Beneath the Twisted Trees

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  He nearly passed it by because it looked so different. Sukru had given Anila her own room so she could live and study in peace. This was the same room, but the old wooden door had been replaced with one made of iron.

  “I’ve found it,” Davud said to those in the room back in the city. “Be ready.”

  He guided the bird outside, hoping to fly in through an open window, but the windows were closed and barred. He flew back and, seeing no one in the hall, forced the warbler to land and set the triangle down.

  He combined the symbols for passage and doorway in his mind, and the triangle, now floating in the air above the floor, began to grow. In the attic above the workshop, a similar opening grew, triangular in shape, rotating just as the one in Sukru’s palace was. Ramahd, Cicio, and Fezek climbed through it, followed by Esmeray and Davud. He immediately dispelled the sigils, and the triangle shrunk and fell into his waiting palm.

  He gave the triangle back to the warbler and bade it fly with all haste back to the attic in the city. Ramahd and Cicio, tense and ready to act, watched both ends of the hallway. Fezek stared through the door as if spellbound. It was Anila, Davud knew. He did that from time to time, entranced by his maker.

  Esmeray, meanwhile, knelt before the door. She placed one hand over the lock and closed her eyes. Davud felt her working a complex spell that maneuvered the internals of the lock.

  Somewhere distant, a door opened. Footsteps echoed. Voices approached along the hallway adjoining this one. As Ramahd and Cicio readied to defend them, Esmeray opened the door and swept inside. The rest rushed in after her, closing the door as quietly as they could behind them.

  “Davud?”

  Anila was sitting in a high-backed chair, her black, snakeskin hands laid over an ancient leatherbound tome on the table before her. She wore a fine, patterned dress of ivory and gold and a black hijab that matched. She stood, staring at all of them, especially Esmeray.

  Esmeray caught her stare, turned, and knelt before the door again, but not before sparing a glance for Davud. Why didn’t you tell me there was still so much between you? her look said. But then she was bent to her task: locking the door to conceal their entrance.

  “What are you doing here?” Anila asked. She didn’t seem pleased at all.

  “We’re here to get you out,” Davud said. He tried to put enthusiasm into his voice, but the way Anila was looking at him, with confusion, even disappointment, prevented him.

  “Davud, I . . .”

  Suddenly her situation struck Davud full on. She was under lock and key, but the room looked comfortable otherwise. There was a dying fire in the hearth and she had a steaming mug of tea beside her books.

  “What’s happening, Anila?”

  “Davud, I can’t leave.”

  Esmeray snorted. Ramahd watched on with confusion. Fezek looked as if he might cry.

  Davud felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Anila, we have to leave.”

  “I can’t. Sukru . . .” From somewhere outside came the boom of a door closing. “They’re coming for me,” Anila said in a low voice, “and there’s too much to explain. But I have to stay, Davud. He has my family. He has my mother.”

  Seeing they had little time, Davud forced the spoon-tail to land in a small, vacant lot that backed up against a curving alley. It would have to do. “We can come back for her.” He hated the pleading in his voice.

  “You don’t understand,” she said, glancing toward the door. “I have to bring her back. The crystal in the cavern . . . I have to prove I can do it before I bring the Sparrow back.”

  Davud reeled. “You’re going to bring him back?”

  Anila’s chin jutted. “If it will save my mother, yes.”

  “Anila, think about this.”

  “I have.”

  “No, you clearly haven’t. You’re aiding a man who will kill you, your mother, and your family, the moment he has what he wants. Come with us.” He motioned to the slowly turning portal, which revealed a corner of the dusty yard, where mountains of broken urns were piled haphazardly. Sounds filtered through the portal—a distant roar, a battle being joined—but they were muffled, as if it were a dream.

  “We can save your family on our terms, but only if we leave now.”

