Beneath the Twisted Trees

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Their eyes glazed over and their postures relaxed. “Go on,” one of them said to Yndris.

  As they headed through the gates, Ihsan tarried and said to the two Maidens, “You’ll remember the story you were told by Yndris and nothing more.”

  “Of course,” they said.

  Soon they were in the streets, where the complexion of the city had already changed. There were crowds near the House of Kings—it was Beht Revahl, after all—but they were starting to disperse. The most important thing now was to get Çeda and the others beyond the walls. Only then would he consider Yusam’s vision safely circumvented. With the Malasani army arriving, no avenue to the south of the city was safe, and the western harbor would take them near to the Shallows, which Ihsan wasn’t willing to risk. So when they reached the Wheel, he led them north.

  The traffic in the street made way for them. Fear was plain on the faces of those they passed, but many looked to Ihsan and the rest with some small amount of hope. For the first time in a long while, Ihsan saw himself stripped of his power, wandering the city like a commoner, living a life as they lived it. He knew he had little conception of what their lives were truly like, but in that moment as he rode along the Trough, he felt the people’s fear. Sharakhai was his city, and he’d always been confident that he could defend it. For the first time in many, many years, he was no longer sure.

  One way or another, Sharakhai was about to change. Would Malasan take the city out from underneath him? Would they weaken the city’s defenses while hardly lifting a finger? Or would the terrible visions King Yusam had seen in his mere, where Sharakhai and the land all around it had been laid to waste, come to pass?

  They rode through the gates of the inner wall, which had been prepared for an attack but still stood open. As they neared the city’s outer wall, its twin portcullises were just being lowered into place. It keeps getting worse, Ihsan thought. His decades, his centuries, of planning felt like they were unraveling in the course of an afternoon. But what is there left to do but forge ahead?

  “Those on the capstan!” he called. “Halt!” And left his order at that.

  The gate shuddered to a stop halfway down, and they rode through. They were committed to his ill-conceived plan now: get Çeda to the outskirts of Sharakhai. Get her and the others on a skiff. Or give them leave to ride their horses into the desert to the ship that surely awaited them. Then he could set about cleaning up his own mess.

  Soon they reached the long curving quay that hugged the harbor’s inner edge. In the distance, across the harbor’s mouth, barricades and other fortifications had been set up and were being manned by dozens of Silver Spears. It was a way to blunt any attack while still allowing some few supply ships into the city before the war began in earnest. The barricades were just being pulled back to let a small caravan to leave. Three junks and a fat, three-masted uru led the way. At the rear, however, was a sleek ketch, which looked to be the swiftest among them.

  “There.” Ihsan looked to Yndris and pointed to the ketch. “Tell them you’re commandeering the ship and give it to Çeda and the others.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  They headed down a nearby ramp to the sand while Ihsan watched impatiently. He had to return to the House of Kings immediately. He’d started to formulate his rationale for being gone for so long, but it was imperfect and would need a lot of consideration before Kiral or, gods curse her, Meryam would believe him.

  On the sand, Yndris reached the rear of the ketch and began speaking with the captain, who stood at the gunwales. The captain looked displeased, but nodded once when Yndris put her hand on her sword. But then there came a deep rumbling and a sound like the rattle of leaves over stone.

  Ihsan stared at the sand. “Gods, no. Not here.” He pulled at the reins and spun his akhala toward the ramp. “Not now.”

  He spurred his horse into a full gallop and saw what he had feared: clay heads lifting from the sand near the center of the harbor. They occupied a space that was little larger than a fighting pit, but more heads appeared as he watched. Shoulders and torsos rose. Arms swam as the golems’ powerful legs brought them nearer to the surface.

  Beyond the golems, Yndris and the rest had turned. Their horses skittered away, but their riders kept them under control. They weren’t going to flee. Ihsan had given them an order, and they would continue until it had been obeyed, golems be damned.

  Ihsan had to warn them away from the danger. He had to break the command he’d given them, at least until he could think of a new one.

  He charged onward. “Get away!” he shouted. “Back away from the golems!”

