The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  Aeshma’s voice instantly darkened. “Can you not retrieve it?”

  Her mother tried again, and now even Nahri felt the heat as she touched the gold band.

  Manizheh jerked her hand back. “No. Try yourself.”

  Aeshma twisted Nahri’s fingers, painfully hard, but the ifrit had no better luck. “The blood magic,” he said grimly. “You’ve been as tainted with it as we are.”

  “What do you mean, tainted? She’s supposed to use that ring to free us from Suleiman’s curse!” Vizaresh sounded enraged. “That was what you promised us! Why we … what is that blade at your waist?”

  Manizheh answered guardedly. “Nahri arrived with it. Do you know what it is?”

  “I certainly do! It’s—”

  “It’s a distraction.” Aeshma cut in, snarling. “I don’t care if it’s the Creator’s own knife. That’s not what matters right now. Manizheh, you knew my price, and it wasn’t just for your daughter. It was for freedom from Suleiman’s curse.”

  “Aeshma,” Vizaresh hissed. “We need to leave.”

  “So go,” Manizheh said. “Take her and the ring. You’re the ones who are so clever, aren’t you? Figure out a way to put her in your thrall and get your own powers back.”

  “That was not our deal!”

  “Consider the terms changed. Now go. I have an army to destroy.”

  Aeshma cursed. “Cowards and blood-poisoners. Lying blood-poisoners. As selfish and unreliable as your ancestor.” Nahri saw his mace rise in the air.

  Then it came down, and she saw nothing at all.

  43

  ALI

  Ali stood on the prow of the small ship he and Fiza had originally sailed into the sea—the last one they’d brought up from the deep. It had taken some wrangling, since it was in Tiamat’s realm, but in the end, the mother of chaos seemed to enjoy the outrageous plan he had in mind.

  It’s preposterous and will almost certainly result in many, many deaths.

  Go with my blessing.

  And now Ali was here, back in Daevabad—albeit a lot sooner than he’d intended.

  Please be safe, my friend. Ali had not known his heart could experience the level of panic it had when Jamshid had flown up with Fiza on what appeared to be a half-dead simurgh, informing him that not only were his brother and sister due to be executed in two days, but that the woman he loved was flying back to Daevabad, alone on a shedu, with a magical ice dagger the peris had given her to kill the Afshin.

  Nahri said she hoped they caught up in time.

  And she calls me reckless … “All the boats are through?” Ali asked Fiza softly. He tried not to raise his voice unnecessarily around others, learning his appearance—his eyes now yellow and black like Sobek’s, fog wreathing his ankles—was startling enough.

  Fiza, God bless her, had stopped finding anything about his transformation intimidating and treated him with her normal base level of rudeness. “Yes, Your Wateriness,” she said with a sarcastic bow. “God, I still don’t understand why we have to be on the dullest boat. A hundred different ships—ships made of bone, ships that haven’t been seen in a thousand years—and you stick us on a trumped-up felucca. This is torture for a sailor, you know that, yes?”

  Ali raised a hand, steadying the lake. Though he stood on a solid deck, he still felt submerged, pushed and tossed in an unseen current. “We’re relying on marid magic for all this,” he pointed out. “And there’s not going to be any marid magic if the Afshin spots me on a flashy ship of bones and murders me.”

  “He has two new Nahids and an entire army to deal with. You really think he’s that focused on you?”

  Ali paused. He was not an arrogant man, but their interactions had left him fairly certain that if Darayavahoush had a kill list, Ali occupied a prime position. “I think he’d take a lot of satisfaction from murdering me, yes.”

  “My prince,” Wajed said, joining them. “The boats have all made it. Are you ready to take us to the beach?”

  Ali nodded. They had little clue what else to do but meet up with the remains of the Royal Guard and then head to the palace—they needed all the men and firepower they could get. But Ali hated having no idea what he was walking into. Jamshid had rushed back to help his sister, adding only that they believed Manizheh might be using some sort of blood magic.

