours. The ramshackle sloop creaked so badly Meryam wondered if it would hold together long enough to reach their destination. She rued her decision to take the Gull and not the yacht they’d procured in Mazandir, but the chances of missing some crucial note from Adzin had been too high. Most of his cryptic notes had been penned on the oddments he’d collected, but she couldn’t be sure there was nothing else hidden away on the ship.

  “A half-day’s sail,” Amaryllis said miserably. She was leaning against the gunwales, one hand pressed against her gut. “We’ve been fucking sailing the whole fucking day already.”

  Amaryllis looked as miserable as Meryam felt. Even her crew—seasoned sandsmen and sandswomen, all—looked green around the gills.

  “The note said twelve knots steady,” Meryam said. “We’re hardly scratching six.”

  Amaryllis steadied herself as they took another dune. “I just want it to be over.” She retched a moment later.

  “Bloody gods”—Meryam waved to the gunwales—“there’s no shame in it.”

  Amaryllis shook her head, the back of one hand to her mouth. “I’ll be fine.”

  Moments later they took one of the worst dips yet, and it became too much for Amaryllis. She turned, leaned over the gunwales, and loosed the contents of her stomach over the ship’s side. Seeing it brought on a wave of nausea so strong Meryam nearly told the captain to slow their pace. But that risked their coming to a complete halt as the ship failed to crest the high dunes. They’d need to sail the gutters then, and who knew how far that would take them from their path?

  Perhaps sensing her thoughts, the captain, a barrel-chested man with surprisingly spindly legs, said, “The wind should calm soon, my queen.” He lifted one knobby finger and pointed off the port bow. “See there? It’s looking clearer already.”

  One hand pressed to her stomach, Meryam nodded, and allowed the ship to sail on. Despite the captain’s prediction, the wind didn’t ease. She was about to call for a halt, delays be damned, when the watchman called, “Reef ahead!”

  “Mighty Alu be praised,” Amaryllis breathed.

  Meryam saw it a moment later: a spill of ink along the horizon. Blessedly, the wind did lessen and the dunes smoothed out. As they sailed closer, the dark ink transformed into a collection of rocky fingers and rounded knuckles jutting up from the sand. They lowered their speed and navigated the sandy reef for another hour before the watchman called again.

  “Land, ho!”

  The relief was palpable as they dropped anchor near an impassable plateau of rock. In the distance stood a circle of standing stones.

  “Remain here,” Meryam said to the captain, then turned to Amaryllis. “Bring the chest.”

  “We don’t even know if this is the right place yet.”

  “The standing stones, Amaryllis. The smell of brimstone. They tell you everything you need to know.”

  “Very well,” Amaryllis said, clearly disappointed, “but we’ve only just arrived.”

  “I’ve waited a lifetime for this.” Meryam headed down the gangplank. “Bring the chest.”

  Upon reaching the hot sand, Meryam headed onto the rocky plateau. Amaryllis joined her, bearing a small wooden chest.

  “Can you feel it, Amaryllis?”

  “Feel what?”

  Meryam waved to the tall stones, the source of her unease. It felt like they were being watched—as if creatures, dark spies, watched over Ashael’s resting place, peering from behind the stones. The feeling became so strong Meryam’s mouth went dry. Years ago, she would have had little fear of such things. She would have called upon her own power. No longer.

  “We could call the men,” Amaryllis said.

  Meryam steeled herself and stepped forward. “We have no need of men, dear Amaryllis.”

  For a moment Amaryllis looked as if she wanted to argue, but she held her tongue and followed Meryam toward the tall stones. The scent of brimstone and rot grew stronger. They passed through the circle of stones, where a deep pit was revealed.

  Amaryllis set the chest down beside it and held the back of one hand to her nose. “Mighty Alu but the smell is foul.”

  Meryam crouched and threw the lid of the chest back to reveal eight leather bags. Each was filled with a powder ground from some form of ivory, everything she’d been able to find in the bazaar: mammoth tusks from the frozen wastes beyond Mirea, warthogs from the hills of Malasan, walruses from the southern shores of Qaimir, elephants and hippopotamuses from the distant plains of Kundhun. She’d even found a pair of elk molars, their provenance unknown, and killer whale teeth, delivered from the Austral Sea. The prize, however, was the complete narwhal tusk she’d found, late in their search, in a small shop just off the Trough. There was a certain poetry in stumbling across it, having found Adzin’s script on a similar tusk.

  Meryam took up the bag with the narwhal ivory powder first. For some reason it felt heavier than it should. Her hands were shaking so badly she gripped them tight lest Amaryllis notice.

  Amaryllis noticed anyway. “We can take our time, my queen. We have weeks of provisions aboard.”

  “Fear not.” Holding the bag, Meryam took more, tentative, steps toward the pit’s edge. “Today is only a small test.”

  They’d agreed on the way that they would use the powder to awaken Ashael. When he’d gained consciousness, she would give him her offering: Goezhen. For surely that was the reason Tulathan had given Meryam her brother god’s corpse. Ashael would need to be given a sense of Meryam’s desires, a thing that would, she dearly hoped, give him purpose.