  But the sound! Bakhi’s bright hammer, he’d never heard the like. The rumbling continued, but it was the strange hissing sound that made his ears itch, made his skin crawl, made him cringe. It was the sand, he knew. The sand and golems’ ability to power their way through it.

  A hundred golems had already reached the surface. The majority headed toward the city itself, where they would presumably try to batter down the gates. They had clay-colored skin with a metallic sheen. And their faces. It took him a moment, but Ihsan realized he knew that face. They wore the face of Surrahdi the Mad King of Malasan, but they were all of different ages. Some young. Some old. Some ancient, as Surrahdi had been when he died.

  They weren’t moving with any great speed, so Ihsan was able to skirt them easily while a new, desperate plan replaced the previous. He shouted and waved with one hand toward Yndris and the cohort of Silver Spears. “Attack them! Attack the golems!”

  At the very least, they would slow down the golems enough for Çeda and the others to escape. If he was lucky, every last one of them would die, apparently sacrificing themselves for the good of Sharakhai, allowing Ihsan to cover his tracks that much better.

  At last, they heard him. The Silver Spears turned and met the approaching line of golems. The three Blade Maidens joined them, swinging their shamshirs. Swords struck, sinking deep, but the golems’ flesh was clay and a deep wound meant little to them. They grabbed several horses’ reins, tore them down to the sand. They bashed their great fists against the helms of the Silver Spears, caving them in. The Maidens were more careful than the Spears, and fought with speed and ferocity.

  Past the line of spears, Sümeya, Melis, and Çeda watched Ihsan’s approach from the backs of their horses, sitting still as statues. “Go!” he cried, “Go!” But he had no idea if they heard him. The rumbling was so loud he could hardly hear himself.

  Behind him, the sand frothed like the shores of the Austral Sea. More heads lifted. The hooves and fetlocks of his horse sunk into the sand and it stamped and tossed its head, eyes rolling, then screamed as it tried to escape.

  Beyond the growing madness, Sehid-Alaz had fallen to the sand. The blanket fell from him as he lifted himself up, his jaundiced, sunken eyes crazed. He stood before the approaching golems, arms spread wide, and gave a cry that seemed to shake the foundations of the city. Ihsan reeled from it. His horse, which had managed to stay above the slipsand, reared and tipped. It squealed as it fell, and Ihsan fell with it.

  The last glimpse he saw of Çeda and the others was as the golems nearest Sehid-Alaz shook, then shattered like pottery. A golem suddenly blocked his view. It stared at him with wide, crazed eyes, then bent over him and gripped the front of his hauberk.

  It pressed him down, into the soft sand beneath him.

  Ihsan called upon his power. “Release me!” But the golem ignored him. “Release me!” he called once more, putting all the power he had left into those words.

  To no avail. Deeper and deeper he went.

  The last thing he remembered, as the sand swallowed him whole, were the wild eyes of that grinning golem, intent upon his death.

  Chapter 46

  DAYS PASSED IN THE MALASANI CAMP. Despite King Emir’s promise, he did not call upon Emre to attend him. Emre hated being so
close to their bloody great army, an army that was about to invade his home, but he had no choice but to wait.

  He saw no sign of Haddad during that time, but whatever she’d said to the king seemed to have worked. The attacks on the blooming fields ceased, and their soldiers steered clear of the groves. Occasionally one of the golems would range into the trees, but after a few days those forays stopped as well.

  The golems were still a surprise. Weeks ago Emre had asked Haddad about this very thing. “Why not steal souls to do it?” he’d asked her one night while lying in bed. “They could create an army.”

  “The soul must be given willingly,” Haddad had replied firmly, “and we would never do that, not for war. Golems are holy, blessed by water from the spring where Tamtamiin, god of a thousand hearts, died. They are made to protect and preserve, not to destroy.”

  Had she been lying? It was certainly possible, but in this he suspected she’d been sincere. Her own brother had given a piece of his soul to breathe life into her bodyguard, Zakkar, which made the subject seem not merely holy but sacrosanct. It was far more likely that the ways of Tamtamiin had been twisted, usurped by their priests, or perhaps by King Emir after his father had died.

