The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  “That does sweeten the pot.”

  Nahri dried the instruments, wrapping them in clean cloth, and then Yaqub motioned for her to sit. “You have ruined my night, so now take some tea with me,” he ordered, handing her a glass. “I would talk to you.”

  She was instantly anxious. “If this is about us moving on, I can find other lodgings—”

  He shushed her. “I’m not asking you to leave. I’m asking the opposite. I want you to stay.”

  Nahri frowned. “What do you mean?”

  He blew on his tea. “It’s hardly a secret that I’m getting old—you yourself have made any number of obnoxious comments to that effect—and no one in my family is equipped to take over the apothecary. My wife and I had discussed selling it, but I wonder if you and your friend would be interested in staying on and taking over.”

  She stared at him in astonishment. That was frankly the last thing she’d expected Yaqub to say. “I haven’t trained as an apothecarist,” she sputtered.

  “You haven’t trained as an apothecarist … for God’s sake, you just did brain surgery on the table! You could build your own sort of practice here and let your reputation speak for itself. And if you’re so concerned, I’m not yet ready to retire. I’d be perfectly happy to take the two of you on as apprentices for a few years.”

  The offer was so kind and perfect that all Nahri could do was find reasons to push it away. “I’m a woman. No one will take me seriously as an apothecarist, let alone as a doctor.”

  “Then to hell with them. You know perfectly well there are women practicing in the city, particularly on female patients.”

  “Rich women. Daughters and wives of doctors who work alongside them.”

  “So lie.” Some of the tea sloshed out of Yaqub’s glass at his exuberance. “Every other word out of your mouth used to be a lie to further your ambitions. Surely you can craft a suitable background for yourself. Claim you studied medicine in whatever mysterious island kingdom your not-husband is from.”

  Nahri sat back. Before she could stop herself, she could see such a future spinning out before her. She was a good healer. Maybe rich nobles and fancy foreigners would turn up their noses at a so-called female doctor with no degree, but people like that boy’s family? Like the people she’d grown up among? Someone like Nahri would be a blessing. And who cared if they couldn’t pay much? She’d have the apothecary, and she’d always been good at finding ways to hustle. Ali was clever with numbers. They’d make enough to have a comfortable life.

  Except …

  Except the future Yaqub was offering was the one she’d wanted growing up in Egypt. She had new responsibilities now and people back in Daevabad waiting for her. And while Nahri felt the thrill of having saved that little boy, that wasn’t all the power at her disposal. She could save so many more with her magic, and until they found a way to restore it, she’d never truly be who she felt herself capable of being.

  Yaqub must have seen the emotion in her eyes. He set down his tea and reached for her hand. “Nahri, child, I don’t know what the two of you are running from. I don’t know what you’re planning next. But you could have a life here. A good one.”

  Taking a shaky breath, Nahri squeezed his hand. “That is … an incredibly kind offer. I need to think about it.”

  “Take the time you need,” Yaqub said warmly. “Talk to your friend.” He smiled. “But I think Cairo could use someone like you.”

  Nahri didn’t disagree.

  But she wondered if Daevabad might need her more.

  9

  ALI

  Ali would be having nightmares about open skulls for months, but the marvelous market Nahri took him to the next day more than made up for it. It was the human bazaar of his dreams, and Ali wandered through with open delight, grateful that humans seemed inclined not to see him because he wasn’t even trying to check his curiosity. Instead, he raced from shop to shop, stall to stall, touching everything he could get his hands on and examining embroidered tapestries, carpentry tools, mirrored lanterns, glass spectacles, and shoes with unbridled enthusiasm.

  “Oh,” he gushed, catching a glint of metal in the distance. “Swords.”

  “No,” Nahri said, tugging on the sleeve of the extremely ill-fitting galabiyya he’d borrowed from Yaqub. “I almost lost you to toy chickens. We’re not going to look at swords. We’ll never leave.”

  “Those ‘toy chickens’ were marvels of mechanical ingenuity,” Ali defended himself, relishing his memory of the captivating device that had made a pair of tin chickens bob their heads when he pulled a hammer, appearing to “eat” grains of painted glass. He had desperately wanted it, aching to take the device apart and see how it worked.