  Meryam tugged the mouth of the bag open and took a pinch of the powder from within. Holding it to her nose, she drew in a sharp breath. The desert wind blew. Amaryllis waited, wary of any small change in perception.

  Little happened at first, but then the world seemed to sharpen. The outlines of the stones grew radiant, chromatic, an effect made intense, even dizzying, as Meryam moved her head from side to side. Amaryllis became so bright, so disorienting, it forced Meryam to shut her eyes.

  Meryam felt herself tipping. “Mighty Alu,” she breathed.

  “My queen!” Amaryllis was suddenly there, gripping her arm and leading her away from the pit’s edge.

  It took long moments for Meryam’s dizziness to pass. When it did, she op
ened her eyes. The bizarre effect was still present, but manageable now.

  She patted Amaryllis’s hand. “Thank you. I am well.”

  Amaryllis released her arm, but stood ready to act again. Meryam, meanwhile, took a healthy pinch of the powder and tossed it into the pit. It shimmered white in the afternoon sunlight, a drape of bright silk over the onyx rock before her. The wind carried some away but most drifted down, swallowed moments later by the pit’s great, open maw.

  Moments passed. Then minutes. And there was nothing. Nothing whatsoever.

  “Another form of ivory, perhaps,” Amaryllis said.

  “Be quiet.”

  The pit’s mouth rippled with vibrant colors. Come, Ashael. Awaken. Open your eyes and witness the world you helped to forge.

  The incessant wind began to die, the sun lowered in the sky, and still Meryam watched.

  “My queen—”

  “I said be quiet!”

  Meryam had seen something below. A swirl of color in the gloom. It came again a moment later. She heard the sound of wings flapping. It was faint at first but grew ever stronger. The smear of color reappeared and resolved into a winged figure. Then came another, and another. Soon there were a dozen, a score, a hundred. They lifted up from the darkness, lit by the setting sun. They were small, black creatures. Each was the size of a falcon, but they were featherless, with leathery skin and two sets of bat-like wings.

  They were ifin. Meryam recognized their description from Adzin’s curiosities. More than a dozen of his messages had mentioned the creatures—how to find them, how to attract them, how to control them. Give an ifin a scent, Adzin had written, and it will follow it to its source, be it a thing lost, a person gone missing, or even a destiny.

  They flew up and around Meryam. They circled her like buzzards. What their presence might mean she had no idea. Perhaps they’d been affected by the ivory dust and had come to investigate. Perhaps Meryam’s presence at the pit’s mouth had made them curious. Or perhaps they rose from the pit every sunset. Whatever the case, she pondered how she might make use of them. She might have them search for Ashael below. She might have them wake him.

  She’d just begun to ponder that when Amaryllis’s voice broke through her haze.

  “My queen?”

  Meryam glanced over and saw her staring down into the pit. Another winged creature, large as a man, was flying up from the depths. A pair of broad wings bore it into the sky. It had dark skin like the ifin, but was more humanoid, with two arms and two legs. Where its eyes should have been was a ridged hollow in its skull. Its nose was two slits. Its thin lips pulled back, revealing rows of long, razor sharp teeth.

  In one hand it bore a trident of dark iron. Pointing the weapon at Meryam, it opened its jaws wide and shrieked. The shriek became a maddening caterwaul that went on and on. It was like a nest of rattlewings, a cacophony of mismatched doudouks playing all at once. It made Meryam’s skin itch. Made her vision swim.

  “My queen, step back from the edge!”

  But Meryam was rooted to the spot, beholden to the circling ifin and the demon hovering in the air before her.

  As the demon’s smile widened, the drone rose in pitch and Meryam’s eyelids fluttered closed. She felt herself being swept away. She saw herself standing in the desert. She was surrounded by stone and a sea of endless dunes. On the stone around her were hundreds upon hundreds of bodies, all dead, all bloody. They were arrayed in formation—a sigil, she realized, formed by the one whose dream Meryam was now being shown.

  It’s Ashael’s. I’m seeing his dream.

  The sigil seemed familiar. She searched her memories for its meaning, but was startled by the appearance of a goddess floating in the air before her. Her name was Annam, and she was tall and beautiful. Another appeared beside her: Iri, he of lissome form and skin of midnight sky. Golden Bellu came next, then scintillant Treü and quizzical Raamajit. One after another they came to the plain of stone and stared at the sigil of dead bodies.

  Their disturbed looks turned to disapproval. One lifted an accusatory finger. A second followed. Soon all were pointing at Ashael, all save Iri, who held a misshapen spike of ebon steel in one hand, a blindingly white bandage in the other. In silent concert, Annam and Treü held his arms, and Bellu and Raamajit gripped his sweeping horns, the four of them holding him in place. Iri stepped forth and wrapped the bandage around Ashael’s head, covering his eyes, then drove the spike into Ashael’s chest, piercing his heart. As his screams shook the heavens, they forced him down, through the stone and earth they had all, including Ashael, made together. Ashael fought them, but he was blinded, the cloth fixed to his skin, and the steel spike crippled him.

