It felt as if he was coming to know the desert as a part of it. The notion caused his newfound senses to falter and he immediately halted, closed his eyes, and lost himself in the sigh of the wind as it tugged at his curly hair. He felt the sun’s relentless heat along his left side. While he listened to the breathy sigh of sand along the dunes, he found peace once more, and the strange sensation returned.
He opened his eyes to see the sand swirling before him in lazy patterns. The patterns held meaning, he knew, but they felt unknowable. They may as well have been the writings of an elder god. And yet he knew enough to know they had meaning, which was a miracle in itself. It was Rümayesh’s influence, a thing he ought to be more concerned about, but he’d given up trying to escape her. He’d agreed to walk with her for a time, so why not learn more of the desert while he did?
The moment became so powerful he realized he could feel Rümayesh somewhere far, far away. He felt as if, were he to take one step toward her, he would turn to sand and be borne upon the wind until he was lain at her feet, whole once more. She would kiss the crown of his head and the two of them would become as one. They would explore the desert together, as she’d promised, and she would shelter him from all danger. Through ages they would walk, side by side, the lord of all things coming to take his hand only when she’d tired of his company.
He was nearly ready to do it. The urge was intoxicating, almost overwhelming. But he was jarred by a bitter scent on the wind. Something new had come to this part of the desert, which might be friend or foe. He turned and breathed deeply, knowing, without knowing how he knew, that he would find it in that direction. In the moment he’d made up his mind to learn more, the swirling wind vanished and the sand fell about him like rain.
After shaking it from his hair, he considered the horizon. Whatever he’d sensed, it was something old, something deeper than the desert. He felt heady from it. For days and nights he followed that scent, and one morning spotted an amber haze lifting along the horizon. His first thought was a caravan, but this was something much, much larger.
Rümayesh had said before she’d left, “War has come to the desert.”
“Are you certain, then, that we should part?”
Sensing his true meaning, she’d smiled and caressed his cheek. “You have nothing to fear. And you need time to learn the desert on your own.”
He hadn’t known what she’d meant then, but in the days that followed, his new senses had been born—his ability to see the magic that made up the world—and he’d come to know the desert in ways he could never have before. He knew he should hate Rümayesh for all she’d done to him, but for this he was glad.
As high sun arrived he reached the edges of Aldiir, the largest caravanserai along the desert’s northerly passage, roughly halfway between Sharakhai and the southern border of Mirea. To the right of the cluster of mudbrick buildings were daubs of blue-green, pools of water choked with all manner of greenery, from tall grasses to spearsheaf bushes to the occasional date tree.
Beyond the serai, a great fleet of ships was arrayed in a protective ring. Brama had heard of them. Dunebreakers, they were called, four-masted affairs with double-decked forecastles and aftcastles. And they were tall, taller than he thought sandships could be. They had strange, huge wheels affixed to the sides of the hulls at the ships’ centers, apparently to help dig them out of trouble, though if that was the case why wouldn’t they just make the damned ships smaller to begin with? They were so cumbersome it hardly seemed they could navigate the desert, much less bear an army toward Sharakhai.
A horn blew, and three riders left the ring of ships and came riding toward him. The lead rider sat atop a dappled brown mare. He wore light leather armor and a conical reed hat. More curious was his cream-colored skin and his hair, which was paler than bleached bones. The other two riders wore lacquered armor, their faces hidden by the grinning demon masks of their helms. They rode qirin, powerful mounts with the body of a horse but the neck and head of a dragon, with huge coiled horns atop their heads. And while their coats along their midsection and haunches were chestnut roan, the scales along their forelegs, neck, and head were a powdery blue that shone red under the light of the hot desert sun.
The lead rider urged his horse ahead of the qirin knights. His icy eyes pierced Brama as he reined to a stop. Though they made no move to raise them, the knights behind him each held a bow with an arrow nocked. In the glaring sun, the arrowheads glinted like diamonds. It took Brama a moment to realize why. They were diamonds. The thief in him wondered how many more were in their quivers. He wondered at their quality. But those were old instincts from a different life, and he set the thoughts aside as useless.
