It was Dorn who first noticed the change on the horizon. He exclaimed, nudged Julien’s arm. Then lifting his voice said, “Where do you take us?”
“I told you.” The woman’s voice carried back. Cold, emotionless. “The city.”
“You think there’s nothing strange about it,” said Dorn.
She turned, eyed him with a gaze chill as her voice. “There is everything strange about it.”
They were in the scathing glare of afternoon. For some hours, had been walking thus, or so it felt to Julien. Yet now, hanging like a curtain over the landscape ahead was a night sky, shot through with stars and a full moon. There was also, from what she could see, a terrain of short grass and climbing hedges that grew low to the ground, rather than desert sand.
“So it’s into the dark, now,” said Dorn Arrin under his breath. Julien didn’t say anything. She was thinking. There was something familiar to her about this, even the abrupt transition from day to night. It was a portal of sorts, she thought, and though she did not understand portals yet … some part of her did, a little.
And she thought, as they crossed the boundary from sand to grasses, from day to dark, that the constellations showed clear and bright in a way she’d never seen. Not even when lying in the bed of moss observing the night sky beside Sendara.
“There is something about that sky,” said Julien in a hushed voice to Dorn. She didn’t want their guide to hear. “In the configuration of the stars. As if it comes together for a purpose.”
Crickets chirped from the scant trees about them. They were on a hill. From here, they could see the desert as a pinpoint of light in the distance, something already left behind. Soon it was gone, folded in on itself until it might have become one of the stars.
Downhill, not far below, the dark outline of what looked to Julien like enormous broken teeth. But that couldn’t be right. Another thing that was strange: there were no lights. The black of what she could see, the mass down the hill, seemed a void where light could not reflect; could only disappear.
She neared their guide. “Is that the city?”
“Yes.”
“But—”
The woman turned to face her. “We’re at the end of the story. That story.” She motioned a graceful arm to what looked to be a clump of trees. “And also a beginning.” Julien had the sense, in that moment, that if this woman were capable of weeping, she would; but they would be tears of blood. An image that once conjured, she could not shake away.
A new voice, a man’s. “It is done. You have your bargain.”
The voice came from the trees the woman had indicated. There was a spark, a torch was lit. The man came into view. He was bearded, attired in a cloak of scarlet with a shine like oil. A strong, handsome face in middle age. Something about him made Julien’s skin shiver on her bones.
“If that is so, where are the men-at-arms that were promised?” Another man’s voice, younger. When he emerged into the light Julien saw he was fine-featured, slender.
A laugh from the older man. “You’ll find them. They’ll be drawn to you now that you’ve made the sacrifice of ten thousand. Well, give or take. There may have been more than ten thousand souls in Vesperia. Enough to seal a pact with the deep worlds. Which is where they remain now, indefinitely. Those souls. Trapped between life and death. Will that weigh on your conscience, Yusuf Evrayad?”
Julien heard Dorn’s breath catch beside her. The name struck a chord of recognition in her, but barely.
The young man drew himself up. “Who are you to speak of conscience, Magician? You’ve proven you have none. You want only gold.”
“Which you’ve promised,” said the older man in a hiss. “And of which you’ll have plenty, now that you’re set to conquer. That is what will happen from this night, Yusuf. You’ll build a great dynasty, a legacy, on the souls of the ten thousand. They will never be freed—not unless that legacy of yours is destroyed.”
“And that will never be,” said Yusuf. “Because none shall know.” A flash in the moonlight. A blade, catching a slant of light as it arced and fell. The Magician now lay sprawled facedown on the ground. It had happened quickly, soundlessly.
They watched as the young man built a fire. A pyre where he cast the body of the Magician. He stood watching the flames for a time. In the light they cast, the dark at the base of the hill looked even more forbidding and strange. Towers that should have been upright were warped, aslant as broken bones. The gem of a moon, its attendant stars, in contrast seemed a mockery.
