Beneath the Twisted Trees

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “What happened to you”—with his glass, Dayan waved to the ship’s hull, a nod to the desert beyond—“we call it the Great Mother’s kiss.”

  Emre tipped his head. “The perfect phrase. The Shangazi infused me and made me realize how precious life is in the desert. Not just the tribes, but Sharakhai as well. If we take one wrong step, we could be gone.”

  “You see our reality, then. Some small part of it, in any case. You are but a child to the desert by your own admission, but now you see how carefully each of us must tread, each tribe, lest we be caught in the storm, a thing not of our making but which might kill us all the same.”

  “This is my point. Just as I cannot understand how life has been here in the desert, you cannot see what life has been like in Sharakhai. Together, however, we might find a way to navigate the dunes.”

  “You’re about to tell me that the Kings are ready to fall.”

  “They are, but that isn’t my point. The cruel Sharakhani Kings, the Mad King of Malasan, the ageless Queen of Mirea, the blood mage who inherited the throne of Qaimir from her father.” It was Emre’s turn to point beyond the walls of the ship. “Do you see the game they play? Do you see how little they care whose territory they sail through, be it Kadri, Salmük, Kenan, or Halarijan?”

  For the first time, Dayan seemed put upon. “Their ships number in the hundreds. Their soldiers in the tens of thousands.”

  “Yes, but what would the combined ships of the desert tribes number? How many spears might be rallied to our side?”

  Dayan snorted. “A question whose answer has no value. It will never happen.”

  “But it can.”

  “Neylana has already denied you.”

  “All it takes is one. Then another and another. We have four already. Macide is speaking to Ebros, Ulmahir, and Tulogal. We are at the tipping point.” Emre lifted his glass. “Join us, Shaikh Dayan. Join us, and the western desert will follow. Join us, and Neylana will be forced to join as well. She will not be left out, not when all the other tribes have entered the alliance.”

  Dayan stared into his glass. His smile had long since faded, but he was staring at the araq as if he now found it distasteful. He lowered the glass, then set it down with a clack against the desk before him. His look was so unlike the Dayan Emre had come to know over these past few days that Emre was certain he’d lost him, that Dayan was offended in some way. But then Dayan’s expression turned resolute.

  “I want first salvage rights once the Malasani fleet has been defeated. Twenty ships of our choice.”

  A white flame of joy lit inside Emre—he could hardly believe his ears—but he quickly tempered his enthusiasm. Dayan had not yet agreed, after all. “We don’t yet know how many ships there will be, but surely we can promise ten.”

  “Give us twelve, plus all their plunder.”

  Emre made a show of considering, then stood and held out his hand. “Done.”

  “Very well, Emre Aykan’ava”—Dayan stood and gripped Emre’s forearm with a bejeweled hand—“Kenan will join the alliance.”

  Emre smiled as they shook arms. “The desert united.”

  Dayan considered the phrase, and seemed pleased by it. “The desert united.”

  In the end, Dayan agreed to give them five ships, each outfitted with warriors who would be at Emre’s beck and call until the full alliance had had a chance to meet and discuss their plans. They were given a host of supplies as well, including crates of their famed healing unguent that would serve the alliance well.

  By the time Emre and Dayan were done talking, the camp was abuzz with the news. But Emre’s conversation with Hamid was still bothering him. His mind kept wandering to the replies they’d received from Dayan and Neylana before the meeting, their abrupt turn away during the council.

  And there was Hamid as well. He hadn’t let things rest since their last conversation. Twice Emre had seen him on deck, glaring at Haddad’s dhow, Calamity’s Reign, like he wanted to march over to it and do what Emre wouldn’t. Both times he’d turned to Emre as if he knew full well he was being watched, then gone on about his business as if Emre didn’t exist. As Emre returned to the Amaranth, the bright glow he had from getting Dayan to agree to join the alliance dimmed after a chilling exchange with Frail Lemi.