  Then one night around the fire, Old Nur, their cook and surgeon, said, “It’s Surrahdi, the Mad King.” He’d been talking with Darius and Frail Lemi, who’d been recounting his fight with the asir.

  “What is Surrahdi?” Emre asked.

  “Hmm?” Old Nur said.

  “You said it’s Surrahdi. What is?”

  “The faces on those fecking golems.”

  “Lower your voice!” Hamid said, looking beyond the light of the fire toward the Malasani encampment. “You’re worse than the bloody asirim.”

  Frail Lemi laughed, his teeth glistening in the firelight. “He’s saying you howl like a jackal, Nur.”

  Old Nur glanced sidelong at Lemi, then spat into the flames and returned his gaze to Emre. “I saw him in Ashdankaat when the Mad King gathered all his soldiers and marched on the caravanserai. Saw him clear as day, as close to me as you are now.”

  It had nearly sparked a war. Haddad herself had sailed there and talked her king down before the Kings of Sharakhai had become involved.

  “You’re sure it’s him?” Emre asked.

  “Sure as your mother hangs a red lamp outside her door! Didn’t you notice how similar the face is to his son—to King Emir? You mark my words. Those golems were made after his death, and to look like Surrahdi. A way for the Mad King to take part in the conquest he wanted so badly.”

  It could be, Emre mused. Everyone had heard the stories of the Mad King of Malasan’s desire to invade the Shangazi and take Sharakhai for his own. But the might of the Twelve Kings had always been too fearsome. Even the Mad King had known his chances of wresting the desert from them were slim—it was no easy thing, even now that the city’s defense was weakened by being forced to meet enemies on two fronts. And the royal navy might have sailed north, leaving the city vulnerable, but they could return at any moment.

  “I don’t like it,” Hamid said, “sitting here. I feel like a desert hare, waiting for the wolf’s jaws to close around me.” He was sitting by Darius, who gently stroked Hamid’s back with his good arm. “Ask to speak to him again.”

  Emre had done so three times already, but he did so again the next morning, and received the same infuriating answer from King Emir’s herald. “Your request will be brought before the king.” A day passed. Then two. And still they sat. Still they waited.

  Then one day the golems disappeared.

  Emre had seen them walking about since he’d arrived, eerie as ghosts. They seemed to have minds of their own at times. They seemed curious, even with the odd expressions they wore on their faces. There were moments when they seemed to be living a strange half-existence, as if a man had been swallowed by clay and still lived somewhere within. At other times they were like clockwork beasts, moving around with no purpose, no human emotion despite their human masks.

  To have them all vanish put Emre on edge. Where had they gone? And to do what?

  Three days after their strange disappearance, it became clear that the Malasani were readying their assault on the city. Emre watched from the vulture’s nest as their ships were outfitted with soldiers and sailed toward the city. They stopped just short of the entrance to the southern harbor and set the ships up in a defensive line. Sledges loaded with barricades and catapults. Other machines of war were readied. Behind them, battalions of soldiers ordered themselves in tidy formations.

  It was a strange sight indeed—Emre’s home on the cusp of invasion, everything he’d known about to change, and the knowledge that there was nothing he could to do stop it.

  Near midday, Emre, Hamid, and Frail Lemi were summoned to attend King Emir. He stood on one of three ships positioned directly behind the lines. Emre was brought up to the foredeck, where a dozen of his personal guard stood watch, many surveying the sand beyond the ship, some few watching Emre with cold eyes. Shortly after their arrival a thickset woman helped the man with the golden mask onto the foredeck. The eyes behind the mask took Emre in, they took in Hamid and Frail Lemi as well, but in the end paid them little mind. He seemed fixated on the city. The woman helped him to the gunwales, where he stared in wonder at all that was happening beyond the ship. He looked like a boy on his day of passage, eager to receive his gifts.

  Emre stared at the starburst pattern on the mask, wondering at his presence. One would assume a high priest would have been brought to advise his king, and yet Emre had never seen the king consult him, nor the priest offer up a single piece of advice.