Their albino leader took in the weave of scars covering Brama’s face, neck, and hands. “State your name,” he said in perfect Sharakhan.
“I am Brama Junayd’ava. And you?” A memory tickled at the back of Brama’s mind. He’d seen the man before, but couldn’t place where.
He peered at Brama’s scar-riddled face. “You’re the Tattered Prince, the one who used to heal addicts in the Knot.”
Brama gave him a theatrical bow. “We are one and the same.”
The man scanned the horizon beyond Brama as if he expected someone else to be there. “Your business here?”
It was that word, business, that unlocked the memory. Brama had gone to the fighting pits often when he was young, and he’d seen this Mirean man there, quite a few times actually, usually as a guest in Osman’s personal seats. “You’re Juvaal . . . No, Juvaan. The Mirean ambassador.”
Juvaan’s eyes remained cold. “I asked you your business.”
Brama smiled. “I need give no answers to an interloper in the desert.”
The qirin warriors, one to either side of him, lifted their bows and drew their diamond-tipped arrows back, but at a wave from Juvaan, they lowered them again. Juvaan slipped down from his saddle and walked across the grasping sand, stopping several paces from Brama. He was wary—more than Brama would have expected on finding a lone man walking in the desert—but there was no fear in his eyes. “I must know what brought you here.”
“Is curiosity not a good enough answer?” Brama waved toward the towering ships. “It’s not every day one sees an army invading the Great Shangazi.”
Juvaan seemed disappointed. He retrieved something from a small bag at his belt: a glazed, plum-sized pot with holes in it. When he lifted the lid, an emerald green dragonfly with pink wings flew out. It glittered as it flew, the color of its wings shifting from pink to blue to green and back again. It hovered before Brama, buzzed past his ear, only to return a moment later as if waiting for something.
Brama crooked a finger toward it, and there it landed, fanning its wings like the dragonflies along the Haddah in spring. Of a sudden it began beating its wings in such a way that it created a drone. It was louder than Brama would have given it credit for. He felt it in his chest. Goezhen’s sweet kiss, it made his mouth itch. Juvaan, as though he’d been expecting this, gave nothing away. He set the lid of the pot against the clay rim and began circling it slowly. It produced another sort of sound, a crystalline ring. The dragonfly, clearly summoned by the sound, launched itself, arced through the air, landed on the pot, and crawled inside.
Juvaan quickly replaced the lid and secreted the pot inside his bag. “Would you care for some tea?”
“Tea?” Brama waited for further explanation, but Juvaan only smiled and waved to the encampment. “What did that bloody thing just do?”
“All will be explained.” Juvaan waved again, this time bowing his head. “Please. My queen would be honored if you would join her.”
Brama laughed. “Well then, by all means, let’s have tea with the queen!”
At a quiet word from Juvaan the two qirin warriors rode away, taking Juvaan’s horse with them. Juvaan then led Brama on foot beyond the caravanserai and toward the rin
g of ships. As they passed between two of the tall dunebreakers, more knights in lacquered armor and demon masks watched them pass from atop the decks, bows at the ready. Workmen called. Soldiers moved to and fro. From somewhere beyond the circle of dunebreakers, a strange call sounded—a cross between an elephant’s trumpet and a sand drake’s hiss. Brama looked to his escort, but none of them seemed put off by it.
In the center of the camp was a pavilion of white silk that shimmered as the wind made its roof roll in easy waves. Around it, in a circular pattern within the ring of ships, stood similar but smaller tents. Some few soldiers stood sentry here, but by and large servants seemed to dominate the space.
Why are they camped here anyway? Brama thought. If their purpose is conquest, shouldn’t they be sailing hard for Sharakhai?
Juvaan led them inside the central pavilion, where the sand was covered by a host of fine Mirean carpets, a variety of low tables, and piles of pillows meant for sitting. All around the pavilion, standing inside the wooden poles, were more warriors like the first two, each wearing a demon mask, each with a diamond-tipped arrow nocked across their bow.