  The big man was standing on deck, cracking his knuckles, the muscles along his arms and shoulder rippling in the sun. “Time to take care of things, Emre?” It was the sort of thing he used to say in Sharakhai before leaving to get an unruly scarab, a soldier of the Moonless Host, to step back in line, or to send an unmistakable message to the Host’s enemies.

  In this case, however, Emre had no idea what he was talking about, not at first. “Take care of what, Lem?”

  He jutted his chin at Calamity’s Reign, staring at it much as Hamid had. “Hamid said we’d be going soon.”

  Suddenly the reason for Frail Lemi’s excitement was crystal clear. But Emre kept the confused look on his face. He couldn’t have Lemi getting himself worked up, and the best way to do that was not to order him to stand down but to pretend to be confused. Like the spreading of an infectious yawn, it always seemed to scatter Lemi’s darker thoughts.

  “I’ve no idea what you mean. Going to do what?”

  He shrugged as if he couldn’t understand why Emre didn’t know what he was talking about, but didn’t want to admit it for fear of embarrassing himself. “To take care of things.”

  Emre felt bad. He could see Frail Lemi trying to work out where he’d gotten things wrong, but better that than him heading off to Calamity’s Reign on his own with a spear in his hand. “Let me go talk to Hamid, okay? I’ll get this all straightened out.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he went belowdecks. He found Hamid sitting on his own bunk, sharpening a straight razor on a whetstone. In Sharakhai, the razor had been Hamid’s weapon of choice when dealing with the Moonless Host’s looser ends.

  “Didn’t I tell you to tend to your own business?”

  “I have been. The question is whether you’ve been tending to yours.”

  “Put the fucking razor away, Hamid.”

  Without taking his eyes off Emre, Hamid folded the razor, dropped it and the whetstone into the chest at the foot of his bed, and gave the lid a gentle shove. It set home with a hollow thud.

  “Leave Haddad alone,” Emre said.

  “Certainly.”

  Hamid stood and tried to walk past, but Emre took the front of his thawb in both fists and shoved him backward until he thumped against the cabin wall. Staring straight into Hamid’s cold-blooded eyes, he said, “Leave Haddad alone, and stop putting things into Lemi’s head.”

  “I would dream of nothing else.”

  His amused look nearly made Emre punch him across the jaw. Gods help him, he thought about waiting until they were asleep and taking that razor to Hamid’s throat. But what would that solve in the end? Violence was a cancer.

  He shoved Hamid against the wall one last time, then left the hold and headed across the deck toward his own cabin. He slammed the door and sat, fuming for a long while, rocking back in his chair. Across from him, in a series of shelves, were a half-dozen bottles of araq, all of different shapes, all from different tribes. No Tulogal, though.

  The taste of it was still on his tongue. It was a rare thing, Tulogal, especially in this part of the desert. It was conceivable Dayan had traded for the bottle he’d shared with Emre long before their council. But Macide had had several bottles, which he’d made a point of spiriting away from the city before the Moonless Host had been driven into the desert. Haddad had traded for two of them. One each for Dayan and Neylana? A way to soften them as her negotiations with them began?

  He went and poured his own drink, an araq with a strong bite and a clean copper finish.

  He knew his anger with Hamid was as much about embarrassment over his
own inaction as it was fear for Haddad’s safety. He’d been putting off speaking to her precisely because Hamid had made a stink about it. As mad and bloodthirsty as Hamid was, Emre had to admit he had a nose for rooting out trouble—even when they were kids. It was a sixth sense that had kept him and others alive time and time again. He might be sick to death of Hamid’s constant pushing, but he couldn’t jeopardize the tribe just because he didn’t want to listen to Hamid’s advice. He had to know the truth.

  Before he knew it his steps were leading him down the gangplank and over the sand toward Calamity’s Reign. When he arrived, however, Haddad was gone.

  “Where is she?” he asked her lanky first mate.

  The crewman made a sour face. Acid scars covered much of his neck and face, evidence of the battle with the great wyrm during the Battle of Blackspear. It was his sneer, though, that made Emre want to punch him. “You think you’re entitled to special treatment aboard this ship, but you’re not, scarab.”