  Ahead, two blocky towers guarded the open channel leading to the southern harbor. The channel itself was choked with large boulders and chains and iron barricades, preventing the Malasani ships from entering the city. Thousands of Silver Spears stood in ranks, ready to meet the advance of the Malasani army.

  Emre was starting to wonder why he’d been summoned when King Emir waved to the way ahead. “So it begins.”

  Beyond the channel’s rocky arms a cloud of amber dust lifted in a plume over the harbor. As it drifted east, occluding the richer sections of the city, Emre heard a rumbling sound. Faint cries followed. Shouting, calls of fear, orders being passed on a grand scale, filtering to them on the other side of the rocks as if this were all merely a dream. But it wasn’t. It was the beginning of the Malasani invasion.

  The golems, Emre realized. The golems were inside the harbor and were being unleashed on the city. And so it came as no surprise when a dozen clay shapes, then fifty, then a hundred, rounded the channel in the distance and came lumbering toward the Silver Spears. The ranks of Spears reacted with discipline, but even a small distraction would give the Malasani forces a huge advantage, and what were they to do, in any case, against opponents who could not be felled by normal means?

  As their rear forces converged on the golems, a horn sounded, and the Malasani army charged. A great roar lifted from them as they ran. Sand kicked up in their wake, which painted the entire, burgeoning battle in amber, making them look beatific, a host blessed by the gods themselves.

  By Emre’s side, Frail Lemi watched the battle unfold with widened eyes. So often the big man reveled in combat, in inflicting pain, but there were times, like today, when he reacted as a child would. He stared in wonder, his brow furrowing as if he couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing. Emre took one of Frail Lemi’s massive hands in his and squeezed it, and Lemi seemed to calm.

  “Why did you ask me here?” Emre asked the Malasani king.

  King Emir turned as if he were surprised by the question. “This is what the Moonless Host wanted all along, wasn’t it? The destruction of the Kings?”

  We wanted the Kings of Sharakhai to fall. We didn’t want to lose the city to some usurper. Emre had known this day was coming. He knew the might
of Malasan would be enough to take the city. But to see it . . . To see the ranks of soldiers pouring into the harbor. To see the golems in the far distance storming the city. He felt as though a pit had opened up beneath him, and that all he ever knew—the Shallows, Roseridge, the western harbor, the pits, the bazaar, the sights and sounds and smells of the spice market—was being drawn down with him, to be lost forever.

  This was why King Emir had summoned him. He wanted Emre, the emissary from the thirteenth tribe and the alliance, to see it. He wanted stories of it to be taken back to Macide and the other shaikhs that they might know fear before talk of any terms began. It would no longer be treaties and trade agreements the King of Malasan would want to discuss, but the terms of their surrender.

  “The Moonless Host is no more,” Emre said. It was a galling thing to admit, but it was true. “The thirteenth tribe, all the tribes, want peace in the desert.”

  King Emir turned and seemed to take Emre in for the first time. “Peace?” He pursed his lips and played at considering the notion. “Tell me, were you to gain your alliance, if all the desert tribes banded together, would you sue for peace?”

  “The desert tribes have long been divided, pitted against one another by the Kings. It’s only natural that we come together once more. To trade, to share. And yes, to work toward peace.”

  “And yet the last time the tribes banded together, four hundred years ago, it was to make war on Sharakhai. It was to raze the city to the ground.”

  “That is no longer our wish.”

  King Emir laughed. “Is it not? Let’s be honest, you and I. You, the one Macide sent to treat with the enemy, would rather gut a Malasani than shake forearms with him.”

  “Not true.”

  The king’s eyes were wide and incredulous. “Isn’t that the very promise you made to your brother?”

  Emre felt his ears turn red. Haddad had told him. She’d told him about Rafa, told him how he’d vowed to kill the man who’d murdered his brother, and his shame when he found he couldn’t because Çeda had done it for him. She’d told the king how it had burned within him until he joined the Moonless Host, a group that reveled in the sort of violence he wanted to inflict.