Twelve Kings in Sharakhai

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  And that was it, Çeda realized. That was what she would have to do if she hoped to strike against the Kings. She would have to hide her moves. She would have to plan ahead, for surely they would do the same when they learned of her. She had the luxury of being a faceless child in the midst of the sprawl of Sharakhai, but that wouldn’t always be true. She had to be ready.

  The following day they would learn that Kialiss had died from her wounds. It was a relative rarity, but not unheard of. Every month, it seemed, someone died, either outright in the pits or days later, succumbing to blood loss, unseen internal damage, or infection.

  Çeda turned to Emre and held her palm out. “Four sylval, if you please.”

  “But you cheated!”

  Çeda laughed. “And how, exactly, might I have managed that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, slapping the coins down onto her palm, “but when I find out, you’re going to owe me eight sylval.”

  “Be sure to let me know when that razor-keen mind of yours figures it out.” She pointed him down the aisle, toward the exit. “In the meantime, let’s find Tariq.”

  They left the pits and entered the shadowed afternoon streets. The next bout would begin soon, and they wanted to get back to the Trough so they could run the streets a bit with Tariq before the crowds thinned.

  They were just leaving when Çeda noticed a brute of a man with several other dirt dogs she’d seen in the pits at one time or another. She knew she’d seen the big one before, but she couldn’t place him in any of the matches she’d witnessed, and she was normally very good at such things.

  Only when they were well past him did the memory of a man sprinting along the dry riverbed of the Haddah flash through her mind.

  Gods, can it be?

  She snapped her head around, bobbing back and forth to look beyond the passing pit-goers, wondering if she’d been mistaken. Hoping she had been.

  Emre, who’d moved a few paces ahead during Çeda’s preoccupation, stopped and turned. “Will you hurry?”

  She looked back one more time and spotted him. And the scar on the back of his bald head.

  “What is it?” Emre asked as they began walking again. “You look like you’ve seen a bloody shambler.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You’re white as a sheet, Çeda.”

  “I said it’s nothing.”

  He left her alone after that, but he knew something strange had just happened. She didn’t mean to hide the truth, but she didn’t wish to open old wounds either—especially these wounds—not until she could learn more, for the man she’d just seen was Rafa’s killer, the Malasani bravo who had broken into Emre’s home and killed his brother over a stolen purse.

  It had taken Emre months to recover from that. It had been so bad she feared he would kill himself in his grief. He’d taken to holing up at home, never leaving, forcing Çeda to care for him. She’d even contacted his older brother, Brahim, the one addicted to black lotus, to try and help, but Brahim hardly knew Emre. He’d only come by once after Rafa’s death, and when he hadn’t been able to work through Emre’s darkness he’d left, returning to the drug den where Çeda found him.

  It had taken her long slow months of talking to Emre, bringing him food, even washing him from time to time, before he’d come back from the edge. But there were times, still—more often than she liked to admit—when his eyes went distant, and she knew the memories were haunting him again.

  So, no, she wouldn’t tell Emre about the bravo’s presence, but as sure as the gods were cruel she would make the Malasani regret returning to Sharakhai.

  “Come.”

  Çeda heard the call from her spot in the chilly hallway outside Pelam’s office, which sat along the southern end of the pits. She parted the beaded curtain and stepped inside. The sun had just risen and was slanting in through the shutters to fall brightly against one corner of the room.

  Pelam was sitting behind a desk, his gaunt form hunkered over a ledger in which he was writing in an impossibly tiny script. He was the master of the game. He was the one you went to if you wanted to fight. He picked the opponents, the types of games, their order in the day, all to maximize the profits for the owner, Osman, a fighter turned businessman.

  As Pelam continued to write, Çeda stood before his desk, hands behind her back, a thing she’d seen the pit fighters do when staring up at the crowd or Osman before their matches began. Pelam was engrossed in his ledger, however, and Çeda’s attention was caught by the personal effects on his desk—beautiful, delicate glassworks of intricate flowers and spread-wing hummingbirds. She’d seen hummingbirds before, though not in these colors, and she’d never seen the like of the flowers. Their petals were shaped like bells. She wondered if the flowers were real, if one could find such things somewhere out in the world, but the hummingbird was so lifelike she guessed the plant-life was as well.

  “Orchids.”

  Çeda started. “Pardon, Master Pelam?”

  “The flowers are called orchids. They grow in the swamps and fens of Mirea.” He sat back in his chair and took the narrow spectacles from his nose. “Now, what might I do for you?”

  “I’ve come to enter the pits.”

  Pelam did not smile, nor did he frown, but his expression made it clear he did not like having his time wasted.

  “And,” she went on before he could say no, “there’s a particular man I wish to fight.”

  At this Pelam’s eyebrows did rise. He sat back in his chair and looked down his nose at her. “Is that so?”

  “His name is Saadet ibn Sim, and he came to the pits three months ago.”

  Pelam interwove his fingers and laid them over his lean belly. “And how do you know Saadet ibn Sim?”

  “We have personal business.”

  “Then conduct it outside the pits. This is no place for personal vendettas.”