  Emre took a step forward. “I asked you where Haddad was.”

  “Off fucking your lamb of a father, I suppose.”

  When Emre made for Haddad’s cabin at the rear of the ship, the mate intercepted, drawing his slim knife as he did so. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “I’m going to speak to her,” Emre said.

  The mate didn’t budge.

  “I’m going to speak to Haddad”—Emre put a hand on his own knife—“now get that ugly, dungheap of a face from my sight before I—”

  “What do you want, Emre?”

  He and the mate both turned to find Haddad stalking up the gangplank. She reached the deck and made straight for her cabin, but Emre met her near the mainmast. “We need to talk.”

  She stopped, taking a deep breath before looking him in the eyes. “I’m rather busy at the moment.” Her Malasani accent was thick, the way it got when her blood was up.

  “Make the time.”

  She looked ready to say something rash, and Emre could feel her first mate looming behind him. Emre was ready for him to make a move, but just then Haddad deflated with a sharp huff and waved her mate away.

  She made for her cabin, but Emre immediately said, “In the hold, Haddad.”

  She spun, a look of terrible anger darkening her features. Not embarrassment, he realized, nor worry, but pure anger. He walked to the hatch, where the first mate was standing. He had a leg on it, preventing it from being slid aside so that Emre could enter.

  “Open it,” Haddad said.

  The mate remained where he was, eyeing Haddad with a stony stare.

  “Open it.” This time it was a sharp command spoken in Malasani.

  The mate did, and Emre and Haddad descended.

  “You’re a bit upset,” Emre said when they were alone.

  “You’re bloody well right I’m upset! You would be too if I’d just upended all of your negotiations with Dayan!”

  “And how did I do that?”

  “By forcing him to shift his plans!”

  “You got what you wanted ahead of the council. You said so yourself. You practically rubbed my nose in it!”

  She waved to the stacks and stacks of roped-off crates around them. “Do you know anything about business, Emre? I made an arrangement with Dayan to buy a few crates of unguent, yes. But do you think for a second that was the end of it? I’ve worked for years to secure a handful of lucrative contracts, but that’s all turned to shit because of King Onur and his aggressions against the eastern tribes, and now the war. I might make a few deals here and there, but if I want to survive, if I want to feed my crew and their families back home, not to mention my own, then I need sustained trade. Sustained, Emre. That’s the bread that feeds. Not the crumbs that come from a few crates of healing mud.”

  “Did you give them bottles of Tulogal?”

  She stared at him as if he were mad. “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  “To wax the skis, Emre!”

  “Hamid thinks the money wasn’t for trade, but to buy them off. That you paid them to look the other way as the war plays itself out, and to get trade routes ready for when Malasan takes Sharakhai.”

  “That’s what Hamid thinks or what you think?”

  “Did you?”

  Her look turned cold. She looked hurt, but Emre genuinely couldn’t tell if she was faking it or not.

  “Open the crates, Haddad.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You really want to do this?”

  “I have to know.”

  “Do this, Emre, and it will be the end of us.”

  He wished it hadn’t come to this, but for the tribe, for the desert, he needed to be sure.

  “Very well,” she said, and stalked over to a set of crates marked with the rusty red sign of Kenan. She pulled at the ropes securing them to the hull, took up a pry bar hanging from a nail, and levered the lid open. Inside, cradled in straw, were piles of clay ointment jars. She opened one and slapped it into Emre’s palm. As the pungent smell wafted into the stuffy air of the hold, she moved on to another crate, similarly filled, and another and another. She took out longer crates and opened those as well. They contained trays of unstrung bows made from the wood of the fabled ivory ash trees found only in Halarijan territory. When she’d opened them all, she swung the pry bar back and forth as if in that moment she wanted nothing more than to bring it crashing against Emre’s head.

  “Satisfied?”

  Emre stared down at the gray unguent streaked with purple. He closed the lid and tossed it into the crate it had come from. “I had to know.”

  “I don’t blame you,” she said, though her look belied her words. “Now get the fuck off my ship.”