  “Yes. Marvels of mechanical ingenuity … for children.”

  “I refuse to believe you weren’t equally enchanted by your first encounter with Daevabad’s bazaar.”

  Nahri gave him a small, confessional smile that made Ali feel warm all over. “Maybe a bit. But”—she pulled the coffeepot he had been examining from his hands before dragging him away—“I have something better to show you.”

  The next alley was covered, the narrow path snaking under a ceiling carved into a geometrical honeycomb. They turned a corner, and there, spread upon rugs and chests, was a sea of books and scrolls.

  “Oh,” Ali said again. “Yes. Yes, this is better than swords.” He immediately went for the first shop, his eyes going wide as he took everything in. Besides books, there were rows and rows of maps and what appeared to be nautical scrolls laid out on blue velvet.

  Ali knelt to examine them. The maps were beautiful, richly illustrated with miniature cities and tiny boats. He traced the bright blue line of a river, studying hand-drawn hills and a trio of islands.

  “Is this Cairo?” he asked.

  Nahri peered over his shoulder. “Maybe? I’m not very good with geography.”

  He stared at the map, tugging absentmindedly at his beard. “How far south does the Nile go?”

  “Pretty far, I suppose. I had the impression the southern parts ran through Ta Ntry.”

  “Interesting,” he said softly.

  “Why?”

  Ali didn’t miss the guarded tone in her voice. “Just thinking,” he murmured, scanning the maps to see what else was available.

  “Well, you can stay here and ponder rivers. I remember a man who used to sell medical texts down a ways. Catch up when you can.”

  He muttered an assent, rifling through the pile of maps. Here was another showing the Nile. Ali traced the southern reaches, studying where the river branched and trying to make out what he could of the Arabic notes, most of the names unfamiliar.

  But the land beyond … that he’d heard plenty about. The lush mountains and hidden castles built among human ruins, the desert peninsula seeming to nearly kiss Am Gezira and the humid, monsoon coast Ali had grown up listening to stories of at his mother’s knee.

  Ta Ntry.

  Amma.

  Hatset would be home by now, right? It seemed so impossibly far, but … Ali brushed his thumb over the painted lands, his mind spinning with possibility. He was still struggling with his grief, but he hadn’t stopped quietly contemplating ways to return to Daevabad, turning their circumstances over like a puzzle in his mind.

  And here was a new piece.

  Ali rose to his feet, still holding the maps. A glance revealed Nahri several stalls down, immersed in her own perusing. He opened his mouth to call her name, then stopped.

  No, let her be, he told himself, a rush of tenderness stealing through him at the sight of his friend. He wouldn’t get her hopes up, not yet. On the surface, Nahri seemed to be doing better than he was, but Ali wasn’t sure he believed it. Ali’s pain was bonedeep, but simply rooted: his loved ones had been murdered and his home conquered. Nahri had had her entire world turned upside down for the second time in six years, betrayed by seemingly everyone close to her, including the mother and Afshin she’d believed dead.


  Besides, surely Ali could do this part on his own. He approached the bookseller.

  “Peace be upon you … Peace be upon—excuse me!” Ali shouted, snapping his fingers in front of the human’s face.

  The man blinked, a dazed look slipping across his features as he tilted his head. “Hello?” he said, sounding uncertain of the word.

  “I would like to buy these,” Ali announced. He fumbled in his bag for the coins Yaqub had given him this morning. The apothecarist had wept, admiring his newly polished workbench. “You are a blessing. You … whatever your name is again,” he’d added, beause every night he seemed to forget anew Ali’s name and, on occasion—his very existence.

  Ali held out the coins. “Is this enough?”

  The bookseller glanced down at the coins and abruptly blinked again. “Yes,” he said, sweeping them from Ali’s hands. “The exact amount, yes.”

  “Oh,” Ali replied, not missing the glee with which the merchant shut his money away in a small chest. He knew it was frowned upon to assume the worst of others, but he was pretty sure he’d just been cheated.

  “What are you doing?”