  “I know. This is a business, yes?” Çeda untied a small leather purse from her belt and tossed it in onto his desk. The purse was full and it landed with a very satisfying clink—as it ought to do; it held every last coin she’d saved over the years. “So let’s talk business.”

  He eyed the purse, one eyebrow lifting like a sand dune forming in the Shangazi. With his forefinger he shoved the purse back toward Çeda. “And what, pray tell, is this?”

  “Enough coin to buy me a bout with Saadet, I reason.”

  “Have you seen this man?”

  “I have.”

  “Turn around for me, if you would.”

  She did. She’d worn heavy clothes, but left her arms bare. Pelam saw fighters every day; she knew she could not impress him with her physical form alone, so she put on a face like Djaga in the pits, one filled with barely pent-up rage.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  Pelam’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You”—he waved his hand in a circular motion, somehow capturing her entire physique—“are only fourteen?”

  “So my mother told me.”

  “And where is your mother, Çedamihn?”

  “Dead.”

  “Ah . . .” His expression flattened, revealing little, but she had the distinct impression she’d somehow disappointed him. “You’re fit enough for fourteen. You might even make a decent fighter in a few years, but not now. And not against Saadet.”

  “It would make a brilliant match. I promise you that.”

  “For those who like a slaughter, yes, but for the rest of my audience, I’m afraid they’d be all too disappointed. As would you when the boys scrape you up off the pit floor.”

  “I can fight. You can test me.”

  Pelam sighed. “I’ve been doing this for a very long time. I like to think I can tell after a moment or tw
o whether a prospective selhesh will work out. Sometimes I’m wrong, but more often than not, these old eyes are right. And you, Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala, would not last the passing of a hawk over the desert blue sky against a man like Saadet.”

  “Saadet deserves a beating, Master Pelam. More than you can know. I will fight him, and I will win.”

  Pelam stood. “Not in my pits, you won’t.”

  “Ask Osman, then. He was a fighter once. He would understand.”

  “Would understand what? Revenge? I understand revenge, girl. Don’t think I don’t. If that’s what you want, find him and kill him when the tourney is done. If you know enough to have found him here, you can surely find his lodgings.”

  “I don’t want to kill him in the dark. I wish for him to know who’s come for him. I wish for him to know fear as deeply as he’s sown it.”

  “So that’s it, then. You wish to kill him for all to see, including the gods.”

  “That about sums it up. You don’t know what he’s done.”

  “What? What has he done?”

  “It isn’t my story to tell.”

  Pelam’s snort made her ears burn with embarrassment. “You’re wasting my time.”

  “Please, if you could only—”

  “Enough!” Pelam picked up the bag of coins and threw it at Çeda’s head. She ducked, the bag bursting through the strings of beads hanging from the doorway and thumping dull as a dead man’s purse against the opposite wall. “Take your money and leave. And don’t let me catch you haunting the streets around the wells. If I do, I’ll have you beaten and thrown in the Haddah’s dry bed to rot. Do you understand?”

  Çeda could only stare. What an utter, bloody mess I’ve made of this.

  “I said, do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “Now, get out!”

  She picked up her money and made her way out of the pits and into Sharakhai, feeling a fool but, more than that, feeling as though she’d failed Emre, which she wasn’t ready to accept. And yet she had no idea what she could do about it. She couldn’t go home. She knew that much.

  As she wandered the streets, she realized she was heading toward the west end of Sharakhai. And slowly she realized why she was heading toward the west end.

  Without even consciously thinking about it, her pace began to pick up, faster and faster, until she was sprinting toward the harbor.

  ÇEDA RODE AN ORNATE, four-wheeled araba up the winding road to Yusam’s palace. The setting sun was lost behind the araba’s canopy and lit the cloth a burnished gold. The wagon bumped, and Çeda’s stomach lurched. She gripped the seat harder with her good left hand. She was not afraid of heights, but the paved road was very narrow, and with only the smallest stone shelf along one side, it felt as though the araba might tip over at every turn.

  Zaïde and Sümeya sat across from her, both wearing embroidered cream-colored dresses that were so unorthodox—at least to Çeda’s knowledge—that it made her uncomfortable. It was as though they were playing dress-up, and that somehow felt insulting. Both had been silent since they’d left the House of Maidens, but they were a study in contrasts. Where Zaïde leaned her body into the padded bench, Sümeya sat with her back straight, hands and eyes in constant movement. Where Zaïde’s breathing was easy, Sümeya’s was sharp and erratic. And where Zaïde seemed content to watch the passing landscape, Sümeya stared down at the wagon’s floor or at Çeda with a mildly nauseated look on her face.

  Çeda wore not a fighting dress, nor the hobnailed sandals of the pits, but fine slippers, a silk gown of lightest blue and a jeweled headdress with gold medallions, as if she were about to be presented as King Yusam’s bride. The mere thought twisted Çeda’s guts in knots. It also made her painfully aware of the slim knife she had strapped to the inside of her thigh. Once or twice Çeda caught Sümeya staring, which only made Çeda relive Sümeya’s nighttime threat that unless she refuse the Maidens and return to the streets, Emre would pay the price.