  Chapter 20

  I AM KIRAL, KING OF KINGS, Lord of Sharakhai. I am Kiral, King of Kings, Lord of the Amber Jewel.

  It was a refrain that played often in his mind, especially when his new bride, Queen Meryam shan Aldouan of Qaimir, was near. He walked by her side now, the two of them on their way to hear the counsel of King Beşir, who a day ago—or perhaps it was several days, he couldn’t recall—had raised the alarm regarding the city’s finances.

  Over the next hour, Beşir tried his best to detail how dire things truly were, but several times he lost track of where he was. It was unlike him. Kiral was almost certain of it.

  Meryam paused their conversation with a lift of a hand from her teacup. “We could speak of this another time.”

  Beşir’s disarray was because of his daughter, the one he’d recently been forced to kill to prove his allegiance to Yerinde. Kiral knew he should offer condolences, or thank Beşir for his sacrifice, or at the very least echo Meryam’s offer of a postponement of these proceedings until he’d had time to recover himself. But the truth was he could think of nothing but how he felt trapped within his own body.

  I am Kiral, King of Kings. I am Kiral, King of Kings.

  “No,” Beşir said, sharing a rare and all-too-brief look of gratitude with Meryam. “This needs to be done now. I leave as soon as this is over to join the others in the desert.”

  Husamettín, Sukru, and Cahil had left days ago with the sickletail. The hunt for Çeda was on, all in hope of flushing Nalamae from hiding. Beşir, remaining behind to take care of several important points of business, would depart soon to join them. He continued the rundown of his assessment, making it clear how expensive their swelled ranks of soldiers were to recruit, outfit, and train. I am Kiral, King of Kings. It was necessary to defend themselves, of course, but Kiral wondered aloud whether there might be another way in the coming weeks—when the fighting would be at its worst—to call upon the loyalty of the Sharakhani people to rally to the city’s defenses.

  Beşir sighed, combing his beard with his fingers. “As I just mentioned, the overture has been made, but few have taken up the call, and the ranks they fill suf
fer a high attrition rate. Many abandon their posts before too long, seeing how the Spears are being paid while they receive only promises.”

  “Then it’s time,” Kiral said. “We’ll begin conscription, as we discussed.”

  He might have uttered those words, but they weren’t his. He glanced to his left, at Queen Meryam, who pointedly did not look his way. What thoughts lay behind those dark, calculating eyes? What have you done to me? As much as he wanted to know the answer to those questions, his attention was drawn back to Beşir as if Meryam had laid a finger across his chin and compelled him to do so.

  It was then that he felt a glimmer of the man behind the mask. He had gone by another name once. What was it? By the gods, he couldn’t remember. And now that it came to it, he remembered thinking this same thing many, many times before. Now, as then, the answers were just out of reach. He recalled glimpses of waking in the catacombs beneath his father’s hidden palace. Of being taken to Qaimir by Meryam and her man. Of being assaulted day after day by Meryam in that dank room in Viaroza.

  “Hamzakiir . . .”

  The word came to him from beyond the fog of his thoughts. Someone had spoken it. Beşir? Or his stocky vizir who’d just entered the room? He knew not. Like an alchemycal reaction, however, his memories coalesced around it, and the truth crystalized. Beneath the mask Meryam had placed on him, he was another man. A powerful man. Hamzakiir. Hamzakiir Külaşan’ava, rightful heir to the Wandering King’s throne.

  I am Hamzakiir Külaşan’ava. I am Hamzakiir, son of the Wandering King. I am Hamzakiir . . . He held the thought close, like a talisman, yet try as he might his memories slipped through his grasp like so much sand.

  “I . . .”

  Beşir and Meryam turned to him. He wanted desperately to say it—I am Hamzakiir, son of the Wandering King—but the words wouldn’t come.

  Beşir, who’d been speaking, seemed annoyed. “Yes?”

  Soon he’d shaken his head. “Nothing,” he muttered. When Beşir looked at him strangely, he waved impatiently for him to continue. “Go on.”