As the Shadow Rises: Book Two of The Age of Darkness
Page 31
“Does Arash know you’re back?” she asked after a moment.
“I was about to go speak with him.”
She nodded, still staring.
“I can take you to him,” Chike offered, breaking the silence, which was beginning to grow awkward.
“Thank you,” Hassan said, tearing his gaze from Khepri. He moved past her, following Chike through the door.
“Hassan, I—” Khepri began.
Hassan turned back, hope brimming in him that she was about to apologize, or throw her arms around him.
But she just said, “I’m glad you’re back.”
Hassan’s gaze lingered on her for a moment before he replied, “Me too.”
He followed Chike down the corridor, Khepri’s barking voice behind him telling the others to get back to their business. People stared unabashedly as Hassan passed.
“She really lost it when you left,” Chike said. “She was out most nights searching for you, actually. Sefu and I were worried she was getting reckless. Haven’t seen her like that since the coup.”
Hassan didn’t think Chike intended to make him feel guilty, but he did nevertheless.
“Here we are,” Chike said, clapping Hassan on the shoulder as they stopped in front of the door to Arash’s office.
Hassan gave a faint smile in return and then took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” Arash’s weary voice inquired.
“It’s Hassan,” he said.
There was silence on the other side of the door. Hassan put a hand over his eyes, already regretting his decision.
A moment later, the door clicked open.
Hassan stood in the doorway, staring at Arash, who was still sitting at his desk. Arash waved some small object in his hand.
“This opens it,” he said, gesturing at the door. “I invented it.”
“Oh,” Hassan replied. “You must be wondering why I came back.”
“Not really.”
“I overreacted the other day,” Hasan said. “I was angry with you and with—with myself. But now I’ve had time to think. And while I was aboveground, I saw how horrifically our people are suffering at Lethia’s hands. So I came to say that you’re right. I’ve been playing it too safe. The Witnesses certainly aren’t going to pull their punches and neither should we. I guess I lost sight of who the real enemy was and I just . . . I want to make amends.”
“Do you?” Arash asked, unimpressed.
Hassan was beginning to get annoyed.
“You want to prove you’re really on our side?” Arash asked.
“Yes,” Hassan answered at once, but his stomach twisted. What would Arash ask him to do to prove his loyalty? Something worse than causing a crowd of innocent civilians to riot against their will?
“Then I want you to get it for me,” he said.
“It?” Hassan echoed.
“The Crown,” Arash answered.
“The Crown of . . . Herat?”
“No,” Arash said impatiently, looking at Hassan like he was an idiot. “The Crown that was given to the first king of Herat by the Prophet Nazirah. The Crown that will turn the tide of this battle.”
“Oh,” Hassan said, relieved for a moment that Arash wasn’t outright asking to rule the kingdom. “I told you that I don’t know where it is.”
“And I know you were lying about that.”
“I wasn’t,” Hassan insisted, perhaps the first truthful thing he’d said. An idea suddenly glimmered to life in his mind. “But I can search for it. I know more about my family’s history than anyone, so if there’s some record of what happened to the Crown, I’ll find it.”
It would be the perfect cover for his real goal—finding the text that the Hierophant wanted. He could spend all the time he needed scouring the stacks of the Great Library.
Arash watched him with careful, disbelieving eyes. “Then I suppose you should get to work.”
After three days Hassan had found nothing—neither the Crown nor the Hierophant’s scroll. The Hierophant had given him very little information. All Hassan knew was that he was looking for some sort of covenant, older than the city itself, that was marked with the symbol of a compass rose. He’d scoured the ancient texts’ vault. Twice.
On the fourth day, Khepri found him in the royal family’s private collection wing. Glass cases displayed artefacts and documents that had been collected over the centuries and deemed noteworthy by the Seif line. When this was all over, Hassan would add his own selections to it.
“What are you doing here?” Hassan asked as Khepri entered.
She looked taken aback by his tone, which had been harsher than he’d intended.
“I just wanted to check on you,” she said. “Now that you’re not—I mean, we don’t see each other as often.”
Hassan had requested his own room when he’d returned to the Library. Partly to keep his search a secret, partly because he didn’t know whether he’d be welcome in his old room with Khepri, and partly because he couldn’t stand the thought of having to constantly lie to her.
“Well, you found me,” Hassan said.
“You aren’t really taking Arash’s demand seriously are you? Proving yourself to him?” Khepri asked, running her finger along the edge of an ivory blade carved from an elephant’s tusk.
This was why he’d been avoiding her. “It’s not that I need to prove myself—I think he might be right about the Crown. Remember what you said about rebuilding? This could help us do that.”
“You changed your mind, then,” Khepri said. Hassan didn’t say anything. “Let me help you.”
The light streaming in from the high windows cast her in gold. It felt like a peace offering, and even though it would complicate matters, Hassan was too desperate to make things right between them to say no.
Hassan laughed, trying not to sound as nervous as he felt. “I think you’re probably better suited to the action.”
Khepri looked affronted. “Excuse you, just because I’m strong doesn’t mean I don’t know how to read.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Hassan said, a smile breaking loose on his face. It felt nice to joke with her again. Like old times.