  “I can’t, Davud. I don’t know where they are. And my mother is dead. Sukru had her brought before me in the catacombs below the palace, and he used the same bloody piece of wood on her that Bela used to kill his brother. And now I’m the only one who can save my mother. I can’t do that anywhere but here.”

  Anila’s arms were across her chest, her head held high. She looked unassailable in that moment. Nothing Davud could say was going to convince her to leave.

  Footsteps approached the door. Ramahd, meanwhile, was standing to one side of Anila, and slightly behind her. He glanced at her meaningfully, then to the spinning portal. He was ready to take her by force if need be and, gods forgive him, Davud considered it. It was obvious she was blinded by hope, and working with Sukru could only end tragically. If they left, they could find a way to free Anila’s father and sister. And her mother . . . Well, if she was truly dead, then it was a lost cause already. The dead could not live again. Not truly.

  But if he did this, there would be no going back, and Anila would never forgive him. And what right did he have to make this decision for her in any case?

  As much as it pained him, he knew he couldn’t do it.

  The footsteps came to a stop, leather soles scraping against the stone outside the door. Davud nodded to Anila and whispered, “I’ll find a way to contact you.”

  Anila nodded back, a grateful look on her face. She waved animatedly to the portal as a key clinked into the lock. Davud, Esmeray, Ramahd, and Cicio filed quickly through. Fezek came last, but not without a longing look toward her. Davud cut off the spell while yanking Fezek the rest of the way through. The sounds of battle became sharp and loud. The wind tugged at Davud’s clothes. As the golden triangle shrunk, Davud saw Anila step in front of the portal to hide it from view. And then she was gone, and the triangle fell to the street with a soft tinkle.

  “I’m sorry.” He stared at the others, at a loss for what to say. “I had no idea. I endangered your lives for nothing.”

  “No shit, ah?” Cicio said. “Why you no talk to her first?”

  “I was worried Sukru would sense it. He has some ability in magic. I thought the element of surprise worth the risk.”

  “Yes, well.” Ramahd looked to his right, where the clash of steel and men screaming made it clear that the conflict had somehow reached this deep into the city. It sounded as if the edges of it were only a block or two away. “We’d better get out of here before we start picking up the pieces.”

  Davud sent the warbler off with the triangle to fly the rest of the way to the workshop. Then he and the others headed north. And just in time. Behind them, a cadre of Silver Spears were backing into the alley. A dozen were fighting a lone Malasani soldier. A clay soldier. He was taking blow after blow from spears and swords both, though none seemed to slow him. The skirmish was lost as they took a bend in the alley, but they’d gone no more than ten strides before the way ahead was blocked as well. Dozens, hundreds of Silver Spears were engaged with more golems who, like the first, seemed impervious to harm.

  A wall of golems were on their way, and the Silver Spears were breaking at a near panic. So many of them, Davud thought, while everything he’d read about the golems of Malasan spoke of how rare they were.

  There was no time to worry about it now. The warbler had made it to the workshop and while the area might not be safe much longer, it would give them time to plan their next steps. He summoned the portal once more, uncaring if any of the Silver Spears spotted them. Some, in fact, after seeing Esmeray and Cicio jump through, seemed to think it a convenient escape and began running toward it.

&nbs
p; “Gods, hurry up!”

  They all made it through, and Davud closed the portal, just in time. The pleas of the soldiers were cut short, and they were back in the room above the workshop. Ramahd, Cicio, Fezek, and Esmeray seemed frozen after their harrowing escape.

  No, Davud realized. Not seemed. They were frozen.

  No sooner had the thought occurred to him than he realized he couldn’t move either. Like the others, he was trapped.

  Footsteps scuffed over the floorboards. A Sharakhani woman with broad lips and merciless eyes came into view. It was Prayna, the de facto leader of the Enclave. Next to her came a young Mirean woman, an old, wrinkled Kundhuni, and a Malasani man with a golden disk painted on his forehead. Meiying, Undosu, and Nebahat, the three other members of the Enclave’s inner circle.