  Ali jumped at Nahri’s voice. “Nothing!” he said swiftly, turning around and hoping she wouldn’t figure out how easily he’d just been swindled. “So where to next?”

  “Lunch. It’s time I repaid you for the feteer you brought me back in Daevabad with a proper Egyptian meal.”

  10

  NAHRI

  Nahri lay back on the roof beside Ali, the remains of their feast surrounding them. “I concede defeat,” he admitted. “Human food is better.”

  “Told you,” she replied, finishing the last slice of watermelon and tossing the rind aside. “Conjured spices have nothing on fried street dough.”

  “And yet the place you’ve chosen to enjoy our meal is very djinn of you,” he teased, gesturing to the crumbling building they’d climbed. It looked like it had been a khanqah, a Sufi lodge, abandoned as the city’s heart shifted away. “Humans believe we haunt ruins, don’t they?”

  “Exactly. It was a great place to hide when I was younger, and it has an excellent view,” she said, gazing at the spread of brown domes and minarets set against the glint of the Nile.

  Ali pushed himself into a sitting position. “It does.” But then sorrow swept his face, obliterating the brief levity he had seemed to be enjoying. “There was a view of Daevabad like this from the Citadel tower,” he said softly, running his fingers over the broken bricks. “It’s still hard to believe it’s gone. The Citadel was my home for so long, the other soldiers like my family.”

  His words struck close. “That’s how I felt about the infirmary and Nisreen. Jamshid too,” she added, guilt clawing through her. Jamshid was family, and Nahri couldn’t help but recall that one of the last things she’d done in Daevabad was refuse Ghassan’s attempt to use her brother’s life to blackmail her. Had Ghassan lived a few hours more, he might have taken it—killed Jamshid before Nahri’s very eyes.

  And she’d been ready to let it happen: all to save the life of the man sitting next to her now in the hopes he’d take down his father. Not that she dared tell Ali any of this yet. Nahri didn’t think they were ready for that conversation.

  “Kaveh might be a traitorous snake, but I’m sure he had a plan to keep his son safe.” Ali’s face fell. “Though when Jamshid finds out about Muntadhir … they were so close.”

  Please tell him I loved him. Tell him I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for him sooner. Nahri squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to talk about any of this. She survived trauma by suppressing it, by shoving back the grief and rage that would otherwise swallow her whole.

  She was saved from having to respond by the sudden bang of a large drum. Ali jumped, reaching for the khanjar at his waist.

  “Relax,” she said, easing his hand down. The strains of singing were already following. “It’s probably a wedding.” She peered over the wall, searching the maze of lanes below. “A decade ago, I’d have hunted it down and pretended to be a guest for the food.”

  “Believe it or not, back in Bir Nabat, we did the same. We used to stalk human festivals and bring back their scraps. People skilled at the magic can re-create the whole feast.” Disappointment colored Ali’s voice. “Well, others went. I was never allowed. No one thought I could be discreet.”

  Nahri grinned. “You, not discreet around humans? I could never imagine it.” She paused, feeling another question build in her. “But you liked it there. Living something like a normal life.”

  “I loved it.” Ali leaned on his elbows, staring out at Cairo. “It got a little lonely on occasion, and I didn’t completely fit in. But I liked feeling useful, you know? Like I could do some good.” He sighed. “It was so much easier to do that in Bir Nabat than in Daevabad.”

  “Yes,” she muttered. “I think I know how that feels.”

  Ali turned to face her. “How is your patient doing, by the way?”

  “Good, thank God.” Nahri had checked on the boy this morning. His incision looked great, and though he had some weakness on the left side of his body, he’d survived. “His mother wouldn’t stop crying and kissing me.”

  “I thought the cookies you brought back were damp.” But there was a seriousness in Ali’s eyes that the jest didn’t touch. “I’m glad to hear he’s going to be okay. Because we need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About Suleiman’s seal and the fact that our magic isn’t returning.”

  Nahri was already shaking her head. “Muntadhir said it could take a couple of days—”

  “It’s been five. And Nahri, nothing’s changed. I don’t feel anything of my djinn abilities, or of the seal.” Ali touched his chest. “There’s pain in my heart when I call upon my water magic, but that’s it. Unless you’ve …”

  “No.” Nahri woke every morning reaching for her healing magic, aching for its return.