“Of course not.” She picked up a knife, tossing it from one hand to the other.
“Be careful with this stuff,” Hassan warned. “You don’t know what it does.”
Khepri grinned and spun the knife in her hand. “You really think your family is hiding the Crown down here?”
“No,” Hassan admitted, examining a record his great-great grandmother had evidently added to the collection. It declared the admittance of non-Herati scholars to the Great Library, a decision that had ushered in a golden age of innovation in Herat. “But there may be some evidence of it.”
“Well, where’s the oldest stuff in here? From the time of the first king?”
Hassan didn’t answer. He couldn’t keep the memories from surfacing. His father had taken him to this wing of the Library many times before. He knew it better than some of the rooms in the palace.
Legacy, his father had always said. This is our legacy.
This place connected Hassan to his past, to his future. And it connected him to his father. He could almost see him, standing in the room, his gentle smile as he talked to Hassan about the history of Nazirah. Their history.
He felt a touch at his elbow and turned to find Khepri standing beside him.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.
He saw Khepri’s tender expression, and had to look away. He spotted a familiar golden crocodile statue in the corner of the room. It brought on another memory—and a hunch.
Every time they visited this wing, without fail, his father would stop at the statue and touch the crocodile’s snout. They weren’t supposed to touch anything in the room, and his father always did it with a little wink, like he was getting away with something.
Hassan had asked him, once, th
e significance of the crocodile, who seemed out of place in this room of official documents and items of historical significance.
“He’s the most important thing in this room,” his father had replied. “The keeper of Nazirah’s oldest secrets.”
Hassan had never really known if his father was just teasing him. For all he knew, the crocodile was just a gift to the royal family from an important nobleman or something.
There was only one way to find out.
Hassan drifted over to the crocodile. The gold snout was cold under his fingers. The crocodile’s eyes gleamed at him. Hassan stopped short. A symbol was carved into one of them. A circle with four points—a compass rose.
Hassan glanced at Khepri, waiting until she turned away before he leaned closer to inspect the crocodile. Curled within its mouth, what Hassan had at first assumed to be a tongue, was a piece of parchment. He ran his hand over the crocodile’s teeth. He had the sudden, absurd impression that its jaw would snap shut on his fingers. He yanked his hand away.
The crocodile’s eye peered at him. Without thinking, Hassan pressed a finger to it.
The crocodile’s jaw snapped open. Hassan leapt back, heart pounding for a moment until he realized the crocodile had not, in fact, just come alive. But its jaw was now open wide enough for Hassan to reach in with shaking hands and pull out the parchment. It was sealed with wax, impressed with the same compass rose symbol as the crocodile.
This was it. This was what the Hierophant wanted. Hassan unfurled it with shaking fingers. Like the Hierophant had said, it was a covenant, that looked to be signed in blood.
We, the Protectors of the Lost Rose, sign and seal this covenant, which serves as the first, and only, record of our existence, and the existence of the Four Sacred Relics:
The Crown of Herat, given to the first king by Nazirah the Wise. The first of the Four Relics, the source of the Grace of Mind.
The Crown? Was the Hierophant after it, too? And according to this, it wasn’t just a powerful artefact, it was the source of the Grace of Mind. Did Arash know? And why did his father have this covenant?
Hassan kept reading.
The Pinnacle Blade, given to the first Keeper of the Word by Pallas the Faithful. The second of the Four Relics, the source of the Grace of Heart.
The Blood Chalice, given to the Sacrificed Queen by Behezda the Merciful. The third of the Four Relics, the source of the Grace of Blood.
The Oracle Stone, kept by the Wanderer, the last of the Four Relics and source of the Grace of Sight.
These Four Relics are the remains of the Great Deity, the Creator, the one who the Prophets slew. The powers bestowed by these Relics are the powers of the God, given to these mortals by the Prophets. Our duty is to protect them, to keep them from falling into the hands of those who might abuse their power.
Hassan almost dropped the scroll. The powers of an ancient god? That couldn’t possibly be real.
What had his father been doing, hiding a text like this?
“Hassan?” Khepri said, her voice ringing through Hassan’s whirling thoughts.
Hassan scrunched up the scroll and turned around swiftly.
She stepped close. “What is that? Did you find it?”
“No,” Hassan said, too loud and too quick. “This is just some old list of court advisors.”
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to find anything in here. Let’s go to dinner and we can keep looking tomorrow.”
Hassan waited until Khepri turned away to stuff the scroll into his pocket.
Whatever this text was, true or not, he was now fairly certain that Arash and the Hierophant were after the same thing—the Crown.
Hassan had to keep them both from getting it.
40
BERU
BERU GROANED, ROLLING ONTO HER SIDE. HER HEAD SWAM AS SHE OPENED her eyes against the glare of the sun.
“Hector,” she mumbled. “Where’s—Hector.”
Someone gripped her arm, helping her sit up. “There’s a dear. You’re all right now.”
Beru wiped at her eyes and turned to face Azar. His gaunt face swam before her.
