The Seared Lands
Page 17
“Nnnnh,” she said, cupping one hand protectively over her abdomen. Please. Please. It is all I have left.
“Round as the moons,” Sharmutai repeated, ignoring her garbled plea. “The child grew and slept in my belly, beneath my heart, even as Sajani sleeps and grows in the belly of the earth. He loved me, or said he did, and I was happy.”
“Nnnnnhhh.” Please.
“His name was Pythos ap Serpentus ne Atu, and he was the son of the Dragon King of Atualon. He was so handsome—he could be an ass, of course, but he was very handsome, and he was kind to me. Our child would grow to be a king, or a queen, and I was happy.
“Do you know what they do to the prince’s mistress, little slave, when a new king takes the throne and replaces the old? Do you know what they do to the child in her belly? Would you like to see the scars?” Her face twisted, terrible with wrath and old sorrow long gone to poison.
Hannei dared not move, dared not even breathe. Would Sharmutai kill her babe, then, as some sort of twisted revenge? Or would she allow Hannei to bear Tammas’s child, only to claim it as her own?
Sharmutai stilled then, gone all to cold stone draped in fluttering silks, with eyes hard and shining as river stones. Terrible was the grief that poured from her, a bitter wind that had seared the land of her soul till nothing could ever grow there that was good or true.
“I see you, Kishah,” she said at last, in a voice Hannei had never heard from her. It was low, and ragged with grief, and unlovely, but it was the woman’s true voice at last. “I see myself in you. I might save you, if I could. Return your life to you, and hope, and love, but I have no hope or love left to me. Do you understand? None. They killed it when they killed my little one. All that is left for me in this world is vengeance, and I will have it. So I will give you what I never had. I will give you a chance.
“They left me to bleed and die in the rag pits, holding my dead babe in my arms. She was a girl child, you know, a little daughter. I named her Tatiana, and gathered up her little torn… her little torn… I…” Sharmutai closed her eyes and drew a ragged breath, long and slow. When she opened them again, she was once more the whoremistress of Min Yaarif. “I made a little cairn for her on the slopes of Atukos. I vowed that I would live, and I vowed revenge. One of those promises I have kept quite nicely. The other…”
She stepped close and laid a small, hard hand on Hannei’s cheek. She was trembling with fury.
“…the other promise I will achieve now, and you will help me. You will journey into Quarabala with this pretty friend of yours, my vengeance, my Kishah. The Seared Lands will be as nothing after my fighting pits.” She laughed. “Go on this quest, help your friends here to achieve their goals. Save the shadowmancer’s brat, by all means. Save every miserable person in the Seared Lands, if that is your wish, only help find this Mask of Sajani and return it to Min Yaarif—to me. This, and do one other thing.” Her lips curled into a cruel smile and she stared pointedly at Sulema.
Hannei’s heart died in her chest. No, she whispered, deep in the part of her that still believed in love and truth and happy endings. No.
It seemed to her that she stood at the heart of a storm, the sands of time and vicious regret stripping flesh from bone till there was nothing left but bitterness. Then the gentle sound of Ani’s voice came to her on the winds.
Remember who you are, girl, it said. You are Hannei Ja’Akari, daughter of Deaara and of Mazuk Ja’Sajani. The blood of queens flows hot in your veins and your bones sing of honor. Remember.
I am no one, Hannei replied to the ghost-voice, and spat bitterness upon the sand. I am nothing. I am Kishah, and my heart is hollow.
Sharmutai continued, unaware of the storm that raged. “That mask should have belonged to my daughter, the daughter of Pythos, son of the true Dragon King. It would have been her birthright, so I claim it as her blood price. The mask—”
Sulema stood with her arms around Atemi’s neck, her face buried in the mare’s wind-whipped dark mane.
“—and the heart’s blood of Sulema an Wyvernus ne Atu. Wyvernus who killed my child has escaped my vengeance, so I will have the life of his daughter just as he took the life of mine.”
She turned again to Hannei. “I give you this gift of a second chance at life, Kishah-whose-name-is-lost. I can see your heart, and I know you do not wish to do this thing. You will betray me, if you can. I respect that.” She smiled. “I will send Rehaza Entanye with you, to make sure that you do not. You are still Ja’Akari in your heart, still bound by honor and ehuani. You promised obedience to me in return for the life of your child. Obey me now. Fulfill your promise, your purpose, and regain your life. Return to me with the Mask of Sajani, and the blood of the spawn of the dragon upon your swords. Then you and your child will be free.”