  “Just wonderful omens all around,” Ali muttered to himself, glancing again at the fleet he’d organized. The mist might have been too thick for djinn eyes to pierce, but Ali saw with perfect clarity the scores of ships he’d reassembled and dragged from the abyss with Sobek’s help. As impressive, if not more painstakingly gathered, was its crew: djinn from literally all over the world. Ali and Fiza had spent every waking moment dashing through the currents to chase down leads from the farthest western coasts of Qart Sahar to the islands beyond Agnivansha. They had burst from the water with a simple message.

  Return to Daevabad and save your kin.

  Under any other circumstances, Ali knew they would have been denied. They probably would have been chased off and killed, or he would have been kidnapped for the ransom Manizheh was offering. But the desperate times she’d had taken advantage of—the pilgrims from all over the world who’d been trapped in Daevabad and the loss of magic—were just as easy to turn against her. Manizheh and Dara were distant stories, effortlessly spun into monsters. Ali, stepping from the deep with magic pouring from his hands, impossible ships before their eyes, offered a far nearer solution. And though plenty of people had turned him down, out of fear, caution, or because he looked like a “marid abomination,” he’d gathered enough fighters, supplies, and aid to make a difference.

  Or so he hoped. Ali looked again at his army: sand-dragon riders from east Tukharistan who’d been living around a cold mountain lake and shafit riflemen from a hidden refuge in southern Agnivansha. Warriors from all over Am Gezira—he’d had no problem convincing his tribesmen, nearly all of whom had lost family and friends—and nearly an equal contingent from Ta Ntry.

  Ali said a prayer under his breath and then finally answered Wajed. “We’re—”

  A blur of gold fur and brilliant wings dashed by overhead. Ali glanced up and gasped at the sight of a shedu zipping through the air in a daringly erratic pattern, like a dove fleeing a hawk.

  But it wasn’t Nahri riding the astonishing creature, it was Jamshid, back once more.

  Jamshid glanced down, his gaze finding Ali’s. “She’s at the palace!” he yelled, turning around at the same moment to aim an arrow at whoever was pursuing him.

  From the fog burst Ali’s nightmare.

  Darayavahoush was finally the demon Ali had always known him to be, swathed in scaly black armor and riding a winged horse of smoke and embers. Fiery light crackled across his furious face as he flew after Jamshid, but then he whirled around … glowing emerald eyes landing on Ali, a conjured bow flashed.

  Wajed lunged between them and shoved Ali into the lake.

  The Qaid’s face brightened in pain, but Ali didn’t even get a chance to shout his name before the cold water closed over his face. The lake tugged Ali deeper, and he fought a moment of panic, his memories of being dragged down during his possession returning.

  But the pull of the lake was like a worried friend now. Danger, memories that weren’t his warned. The surface was perilous, the fire-bloods who raced over it enemies.

  No, they’re my family. The watery grip on his ankle relented slightly, and Ali swam for the boat, calling for the mists above the surface to thicken even further. He waited a moment, searching the sky, then pulled himself out of the water and climbed back onboard.

  Relief coursed through him. Wajed was sprawled on the deck, cursing and fighting the djinn attempting to help him with the arrow piercing his shoulder, but still very much alive.

  Ali fell to his knees at his side. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Wajed insisted, even while hissing in pain. “We need to get to the docks.”

  She’s
at the palace. Nahri. Ali traced the distance between the crumbling docks and the palace. They were on opposite sides of the city, and it would take time to get there—assuming they weren’t bogged down by enemy forces in the Daeva Quarter.

  “No, please!” A horrifying scream pierced the lake, bouncing around the fog like a ghostly echo passed from ship to ship.

  Ali looked around but could see no source of the sound. “Fiza?”

  “I don’t know.” Fiza drew her pistol—a new one she’d “found” in a rather disagreeable trading post on the coast of Qart Sahar—and searched the fog. Another wail reverberated across the deck, and he saw her shudder. “Do you smell that?”

  He inhaled and gagged as the scent of scorched hair and rotten meat washed over him. “What is that?”

  As if in response, there was a sizzle and then a hissing splash as a wet projectile flashed from the sky and hurtled into the lake. A second. The third globule landed on the deck, blood-dark and smoldering as it soaked into a pile of ropes.