Across the tent from Brama was a dais, upon which rested an ornate wooden chair. Sitting cross-legged upon it was a woman of perhaps fifty summers wearing a fine silk robe with long, flowing sleeves. The black silk was embellished with thousands of tiny pearls in the shapes of lotuses and marsh grasses. A wide crimson belt wrapped her waist. Her lustrous black hair was done up a in perfect bun, which was held in place by an ornamental headdress and a pair of gleaming steel pins, each as long as her forearm.
Juvaan bowed and spoke quickly in Mirean, then bowed again and said in Sharakhan, “My Queen Alansal, I bring you Brama Junayd’ava.”
The queen smiled as Juvaan backed away and left them in peace. Her smile was pleasant enough, but her eyes were hungry. “I’m pleased you found us.” Her Sharakhan was noticeably slower than Juvaan’s, and had a thick Mirean accent. Holding one sleeve, she used her opposite hand to wave to the pile of pillows before her. “Sit if you would.”
Brama did, more curious than anything else. He had no idea why they were treating him this way, but he was willing to play this game if they were.
They brought him rice wine that tasted of grapes and fennel and fresh cut grass. They served him dumplings filled with minced pork, onion, and water chestnuts that were both savory and sweet, with a texture that was at first chewy but then melted in his mouth. These were followed by disks of steamed, jasmine rice with bull’s-eye centers made from a fragrant radish and pickled carrots. More platters came, all bearing bite-sized food with flavors the likes of which Brama had never tasted. The last had crunchy black seeds that made his lips and tongue tingle.
When he was sure he would burst if he had another bite, he lounged against his pillows and sipped from his glass of sweet plum wine. “What is it you need?”
The abruptness of the question didn’t seem to faze Queen Alansal. “As you may have guessed,” she said, “my fleet has come to the desert to topple the twelve Kings, now somewhat fewer in number, from power.”
“That’s hardly a surprise.”
The queen smiled, fine lines showing at the corners of her eyes and mouth. “No, no surprise, but I wonder. Would it bother you?”
“If the Kings no longer sat atop Tauriyat?”
Holding her long sleeve with care, the queen smiled and took a sip of wine. “Yes.”
“No, I don’t suppose it would.”
“And would you care to help?”
The game, such as it was, was becoming more elaborate by the moment. “How?”
“The Kings will meet us here soon enough, and we will defeat them. No matter that the Mad King of Malasan has sent a fleet to take the Amber Jewel. No matter that Kundhun supports the failing, flailing Kings. No matter that the Qaimiri Queen thinks to swoop in when the Kings are at their weakest. We will still win, and I wish to avoid as much bloodshed as possible. Help us convince the Kings of this inevitability now. Help us crush their fleet and leave them defenseless as we advance on the city. Our fleet is mighty, and with you at our side we could do just that.”
Through the alcohol haze, Brama thought he was beginning to understand. The queen thought he was an ehrekh. Rümayesh’s taint on him had caused the dragonfly to land on him and buzz in that strange manner. And it was the promise of an ehrekh’s power that had led to the queen of Mirea making an offer to a man who otherwise looked like what he truly was: a one-time thief who’d somehow, improbably, befriended one of the most ancient and powerful creatures in the Great Shangazi.
Brama wasn’t about to give up the game just yet, though. “I see how your aims might be furthered, but there is nothing free in the desert.”
This drew a smile that made the queen seem ancient. It was a knowing smile, the smile of a woman who knew the hearts of men at but a word. “Nor beyond the mountains,” she said softly. “There are many things Mirea might offer you. You have but to name your price.”
Brama might be young, but he was no stranger to bargaining. “You put a scent on the wind that I might be drawn near. You did so because you already have something to offer, something you’re sure will be of interest.”
At this Alansal paused. She set down her glass of plum wine and stared more deeply into Brama’s eyes than she had before. “It is said that Goezhen bestowed upon you his own thirst. It is said that you hunger for the touch of the lost gods. It is said that you would pay dearly for but a glimpse of who they once were. Is it not so, Brama Junayd’ava?”