Even as these words settled like a shroud upon her heart, Hannei watched as Sulema leapt upon Atemi’s back and leaned forward, urging her horse to fly, laughing as the golden mare broke into a joyful run that carried them both away. Sulema never looked back at the one she had called “sister.” She had not seen her standing there, wearing a cold iron collar and the swords of a pit slave.
Sulema sees only herself, Hannei thought bitterly. She would make a fine Dragon Queen, after all.
Sharmutai reached out and affectionately tousled Hannei’s short curls. “You are a smart girl, Kishah,” she said. “I trust you to make the right decision.” She turned and walked away, silk robes fluttering like the wings of a bird.
TWENTY - TWO
Sunlight poured across the Zeera, sweet and warm as mead poured from a pitcher of gold. A playful wind laughed before the ebony mare Mutaani, kicking up little sand-dae and erasing the tracks of a herd of tarbok.
It seemed to Ismai that the desert was ageless as the sky, ever-changing never-changing as the stars, and that he was nothing more than a character in one of his mother’s stories, soon to be forgotten by sand and sun and time.
The sand will fill my mouth, my eyes, he thought. My bones will dry and crack; they will be ground down to sand beneath the hooves of the next journeying hero…
…or perhaps a villain.
He glanced behind him. The host was, to his dead eyes, clearer and perhaps more beautiful than anything in the land of the living. Here and there at the fringes of this great force the desert’s skin rippled and split. When the Lich King called, those bits and pieces of dead things which were too destroyed to be of real use would sometimes join and create a new, foul creature. Never sleeping, ever hungering, these newborn bonelords swam just beneath the sand’s surface and followed the army, eager to devour the spoils of war.
My children, Ismai thought. The only children I will ever have, now. Had his eyes not been dead, had his heart been more than cold stone, he might have wept.
Nor were the undead Ismai’s only followers. He could feel Ruh’ayya trailing them to the south and east. Through his connection with her he could feel, as well, the presence of other vash’ai. Their number and intentions were hidden from him—hidden, he thought, by his own bond mate.
Kithren, he remonstrated, what is this? I have been betrayed by the prides, my heroes, by the very blood in my veins. Surely you do not turn against me as well?
I, Kithren? Her mind’s voice was haughty as only a cat could be, and he imagined the tip of her tail twitching. I have betrayed nothing. It is you who brought this abomination into our lives, and I will save you, if I must—
If you must… what?
There was no answer. Whatever his Ruh’ayya and the other vash’ai were planning, he would not be privy to their counsel. Ismai looked about him. There was Char—Naara—erstwhile friend, sometimes daughter, staring at him with brown eyes wide and innocent as his sisters’ had been. Warriors and sorcerers and revenants dragged back from peaceful death through their bond with the Lich King. He knew in his own bones they would turn on him the moment that bond was severed.
There is no loyalty here, Ismai thought to himself. No f
idelity, no honor, only fear and mutual need. Certainly there is no love—not here, perhaps nowhere in the world. The foundation upon which he had built his life, he knew now, was a lie. How had he ever believed that the world was a good place, and just? That warriors were honorable and such a one as he could love and be loved in return? We are all monsters, every one. Even Sudduth, the companion of Kal ne Mur’s childhood, who in life had burned so bright and clear.
Ismai pursed his lips thoughtfully as he looked at the woman who strode beside his horse. She was tall and lovely and strong as any Zeerani warrior. Kal ne Mur recalled, and Ismai had no reason to disbelieve, that this woman had once been famed for her temper and was known to have fought the least imagined insult to her honor. In life she had been a stone-cold killer, and death had not made her warmer.
And yet, as she walked, Sudduth crooned over the clay pot in which she had planted her precious cacao sprouts, and which she held close to her heart as if they were little green children. The sprouts were thriving under her care, and Sudduth demanded that they stop at every oasis and well and watering-hole so that she might tend them.
There, Ismai thought, there is honor. There is fidelity, and love. Those little sprouts had nothing to offer Sudduth; the chocolate she recalled so fondly would be harvested years from now, if ever, and if any of them survived so long. Watching her stroke a tender leaf with one long finger, he smiled. Sulema would like her.
Sudduth looked up, caught his expression, and frowned.
“My king?”
“Nothing. Only… you remind me of a friend.”
Sudduth’s clouded eyes flashed red, reminding him of her true nature.
“I am beyond friendship,” she said stiffly. “My king.”