  How his rage burned. He vowed that he would one day break from his prison. He would return to the surface, and then they would pay. All the elders would all pay.

  Then Ashael felt their smugness and understood their intent. They were leaving. As they had for millennia beyond count, they were preparing to depart this world for the next, but this time, they would leave him behind.

  He railed against them. He tore at the earth. He tried to bring the heavens down on them. But they were too strong, and he was soon lost to the darkness.

  Meryam was suddenly returned to the desert. She felt wings beating against her arms, her sides. Felt them fluttering against her bound hair. She was staring down into the pit. The large, eyeless demon, only a few paces away, beat its wings while smiling perversely.

  She heard Amaryllis scream, but the sound was faint, dreamlike. “Help!” she shouted. “We’re attacked!”

  From the corner of her eye, Meryam saw the ifin swarming Amaryllis. Gods, there were so many of them. And Meryam was doing nothing to help her because, in that moment, she didn’t care what became of Amaryllis. She wanted to descend. She wanted to meet Ashael. She would witness his greatness before she died.

  Suddenly there were more figures around her, roaring, fighting, using clubs and swords to swing at the ifin—her crew, coming to save their queen.

  “My queen, you must wake!”

  Amaryllis was suddenly there. She had Meryam by the arms and was shaking her roughly. The look on her face was one of abject fear.

  In the end, it wasn’t Amaryllis who woke Meryam, but the demon. It swooped onto Ernesto, a kind, paunchy fellow with red hair and sad eyes. Ernesto swung his sword, to no effect, then shouted in surprise as the demon used its trident to stab the next closest crewman through the leg.

  Meryam rushed toward Ernesto, hoping to fend the demon off, but the demon had already wrapped its wiry limbs around the flame-haired crewman. The demon beat its wings, lifting Ernesto and carrying him over the pit’s mouth.

  It sunk its teeth onto Ernesto’s neck as it flew, and he screamed, the sound crazed, manic. The sounds of his pain faded as the demon stopped flapping and the two dropped like a pair of commingled stones. As their outline shrank, then faded altogether, the cloud of ifin burst outward. They followed the larger demon down, their screeches fading until it was gone and they too were lost from sight.

  In the silence that followed, everyone stared at Meryam. All wore the same expression, one that asked a very simple question: If they’d already lost one of their number, and Ashael hadn’t even awoken yet, what would become of them once he did?

  Chapter 16

  Queen Alansal led Davud and Willem up from Eventide’s dungeon. When they reached the palace proper, Davud sent Willem to tell Esmeray everything that had happened.

  Davud continued with Alansal to the infirmary, where the lone surviving water dancer, Chow-Shian, Alansal’s own granddaughter, lay unconscious. Her black hair was messy as an old broom. Her bedding was rumpled. Leather straps held her wrists and ankles in place. Combined with the ashen hue of her skin, it painted a dire picture.

  An old woman with pepper gray hair wrapped into a tight bun was sitting by Chow-Shian’
s bedside. Chow-Shian’s thick woolen shirt was open. The woman, a physic, surely, rubbed scented oil over her chest. On seeing her queen’s approach, she quickly finished her work and tugged Chow-Shian’s shirt back into place.

  “Why is she restrained?” Davud asked as he reached the foot of Chow-Shian’s bed.

  “She thrashes,” Alansal replied, “violently, sometimes. Lost in her visions, we think.”

  As if she’d heard, Chow-Shian’s eyes suddenly shot open. Her golden eyes took in her queen with a crazed expression. “He stirs!” she screamed while railing against her bonds. “Ashael awakens!”

  Davud knelt by her bedside and tried to take her hand, but it only made her thrash harder.

  “Please,” Davud said in Mirean, “tell me what you saw.”

  Her eyes locked on Davud’s. “Flee! You must flee the desert!”

  “Don’t you remember? We need to stop Ashael, but we don’t know how.”

  Chow-Shian’s expression turned to one of disgust. “He is an elder. There is no stopping him.”

  Davud shook his head. “You said I would help you to reach the land beyond. You said we’d walk hand in hand.”

  “The land beyond . . .” Chow-Shian’s eyes went distant, as if the memory were but a spark she hoped to fan into a flame.

  “You said I would lead the snow queen through the gates of ivory that together we may light the darkest day.”

  Chow-Shian blinked. “Zhenyang.”

  Davud nodded encouragingly. “Yes.”

  A terrible coughing fit overtook her. She tried to curl up, but the restraints held her in place. After a spoonful of some thick syrup from the physic, Chow-Shian’s fit slowly passed. When it was done, she looked spent but seemed calmer. “Use me,” she said. Her voice was weak, her eyes heavy. “Use me to reach the land beyond.”

  With that she collapsed back onto the mattress.

  For long moments, Queen Alansal was unreadable. “Can you do it?” she asked Davud. “Can you use her to close the gate?”