  Davud could feel the weave of their spell, all four working together to trap Davud and the others in a web as intricate as it was effective.

  “You were warned,” Prayna said.

  “Cowards,” Esmeray grunted.

  Prayna regarded her calmly. “The Enclave has survived dozens of challenges to our existence for hundreds of years. We will suffer neither you nor an outsider precipitating another.”

  Esmeray looked as though she wanted to say more, but couldn’t. Davud was similarly bound. Surely the others were as well. Soon they were all being led away from the workshop. Through the streets of Sharakhai they went, war echoing in the distance, until Davud heard a scuffle behind him.

  From the corner of his eye he saw Prayna stumble and fall to the street. He couldn’t turn his head, but he heard footsteps sprinting away, then a sizzling sound followed by a grunt of pain. As a great boom sounded in the distance, Prayna regained her feet. “Leave him,” she said while dusting off her clothes. “We’ve been in the open long enough.”

  As they walked away from the conflict, Davud breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t understand it all, but he knew enough to know Ramahd had just escaped.

  Chapter 48

  AS SUKRU HAD VOWED, he insisted Anila take small steps with the crystal as she learned its ways. He demanded she resurrect a falcon, a bird whose neck he had snapped in front of her. She accepted the still-warm bird from him, trying and failing to ignore the fact that so many animals were suffering because of her.

  “The thornbill is alive?” she asked him. “It’s acting normally?”

  “It seems to have no ill effects.” When it came to praise, Sukru was stingy as a moneylender, but even he couldn’t hide his optimism.

  Anila looked about the spacious cavern, at the Silver Spears stationed near the entrance. “Are we safe here?”

  Even when Sukru pulled himself up from his typical hunched position he was shorter than Anila, but he somehow made her feel small with that piercing, ratlike stare of his. “What do you mean?”

  “Aren’t you worried about Kiral’s command to leave the crystal alone? Or that Yerinde might return?”

  His look turned dark, an expression made alien by the strange purple light emanating from the nearby crystal. He motioned to the falcon. “You would do well to worry about that bird and leave the business of gods and Kings to others.”

  “I’m only thinking of your brother.”

  Sukru laughed his petty laugh. “You’re only thinking of your mother. Now begin, girl. I want progress.”

  She began as she had the last time, finding the silklike thread of life, following it through the crystal, and calling to the soul beyond. She’d thought it might be easier since the falcon had only just been killed. And indeed, finding it was not difficult, but drawing it through the crystal proved to be a much greater challenge than she’d given it credit for. She had to make sure its soul was returned intact, to ensure it would be healthy once returned to its body. And that, as large as it was, was no simple matter.

  She managed it, though, now glad of the previous attempts. The experience helped, though it still took her over an hour to complete. And worse, she was exhausted. Sweat tickled her scalp, rolled down her forehead, along her spine, between her breasts. When she was finally done, Sukru took the bird and administered the healing elixir. In moments the falcon had opened its eyes and was flapping its wings again. Its neck was cocked at a strange angle, but it soon straightened. Minutes later it was in a cage and one would never know it had been harmed.

  Over the course of the following week, she did more. A large desert owl. A serval cat—which she failed at the first time. She knew she had failed the moment it returned to its body. It was glaze-eyed, and became violent, managing to break from Sukru’s grip and scratch his neck and face. Sukru recovered, gripping it in his thick leather gloves, then strangled it before her eyes.

  “I trust,” he said to her after calling for another, “you’ll try harder next time.”

  He was red-faced and angry. He blamed her for having to kill the cat, and he wasn’t wrong. She’d become desperate near the end, feeling that its soul was being torn in two, and she had forced it back into the corpse quickly, which had only served to tear it further.

  “I will,” she promised, though not to him. She needed to master this for her mother.