She spoke his name in singsong, as though the two of them were conspirators and she knew that some other name, his true name, hid behind it, waiting to be spoken. He might even have felt a compulsion to tell her what it was. But he resisted that call, thinking more on what she was implying. He’d felt Rümayesh’s cravings. Most often it was to taste mortal women and men, to experience life as they did, but that desire was driven by something deeper, something as much a part of her as her midnight skin and curving horns. She’d never said it, but Brama had felt her thoughts. She wanted the touch of the old gods. She needed it. It was why she occasionally gave in and tortured some of her victims, so that she might taste the blood of mortals, and through them, the blood of the old gods, who had given of themselves that mortal man might live and follow them to the farther fields once they’d died.
Now here was the queen of a distant land, claiming to offer him the same: a touch of the lost gods. Something greater than the blood of mortals, which an ehrekh could have at any time she wished.
“What do you have?” Brama asked.
From around her neck Queen Alansal unclasped a necklace, the pendant a glass vial with a cork stopper. Brama couldn’t quite make out what was inside it. It was dark, whatever it was, and scintillant. It reminded him of raw iron ore.
“The first gods left these shores long ago,” the queen said. “Half an age passed before mortals even learned of it. The young gods searched for them and, upon learning of their departure, wept. Some went to the places the elder gods often visited, to remind themselves of happier days. Others collected and hoarded artifacts made by their elders. Others searched for their bodily remains, then hoarded them away. Not all were found, however, and when mortals learned of this, they searched as well. Wars were fought over pieces as small as a fingernail. The young gods sometimes entered the fray, such was their desire for these remnants.” She peered into the vial. “Such was the power of the elders who made our world.”
She let the words settle between them like a hand offered in friendship. Brama couldn’t claim to understand it all, but he understood enough to know what was inside the vial. He nodded to it as casually as he could. “That’s what you’re offering me, a taste of the old gods?”
“No.” She handed the vial to a servant, who delivered it to Brama. “I have an entire finger bone of Raamajit the Exalted. Th
is is but a scraping from that very bone, which I offer to you freely that you might know what I say is true.”
As Brama stared at the vial in wonder, the queen motioned for him to continue. With great care, he held the vial to his nose, pulled the cork, and breathed in the scent.
His head tipped backward from the feeling of power that stormed through him. His fingers tingled. His bones ached. He tried in vain to keep it all in, but the urge to laugh came bubbling up from inside him. He laughed long and hard, a child before an unexpected thousand-layer sweet.
When he and Rümayesh had joined hands after the Battle of Blackspear, the great battle King Onur had waged against the thirteenth tribe, it had freed Brama’s mind of all the pain and doubt burdening him like hundredweights. But that same transaction, whether Rümayesh had intended it or not, had transferred some small amount of her power to him. It had been a rush the likes of which he’d never experienced before. This was similar, but deeper, wider. However connected to the Shangazi he’d felt before, now he was the desert’s master. It was incomprehensible that the mere scent of a thing could possess such power.
“What say you, Rümayesh?” Queen Alansal said. “Will you enter into this bargain with us?”
Brama might have been surprised to hear Rümayesh’s name had the bone’s power not been running through him, but much of what had been hidden moments ago was now revealed, as if the shutters had been opened in an ill-used room, revealing motes of dust in the air, a layer of dirt on the floor. The diamond-tipped arrowheads of the nearby warriors seemed to glow. There was a palpable sheen to Queen Alansal’s skin. And there was a thread that ran from him to another. Rümayesh. Her presence had been veiled but was now clear as day, the connection gaining substance until it felt like a tendril of wool, easy to grip, easier to cut.
Brama swallowed hard, hoping Rümayesh hadn’t sensed his sudden nervousness or that, if she had, she attributed it to his standing before the queen of Mirea, not from the thought of what he might do with so much power.
Beneath the Twisted Trees Page 3