  The ropes burst into flames. Another foul splash set the sails of the nearest ship on fire. A man screamed, diseased pustules breaking out across his skin as one of the globules struck him.

  And then it was chaos. People dashed for cover under anything they could, yelling and swearing as the fiery blood showered down.

  Spurred into action, Ali let his marid powers consume him. Energy surged through his limbs, unrestrained and eager. Another time, trying to harness such a thing might have made him black out, but the armor Sobek had given him cushioned the blow, magic rippling through the scaled hide of Ali’s helmet and vest.

  They wanted to fight him with fiery rain? Ali raised his hands and emptied the clouds.

  The torrential downpour that answered extinguished the flames, but Ali didn’t dare let it stop, shifting his focus to keep calling down the rain even as he urged the lake to carry his fleet toward the docks. It wasn’t easy; it felt like splitting his very mind in two, and Ali was so distracted by the effort that he didn’t notice anything else amiss until Fiza shouted:

  “Alizayd, look down!”

  Ali obeyed—just in time to see the swollen white hand that had been creeping over the deck, half the flesh nibbled away, seize his ankle.

  It yanked hard, and Ali slipped, grabbing the rigging to keep himself from being dragged back into the lake. But the wraith that had seized him was only the first. Before he could cry out, more figures burst from the water below them, landing on the deck with silent, deadly purpose.

  “Dear God,” Wajed breathed.

  Ghouls. And not just any ghouls. For the tattered remains of the clothes clinging to their putrid flesh was familiar. Very familiar.

  “My brothers,” Ali whispered. “No. Oh, God …”

  It was the slain troops of the Royal Guard, the soldiers who’d been drowned and murdered the night of Manizheh’s first attack.

  That’s not possible. None of this should be possible. The sky should not rain fire, and murdered djinn did not become ghouls.

  It was blood magic. Jamshid had been right.

  With a roar, Ali yanked free his zulfiqar and sliced off the hand gripping his ankle. He didn’t have time to contemplate all this. They needed to fight.

  A shot rang out. Fiza frantically reloaded her pistol, the bullet having done nothing to slow the advancing ghoul. Ali rushed for her. Sick with grief, he nonetheless raised his zulfiqar and cut clean through the ghoul’s neck. The creature stumbled …

  And then it kept going.

  That had not happened with the human ghouls.

  Fiza screamed, shooting again as the now-headless corpse reached for her. Out of options, Ali snatched up a belaying pin and knocked the reanimated body back into the lake.

  It won them maybe a minute. The creature bobbed right back up like a cork, again coming for the ship.

  Fiza stashed her pistol, and Ali tossed her the belaying pin, swapping his zulfiqar for the sickle-sword Sobek had given him. A cool surge of magic dashed down his arm when he touched it, a burst of water twining around his wrist.

  “Zaydi!”

  Wajed’s cry was enough warning for Ali to dive out of the way, avoiding a lunging ghoul. He whirled back around, cutting the ghoul straight across the chest with the marid blade.

  It stopped dead in its tracks. It moaned and swayed, and then, with a sick squishing sound, the fluids burst from the wound. Water and rotting sludge drained from the bloated corpse with such force that the entire body shuddered, leaving nothing but a wrung-out husk on the deck.

  Ali was suddenly very glad he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Around him, more than one man was retching. He stared at his sickle-sword.

  His marid-gifted sword.

  Then he sheathed it, running for the railing. “Keep knocking them back into the water!” he yelled.

  “Where are you going?” Fiza cried.

  “To get help!”

  Ali launched himself back into the lake.

  THE VIEW BENEATH THE SURFACE WAS NOT ENCOURAGING.

  The water was so thick with the dead that swimming past them felt like cutting through a school of fish—fish who avoided him, thankfully, lurching away like Ali was a shark in their midst. Ghouls were clambering onto one another’s backs, digging what remained of their nails, their teeth—anything—to get onto the ships. The press of dead flesh reminded Ali of his time on the Nile, and he couldn’t help but shiver at the memory of how close he’d come to being eaten alive.