  Sümeya looked at her again, and Çeda said, “One would think you were being presented to Yusam for judgment.”

  To Çeda’s surprise, Sümeya’s only reaction was a deep frown, but at least she stopped staring as the wagon continued its steady climb, high above the sprawling city.

  When they reached the top they came to a great circle. At its center stood a marble pedestal with a bronze statue of two leopards, teeth bared. It smelled crisp here, and cool, so different from the streets below. The araba swung around the circle and came to a creaking stop. The door was opened immediately by a young footman. A second footman, a few years older than the first, stood ready to help Zaïde down. She waved him away, and Sümeya ignored him. He seemed so eager to please, however, that Çeda allowed him to take her hand as she stepped down.

  The moment her feet touched the ground, two more servants opened the tall entrance doors. Somewhere inside, a gong rang. The tone was low, and it went on and on as Zaïde stepped inside the great entrance hall and was met by an older man dressed as a palace steward in a black turban and a fine kaftan of ivory and earthen tones made from a beautiful woven fabric.

  As Zaïde stepped aside, the steward scrutinized Çeda. Çeda thought he would search her, that he’d find her hidden knife, but he merely bowed and said, “The honor would be mine if you would follow me.”

  Çeda gave one last nod to Zaïde and trailed after the steward, heading deeper into the palace. She knew the palaces were large, but even so, it was much larger than she’d guessed. They passed through a hall with tall marble columns and a wide set of stairs, which they followed up four levels into a garden with beautiful flowering plants. It was such a winding section of the palace that Çeda wondered if she’d ever find her way out again. All the while her shoulders pinched tighter and tighter. The vision of her mother that she’d seen in Saliah’s garden haunted her: her mother walking the halls of a palace. Had she walked these halls? Was the Jade-eyed King her father? Could the responsibility for her mother’s death be laid at his feet?

  The mere thought enraged her, but Çeda calmed herself. Because the surest way of tipping her hand to a man like King Yusam was to present herself with anger in her heart, she allowed her thoughts to die on the vine. Just as she did in the cool cellars of the pits before a bout, she let the tension fade, allowed the tightness in her shoulders and chest to ease, relaxed her clenched jaw and allowed her eyes to take in and memorize her surroundings instead of searching constantly for threats. By the time the steward led her to another garden, much larger than the first, she was calm itself. She allowed some anxiousness to show, as a young Maiden would, but beyond that, she projected confidence, pride, even eagerness, hoping Yusam would be unable to guess her true intent.

  The garden had a burbling stream running along one side of it, and its border was not a wall but the uncut stone of Tauriyat itself. The stream ran into a clear, dark pool of rippling water with a coping of emerald green marble. There were trees here as well, types Çeda had never seen before. They had thick, entwining boughs that created a canopy of dark green leaves over the garden and prevented Çeda from seeing more of the indigo sky than patches and pinholes. She started when she noticed large, lamplike eyes hidden within. She ducked her head, ready to react to whatever it was, and saw a long graceful cat slung over one of the lower boughs—a leopard from the mountains, if she wasn’t mistaken. It looked as much a part of this palace as the urns and tapestries Çeda had seen on her way in. There was also a second cat, perched higher than the first, its head resting on one paw. Both of them watched her languidly, golden eyes blinking every so often.

  “Beautiful, are they not?”

  Çeda spun, realizing the steward had taken his leave and someone new had taken his place.

  Standing on the far side of the mere, beneath one reaching branch, was a tall man, sleek as the cats who lazed on the branches above. He ducked his head, aban
doning the darkness of the trees for the soft, even light of the garden. He wore a khalat, a long-sleeved robe of black Mirean silk. A squat turban adorned his head, pinned with an emerald brooch of deepest green. He had an aquiline nose and a weak chin, but his eyes were piercing. And their color . . . Jade-eyed King, indeed. Their bright green faded to silvery white at the center, giving him a rapacious look. They made her feel as though she were already caught before she’d even spoken a word.

  “Most beautiful, Excellence,” she said, her voice catching.

  He took slow, deliberate steps toward her, as if she were a doe he might startle. Like his face, his hands were gaunt, accentuating his knuckles and bones. His fingernails, however, were long and thick and yellowed. Like a cat’s. The tips of them were stained ochre, the color of dried red wine, as if whatever had touched them had done so so many times that the stain had become indelible.

  Blood, she realized. Blood discolored his nails. From what? she wondered. From what flesh?

  In an instant much of the nervousness she’d managed to suppress returned. He was an imposing man, and not from his physical stature, or even from his eyes, but from the depth of his soul, which was somehow palpable.

  Perhaps sensing her fear, he motioned to the bandages on her right hand. “The adichara gives an ardent kiss, does it not?”

  “It does,” Çeda said. “Though it feels much better, with many thanks to Zaïde.”

  He took another step, a smile stealing over him. “And why were you there, child? How found you among the twisted trees?”

  By Rhia’s bright face, those eyes . . . “I wanted petals.” She was unraveling. She could feel it. She was in danger of telling him anything he wished to know.

  “And why did you want petals?”