When at last the young man—Yusuf Evrayad, the Magician had said—turned away from the fire and began striding off into the trees, Dorn began to follow him. The woman, surprisingly, caught his arm. Her first time touching either of them. “No,” she whispered. “The story is here.”
They waited, on a moonlit hilltop where the corpse of the Magician still burned. Julien wondered why she felt no revulsion at the sounds, the smell of burning flesh. She felt distant from events as that receding pinpoint of desert light.
In Dorn’s expression she read less detachment, however. There was something that drew him to this scene, even though he likely knew as little about it as she did. She said to him, “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He seemed to struggle for words. “I feel as if, just now, everything we know—everything that’s happened—whirls about us, while we remain fixed at the center. Do you understand me?”
“Not really,” she said, but just then the woman, their guide, made a strange sound. Like a tearing of paper, but in the throat.
A figure had stepped out from the concealment of trees. By light of the moon they saw a boy. As he drew near the pyre of the Magician, where the figure of the man had nearly shriveled to cinders, the light caught his eyes. They were wide, his expression reminding Julien of a figure in a painting: those of men struck by a mortal blow. From his face, there might have been an arrow in his heart. Or a spear through his side, as in a hunting accident. But he stepped forward, nearer the fire, clearly unharmed. The color of his eyes apparent even in that uncertain light. Recognizable to Julien by now: the same color eyes as those of the woman who was their guide. A shade of turquoise, neither blue nor green.
* * *
MANSUR Evrayad had awakened finally, early one morning. Eldakar drowsed beside him in a chair. Rumor had it that the prince’s first words, uttered with irritation, were, “Damn it. Bring me a sword!” But this seemed like it might be an affectionate tale, concocted by those who rejoiced to see their prince awake.
Nameir didn’t know what to believe, but it hardly mattered. She had shown little emotion when she first saw him, leaning on the arm of his brother in the courtyard of orange trees. He was pale and weak but spoiling for a fight. He used a slew of colorful slurs in reference to their anticipated attackers, such that at first it was hard to discern a coherent narrative. But at last, “They’re coming here,” he said. “I saw it in my dreams. A gathering force. Guided by a man with bright hair. They ready themselves to attack us as they did Almyria. For them the Zahra is the ultimate prize.”
“As we suspected,” said Eldakar. “It’s why I’ve been … hesitant … to allow my troops to march northward.”
“Good. That was good,” said Mansur. He seemed feverish. The bandage on his head was concealed with a scarf—red and gold, the colors of House Evrayad. “I will need to become strong again. Nameir. You must help me. I must walk the grounds every day.”
“Of course, my prince,” she said. “We’ll spar, too, when you’re ready.”
He looked haunted. “Eldakar says … word is you risked yourself to save me. Idiocy, Hazan. You’re too valuable for such heroics.”
“We all make mistakes in the heat of battle, my prince,” she said, and took his other arm. Between them she and Eldakar helped Mansur cross the courtyard, through the slant of light from the trees and out to the gardens. There he would be tested by sloping footpaths, the stairs.
A man with
bright hair. Nameir recalled her own dreams the night the Fire Dancer had approached their camp. That now, it seemed, was likely not a Fire Dancer at all, but some illusion sent by this enemy.
Her conversation with Eldakar about freeing Garon Senn had been less complicated than she’d expected. But more unsettling.
“You’re right,” he had said, when she had come to tell him she thought Garon was innocent of the murder of Tarik Ibn-Mor. “I’ve known for some time, but … I think I deny it to myself. The truth—I don’t think I can withstand the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tarik was one of our strongest Magicians,” said Eldakar. They were in his private chambers. He stood at the window, his face turned partly away from Nameir. “It seems unlikely that someone without magic, however skilled with weapons, could have taken him unawares. Therefore the most reasonable supposition is that Tarik was killed by another Magician. One of the Six? But which? And which would be powerful enough to go against the man who made most of them what they are? They are young and not nearly as skilled as he was.”