  “Then I think we need a new plan.” Ali reached for the bag he’d been carrying. “Maybe Manizheh and Dara have been stripped of their magic, maybe everyone has, but we don’t know for sure, and we can’t just wait here. It’s not safe for us or any of the humans we associate with. We need to find a place where we can reconnect with our people and start building alliances, an army …”

  Alliances. An army. A buzz was growing in Nahri’s mind. She cleared her throat, suddenly finding it difficult to speak. “Where?” she managed.

  “Ta Ntry.” Ali pulled a bundle of papers from his bag—no, not papers, maps.

  “That’s why you were looking at maps?”

  “Yes. And look—” He gestured to a spot on the map, somewhere in the golden lands beyond the Sea of Reeds. “Am Gezira is close, but I don’t think we should risk Manizheh bringing her plague to any more Geziris in case she still has her powers. But if we were to go south …” He ran his index finger much farther down, tracing the coast along the ocean. “My mother is from Shefala—here.” Ali tapped an invisible point. “She should be home. Ta Ntry is a power in its own right; it has money, warriors, enough resources to be largely self-sufficient.”

  Ta Ntry. Nahri blinked, trying to take that all in. Her rocky relationship with the queen aside, Nahri could not deny the wisdom in going to Hatset—the cunning matriarch seemed a natural match for Manizheh.

  But leaving Cairo … “Would we even be welcome in Ta Ntry?” Nahri asked. “Muntadhir always made it sound like the Ayaanle were plotting against us.”

  “There might be something to that.” When Nahri lifted an eyebrow, Ali swiftly added, “But the library at Shefala is said to be extraordinary. They have a lot of texts taken from Daevabad during the original conquest, and we might find something about Suleiman’s seal in those books. Maybe there’s a part we’re missing, a way to fix all this and restore our magic.”

  Creator, Nahri wanted her magic back. But another meddling court of djinn—who apparently had kept her family’s stolen archives—ruled by a sovereign she didn�
�t trust … “We can’t. We have no way to get there.”

  “We do.” Ali again gestured to the map. “We sail.”

  Nahri gave him a skeptical look. “You know how to sail?”

  “I know a bit. But more importantly, I can do this.” Ali leaned over the balustrade, gesturing to a fallen palm tree drifting in the river’s languid current. It abruptly stilled and then reversed course as if being pulled by an underwater chain, moving toward Ali’s hand. He let it go, and it continued spinning away.

  He grimaced, rubbing his chest. “It’s not going to be painless.” He glanced at Nahri, and for the first time since Daevabad fell, she saw hope in his eyes. “But I think it could work.”

  Nahri stared at him, trying to act like a cage wasn’t closing around her. “It’s too dangerous. It’s too far. We’re all but powerless, and you want to set off on some trek through deserts and jungle because you can make a log go upriver?”

  Ali deflated. “Then what would you suggest?”

  Nahri hesitated but only for a moment. “That we consider staying longer.” She held his gaze, feeling more vulnerable than she liked. “Yaqub wants me to take over the apothecary.”

  “Take over the apothecary?” Ali repeated, sounding bewildered. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s offered to train us as apprentices,” Nahri explained. “We’d inherit it when he retires, and I could see patients there as well. I could be a doctor, or something like one, treating people who can’t afford anyone else.”

  Ali was visibly shocked. “You’re not talking about staying in Cairo longer. You’re talking about staying permanently.”

  “And if I am? Would it be so bad? We could have a good life here. We could help people!”

  “Nahri.” Ali was already shaking his head and rising to his feet.

  “Would you just consider it?” She followed him, hating the plea in her voice. “We could just be us: Nahri and Ali. Not Nahid and Qahtani, locked in some murderous feud.” Feeling desperate, she continued, “You like it here, don’t you? You’d get to ogle all the human toys you want; you could clean Yaqub’s shop and play accountant with his books—all with the added benefit of not being killed in some reckless plot. We could be happy.”