  She resurrected the second serval, after which they moved on to three different dogs: a small pit bull, a racing hound, then a great Kundhuni mastiff. She learned from each, her skills growing, but they were becoming progressively harder as well. She was at her wit’s end with the mastiff, at the edge of her abilities to keep such a large soul intact. In the end, she’d managed it, but only after four grueling hours. She stared at the massive dog as it walked, tentatively at first, then with growing energy, about the cavern. Except for the fact that it whimpered and shied away from the crystal, it seemed hearty and hale.

  After each new attempt, she and Sukru discussed it, both of them judging her ability to move on to a more complex form of life. At first she could continue with only a few hours rest, but as it progressed it took a day or more to regain her strength. She was so exhausted after the mastiff, she was dizzy from it. She ached—and feared she would need a week to recover.

  Sukru watched her closely. “It’s taking you longer each time.”

  “As we knew it would.”

  “Yes, but I wonder if you’ve the stamina to finish what you’ve begun.”

  “I’ve enough.”

  Sukru stared at her doubtfully.

  “I’ve enough,” she said again. “I’ve learned from each one, and I’ll be ready again after a bit of rest.”

  He seemed unconvinced, but said nothing.

  Three days later, the door to her room burst open and, breath of the desert, Davud swept in, along with Ramahd Amansir, Fezek, and that bitch mage, Esmeray. What in the great wide desert had happened since she’d been taken to Sukru’s palace Anila had no idea, but there’d been no time to find out. She felt terrible for denying Davud. He’d risked so much in coming to the palace. But she couldn’t go with him.

  In the hours following his departure, she was terrified Sukru would learn of it. The moment he did, surely her chance to heal her mother would be taken from her. The days passed without incident, however, and one day he came to her in her room and said the words she was so desperate to hear. “Mortal man is next.”

  “Very well,” she replied, wondering why he’d decided to tell her here and not in the cavern.

  He snapped his fingers, at which point the Silver Spear standing in the doorway stepped aside. A moment later, Anila’s sister, Banu, was led into the room. It was a strange mixture of fear, relief, worry, and anger that greeted Anila upon seeing her. Banu was bound and gagged. Bruises discolored her face, especially along her right cheek and jaw, which was dark purple and yellow with a fantastically large bruise, at the center of which was a weeping laceration. Elsewhere were smaller cuts and scrapes, as if her face had been raked over stones. Her beautiful black hair had been shaved, a deep mark of
shame for the women of the city. It was uneven, as if it had been done with a knife, and revealed pale skin and freckles and cuts with dried blood caked around them.

  Banu was squinting, as if the light in the room was too much for her. Still, she held Anila’s gaze, pleading. Save me, her eyes said. Save me from the King and the dungeons and the punishment I’ll receive should you deny him.

  “Why would you do this?” Anila asked. “I’ve done all you’ve asked.”

  “Your father became unruly.”

  “He wouldn’t have. Not if he knew Banu was being held.”

  “You doubt the word of your King?”

  “You are not my King.”

  Banu’s eyes went wide. Anila knew she shouldn’t have said it, but she was so angry they were out before she could stop herself.

  Sukru regarded her with cold calculation. “You’re not ready to try the ritual on your mother.” He snapped his fingers. Immediately, one of the Silver Spears took out his kenshar and held its edge to Banu’s neck.

  “I am ready! You know that I am.”

  “It isn’t your ability I’m concerned about. It’s your will.”

  “I’ll do it. I only need practice.”

  Sukru waved to Banu without looking at her, as if she meant no more to him than the thornbill they’d raised at the outset of their journey.

  “I know why you’re doing this,” Anila said quickly, questioning herself even as she spoke. But if she didn’t do something, Sukru would order her sister killed. “You fear I haven’t enough hatred for you. But believe me, none of it is gone. I harbor as much for you as I did when you killed my mother. More, now that I see how my family has been treated.”

  Sukru held his hand out, and the Silver Spear handed over his knife. “One can always use more.”