He turned to her and what she saw in his face was familiar. She saw in it the still shock of a corpse on the battlefield. It was worse than grief. Yet when he spoke it was in an even tone, calm. “Do you see my dilemma, Nameir Hazan? Perhaps not. But I have freed Garon Senn in the meantime and put him in command of a battalion. So that is done.”
She swallowed. “My king, if we are attacked … if things go as they should not…”
“Go ahead, Nameir,” he said with gentleness. “It’s all right.”
She nodded. “It’s crucial to preserve you. It is you who unites the people. Mansur once mentioned … a means of escape from the palace. A secret known only to the royal heirs. And to me.”
“So I would be not only the weakling king,” he mused. “Weakling, cuckold, fool. Atop all that … the king who flees?”
“No. You’d be the one who rallies to save House Evrayad. The house that has kept this land united all the years, and made us prosper.”
“You are kind to say that,” he said, and looked away again to the window.
* * *
THERE was an advantage to traveling with a Magician so well acquainted with portals. When Lin first suggested they’d need horses for the ride north, Zahir laughed. Soon she found out why. For of course this was how he’d so swiftly navigated the hillsides and northlands on scouting missions. And this was how Valanir Ocune had once, that memorable night she was to become a Seer, whisked her from Tamryllin to the Tower of the Winds.
It meant there was a sense of unreality to their days and nights, a disorientation. Scarcely had they departed the walls of the city when, all at once, they were in a forest beside a creek of sweet water. The sheltering of aspen and birch trees had made the place feel remote, and through openings in the bracken she caught glimpses of mountain slopes. “This is one of my favorite places,” Zahir had told her, a hint of mischief in his eye. “Keep it between us, or the next royal hunt will be here.”
There was something about his smile, these days, that left her feeling disoriented, too. He seemed genuinely mirthful, pleased to be in her company; but underneath that was something else. She didn’t know when it had begun—whether it was with the Ifreet or with the night of Nitzan or their time in Majdara—but it was like a hook that caught at her from behind the merriment, made her look twice. The second time, often, the smile was gone.
Another night—for these travels were invariably done in dark—he brought them to a meadow where flowers stirred gently among long grasses. At daybreak, Lin awoke to see Zahir kneeling at a stone slab. It was smooth, black, with a shine to it. It was the tomb of the Magician he had mentioned earlier, now a key to their travels here. She gathered that Zahir paid his respects to the dead. So they were in Vizier Miuwiyah’s province. It would be the only time, until they reached the marches, that Lin would have some orientation as to where they were.
“How long until we are there?” she asked him once, tersely, thinking of Eldakar and the Zahra and the attack they awaited.
“Three days,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking. I wish it were faster, too.”
The day before they were to reach the fortress of the Fire Dancers, they saw smoke. It rose from between mountain peaks as if the rock itself spat it out. But Lin did not need Zahir to say, “Almyria,” to know it was what they saw.
“What hope do we have?” she said. “Even allied with the Jitana, if they’ll have us. How can we fight something like this?”
“They are Magicians,” he said. “This enemy. In that case, what we need is magic. That of the Jitana joined to ours. Take heart. Your idea was right the first time.”
But something was awry with their plan. She didn’t know how she knew, or what it was. That lack of certainty accompanied her when she lay down for the night, curled in blankets on the rough grass of the foothills south of Hariya, the highest mountain.
It was that night a girl came to her. They were camped outside, overlooking the mountain range at night. The stars above Hariya abundant and clear. Zahir was asleep, lying flat on his back to face the stars. So when the girl arrived, it was only Lin that saw her.
The girl was of small stature so it was hard to tell her age. She wore a prim, dark blue dress with lace at the collar and cuffs. A child, unremarkable, though with a cast of seriousness in her eyes.
Her eyes. Her right eye, in particular. The moon showed it clear.