The memory of Hector walking away came back to her. “Hector,” she said again, jolting forward to grab Azar’s shoulders. “You need to go after him. Please. I’m not strong enough, and I can’t let him do this.”
“If I go, we must both go,” Azar said. “I cannot leave you here to die.”
“Then I’ll die out there,” Beru said. “I’m too weak.”
“Not if I restore you again.”
“I thought you needed Hector for that,” Beru said uncertainly.
“Not necessarily,” Azar replied. “Not if I can take enough esha from somewhere else.”
“No,” Beru said. “I won’t let another person die for me.”
“Not a person,” Azar said. “But a place.”
Beru swallowed. “What . . . what do you mean?”
Azar gestured around them. “This oasis. There is so much esha contained here. Much more than the amount needed to fuel a single person’s life. If I sucked all the esha from every living thing here—it would be enough.”
“You would do that?” Beru asked. “Destroy your home for me?”
Azar’s lips curled. “My dear girl. Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
Beru’s stomach dropped.
“This place isn’t my home. It’s my prison.”
Beru reeled back. “What are you talking about? What prison?”
“The Daughters of Mercy put me here,” Azar said, gazing out at the turquoise pools and the swaying palms. “They didn’t know what else to do with me, you see. I was too powerful. Too powerful for them to kill. So they took the esha of everyone I’d brought back and used it to make this place. It became my prison—I needed its life to sustain me, for if I try to venture too far, I begin to fade. Much like you.”
“Everyone you brought back?” Beru asked. “You mean—”
“Yes,” Azar said, his eyes flashing. “Like your dear sister, I know how to raise the dead. In fact, you might say I mastered it.”
“It was you,” Beru realized. “You’re the one who brought Hector back.”
Azar smiled. “Thought you’d figure it out sooner.”
“But why?”
“As a favor, to an old friend,” Azar replied. “She brought him to me and asked me to resurrect him. So I did.”
“Who are you?” she asked. Not just anyone could bring back the dead. Aside from Ephyra, Beru had only ever heard of one other person who could.
“I was a king, once,” he said in a tone that was almost wistful. “Until they took that away from me and left me here to rot.”
“You can’t be him,” she said, her voice shaking. “The Necromancer King lived almost five hundred years ago.”
“I look rather good for my age, don’t I?” he said, sweeping a hand down his arm. “As I told you when you arrived here, the oasis provides all I need. But now that you’re here, I no longer require it.”
“What do you want?” Beru demanded. Her voice shook. Hector was gone, and she was alone with one of the most dangerous men to ever live.
“I have been trapped in this oasis for almost five hundred years. All I want is my freedom. And you can give it to me.”
“Your freedom,” Beru echoed. “And then what?”
“And then my revenge.”
“It’s been five hundred years,” Beru said. “Whoever did this to you is long since dead. The Daughters of Mercy—”
“Not the Daughters,” the Necromancer King spat. “The ones they serve. The ones who foresaw my downfall.”
“The Prophets?” Beru asked. “They’re . . . they’re gone. It’s been over a hundred years since they disappeared.”
“They are not gone,” the Necromancer King said. “They simply don’t want to be found.”
“That’s . . . impossible.”
“And just a few moments ago, you believed it was impossible that the
Necromancer King could still be alive.”
“Why are you even telling me this?” Beru asked.
“Because we were meant to find each other, Beru of Medea,” the Necromancer King said, his fingers brushing the curls beside her ear tenderly. “We can help each other. Once I’ve filled you with the esha of this oasis, I can siphon it from you the way I have siphoned it from my prison these last few centuries. And once I have the Chalice, I can give you your life back.”
“I won’t help you,” Beru said. “Whatever it is you’re doing I—I won’t be a part of it.”
“My dear,” the Necromancer King said. “It is charming that you think you have a choice.”
His long fingers wrapped around her wrist and a surge of warm esha flowed through her. She gasped, watching as the copse of palm trees around them shriveled and died. The song of the birds above stopped abruptly and dozens of dark shapes plummeted to the ground. Sand overtook the grass. All around them the oasis withered and crumbled.
The Necromancer King released Beru’s wrist and she fell to her knees in the sand. Wind swirled around her. Energy surged in her veins. She felt alight with it, every part of her tingling with life.
“The Chalice has been reawakened.” The Necromancer King held out his hand. “It’s time to go.”
The esha swirling inside Beru felt like a roiling sea.
“I’m not going with you,” she said. “You need me to leave this place, don’t you? Well, I won’t.”
“That is rather unfortunate,” the Necromancer King said. “I thought you wanted your swordsman to stay alive.”
Beru looked up at him, realizing with horror what he meant. “You can’t hurt him. He’s gone.”
“Your esha is connected to his,” the Necromancer King replied. “I can pull it out through you.”
“You’re . . . you’re lying,” she said.
“Am I?”
Beru dug her fingers into the sand as the esha of the oasis shrieked inside her. She could let him kill her in this hollowed-out place. Let Hector die, too. Or she could go with the Necromancer King and hope to stop whatever he had planned.