  It was not a fate he’d see befall the army he’d brought to Daevabad or his loved ones inside the city, even if it meant inviting some almost equally alarming-looking allies.

  Sobek had told Ali how important Daevabad’s lake was, but he could see it with his own eyes now. Feel it. Thousands of currents danced across the water in every direction, beams of pale gold rippling like dust twirling in the light. Ali reached out a hand and took hold of one.

  Cousins, he begged. I could use your help.

  At first nothing happened. Even below the water, Ali could hear his men screaming and dying. But gradually the light began to change, shifting in different parts of the lake as some of the currents abruptly snapped straight, like ribbons pulled tight. Then tunnels of water opened. A tropical green-blue from turbulent seas. Inky black from the deepest trenches. Languid brown from ponds and rivers. Crystal clear from streams. Icy white from turbulent rapids.

  And from those tunnels came all kinds of marid.

  All kinds of his kin.

  They streamed through with the frantic, angry power of those who had seen their home invaded. Merpeople, carrying vicious spears. Half-otter half-crabs, chattering and snapping their pincers. Sharks and kraken and eels longer than a city block. They’d heard his call and were back in the lake they’d feared never to see again.

  They didn’t hesitate to attack the ghouls infesting their sacred water and, in doing so, save the lives of the djinn above the surface. Gratitude welled in him, but Ali didn’t have to say anything. His emotions carried on the water, as did their relief and pleasure.

  Then, from the bottom of the lake, the muddy bed itself seemed to stir. Tentacles snaked upward, encrusted in eons of debris. Bones and fishing hooks, crabs and the roots of drowned trees.

  It was the lake marid that had possessed him.

  Ali stilled in the water as the creature carefully approached, one of its tentacles brushing his arm. They exchanged no words; they both already knew each other, Tiamat having shared their worst memories. Ali’s torture, the lake marid’s dispossession and unfathomed loneliness.

  Instead, Ali’s mind filled with new visions. The cliffs beneath the palace and how fiercely the lake beat against the rocks there, enough to spray the walls. Images of midnight blue water rising and falling, great swells licking up mountains and flooding the valleys.

  And he knew what he needed to do.

  He brushed his hand against the lake marid. Leaving his new kin to deal with the ghouls, Ali
swam back to the surface and headed for the nearest ship, a drowned galleon of coral and reclaimed wood. An Ayaanle sailor cried out in alarm when Ali rose to his feet on the deck, but no one attacked him, so he took that as an encouraging sign.

  Ali stared again at the docks. He’d stopped the fleet when the ghouls attacked, not wanting to lead the undead into the city, but he pulled on the water now, feeling the lake marid below lend its strength. They needed to get to the palace.

  But he had to stop thinking like a djinn. Ali didn’t need a dock or dry streets—streets where his warriors might get set upon by enemies or pinned by the Afshin.

  Ali could carve his own path.

  Fixing his gaze on Daevabad’s cliffs, he drove his fleet directly at them.

  A great wave rose beneath the ships, and then they were rushing forward, soaring across the water. The palace sat high atop the cliffs overlooking the lake, but cliffs could be devoured, swallowed. Usually it took ages. Now it would take seconds. Ali drove the water higher and higher, the lake marid cackling in his head, his kin cheering.

  He landed his navy on the palace walls themselves.

  That took far more care, Ali falling to his knees as he settled the fleet around him, trying to set the boats in places where they would do the least amount of damage and pulling the water back into the lake, rather than dumping it into the city.

  By the time it had receded, Ali was spent. He released his hold on the marid magic and then—empty stomach notwithstanding—threw up, collapsing into the arms of a very bewildered sailor.

  His vision blurred and went black, Ali’s efforts to remain conscious meeting with mixed success. He could hear running feet and more screams, bizarre beastly shrieks and the sound of blades hacking through flesh.

  “Where is he?” Fiza. “Alizayd? Alizayd!”

  “Over here!” the sailor holding him yelled.

  A foot nudged his side. “Are you dead?” Fiza asked.

  Ali spat blood. “Not yet.”

  “Good. Might want to open your eyes.”