Lin drew a sharp breath. “The sign,” she said. The girl nodded. She appeared sad, but could not seem yet to speak. Lin said, incredulous, “His sign. I know it. I … feel it. Who are you?”
“No one important,” said the girl. “I’m a student. Not even really a poet. When Valanir Ocune made me Seer—when he gave me his sign—he had no choice, as he saw it. It was to save you. He … he died trying to save you.” Her face crumpled, no doubt at Lin’s expression. “I’m sorry. He would not have wanted you to know that. But I have to tell you because … because it’s important. I’m here to show you something.” She beckoned, looked commanding beyond her years yet still sad. “Come.”
A doorway had opened before them in the air. It was black, blacker even than the night sky. The girl walked through and vanished. Lin followed her.
They were on the street of a city at night. So it appeared at first. Then Lin noticed that it was not a city, but a ruin. All around them were crushed walls, towers collapsed in pieces.
There was a full moon, merciless in its glare. In that glare a boy was hunched, picking through rubble. Scrabbling. His hands dark with blood where stone had cut into the skin. He had clearly been doing this for some time. His movements frantic like a rat. The low whimper he made, every so often, recalled an animal, too.
Finally he rose and faced her. It was clear he could not see her, but she knew him. Despite that he was a boy, she knew his face.
He was scratched and bloodied, coated with dirt. Clothes frayed to rags. In his eyes there was nothing left. What he recited seemed rote. As if he’d already said it many times, perhaps in the course of his long search in the stones. For in all that broken city, Lin knew, was not one living soul.
“I swear vengeance,” he said. “On my mother, my father … all Vesperia. I swear it.” He had done with weeping. Tears had made streaks in the filth. But his eyes now were dry. In a voice that could have belonged to someone much older he said, “All that you build, Yusuf Evrayad, I will destroy.”
* * *
THEY were in a khave house; Lin knew by the sweet aroma. The men seated within at tables engaged in rowdy banter. No one showed any awareness that a pair of unaccompanied women—generally off-limits in Kahishian khave houses—had entered.
The girl beside Lin stood silently. She raised her arm, pointed to a table. Lin followed the direction of her hand.
Smoking a pipe, his lute beside him on the table, sat Zahir in the guise given him by the Ifreet, when he went by the name of Haran. There
was less silver in his hair, Lin saw, though he was otherwise unchanged. He looked wary.
Seated across from him was a man uncommonly handsome, with wild red-gold hair. Though not visible in the light of the khave house, Lin knew immediately that this man had the mark of a Seer. “I appreciate your meeting me here,” he said, and Lin was stirred, even amid the noise, by the resonance of his voice. “I believe we share a common interest.”
Zahir, as Haran, leaned back in his chair. “I’d tell you it was dangerous to send me that message, but I believe you know all too well. I assume you are armed in your own ways.”
The other man nodded appreciatively. “You assume correctly. While the enchantments of my land are … dormant, for now … I have been relentless in pursuit of other skills. I’ve traveled the world in search of what my own land could not provide. On one of these journeys, I discovered a site of astonishing power. The villagers nearby made a sign of the Evil Eye when it was mentioned, told me there was a penalty of death for any who entered. I believe you already know its name. A great ruin in Ramadus, of which it is forbidden even to speak. I made it my personal mission to uncover all I could about the place … how it came to be destroyed, the manner of dark magic that hangs upon it. I followed the threads for some time. These led, at last, to you.”
“And who are you?” said Zahir. “If I am to speak further with you of such matters—of things forbidden—perhaps I should know your name. It’s clear that you are a Seer.”
“A reasonable question,” said the other man with a laugh. “My name is Elissan Diar. A Seer, yes, though it’s been a long, long time since I was at the Isle.” He leaned forward, spoke in a lower voice. “I know your purpose. The salvation of your people, of your city, can come only with the destruction of the ruling house in Majdara. Of the palace itself … its very walls built on blood. Am I right?”
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