“Of course.” He looked to the horizon and saw the wavering image of Aish Kalumm as it had been before the Mah’zula burned it, as it ever would be in his dreams. It was only a mirage, an illusion. “Forgive me.”
“I cannot.” There was no more regret in Sudduth’s voice than there had been love. “I will fight for you, and die for you, and obey when you call me back from the peace of my grave yet again. But one must live in order to love, and one must love in order to forgive. These things are for the living, not for such as you or I.”
Is this true? he wondered. Am I unable to love? Certainly Kal ne Mur, who shared and sometimes commanded his body, was corpse-cold and unfeeling. But he, Ismai, still felt the pain of betrayal, the weight of regret. Was that not part and parcel of love?
You yet live, Ruh’ayya interjected gently, though her voice was pricked through with pain and anger of her own. You yet love. I will it so.
I wish you would go, Ismai told her miserably. I do not wish to hurt you.
I know, she replied. That is why I stay.
Ismai closed his dead eyes, which changed nothing, and turned his face up to the sky. The sun was warm on his face, the wind still tugged at his cloak, and the shifting sands still sang their low, mournful song of ages. These things had not changed, the world had not changed.
“The world has not changed,” Ismai said aloud. “It is I who have been sundered, I who no longer belong to the world of the living.” Or to the dead, he added silently. Though perhaps it was best not to mention that in present company.
“Then we will remake the world in our image,” Naara said. Ismai felt her small, warm hand touch his calf, and then pull away. “In your image.”
“A world remade,” Sudduth said. “A world where cacao grows.”
“A world where I can make beautiful things,” Ibna agreed.
Ismai opened his eyes. The mirage of Aish Kalumm had disappeared, but another image was forming in his mind, and a dangerous notion. The city of his youth rebuilt bigger, grander, stronger than it had been. His mother, his brother and sisters, brought back from the Lonely Road—
No, Ismai thought, pushing the vision aside, horrified at the turn his own thoughts had taken. No. It would be an abomination. He glanced again at Sudduth, who had brought the clay pot close to her face and was singing to her plants.
There is loyalty, Kal ne Mur whispered within him, there is love, pure and good. If this is death, there is indeed beauty in it. What might your mother Nurati do, if given another chance? Or Tammas, Neptara, little Rudya? What beautiful world might we make together, you and I?
First we must free the Zeera from these false Mah’zula. After that—
“Mutaani,” Ismai said, “there is beauty in death. Might there not be beauty after death, as well?” He turned his most winning smile upon Sudduth. “We travel to Aish Kalumm. There we will find ships, left behind by the Dragon King’s son when he came to lay claim to Sulema. These we will sail down the Dibris and across Nar Bedayyan to Atualon, where I will reclaim all that is mine. And when we have finished— when the false Mah’zula have been destroyed, and the usurper Pythos, when I rule in Atualon and once more sing the song of all times—then, my sweet ones, then you may live such a death as you might dream for yourselves.
“The Mothers had a grove of trees in Aish Kalumm, precious trees. Sandalwood and sant—we could replant them, when this is done. Your small plants would be safe among them. I see no reason to stop living just because we are dead. When all the world is mine again I will give these groves unto you to tend as you will, and none will ever dare to disturb you or your green children.”
Sudduth looked up at him, and this time she smiled back.
“Mutaani,” she agreed. “It is good.”
Naara skipped ahead of them, singing.
* * *
As they neared the wardens’ encampment, Ismai was neither surprised nor particularly pleased to find a small force of Mah’zula waiting for them, bright beneath the sun in their wyvern-scale armor. They would have been poor warriors and blind to have missed the signs of such a large force on the move. The presence of two of Thoth’s priestesses he had also expected, though the sight of the snake-women caused a growl to rise from deep in his belly, a sound that was echoed in his mind by Ruh’ayya.
More surprising to him was the sight of a dreamshifter, hair in a mass of tangles and pale staff upraised so that for a moment Ismai thought Hafsa Azeina had returned from Atualon to smite him. The old guilt flushed through him— had that fearsome woman ever learned of his true feelings for her daughter, she would have tanned his hide for a dance drum. Closer inspection revealed this dreamshifter to be an older man, somewhat squat and unremarkable.
Besides, Ismai reminded himself, Hafsa Azeina is dead. As Lich King, he knew the list of newly dead as if he read the names from a book. Mastersmith Hadid’s name was written upon those pages, and Tammas. Fat, sweet little Sammai who had been named for him. Rudya and Neptara, his sisters, and Nurati his mother. The book of dead read like the book of his life.
Hannei yet lives, Ruh’ayya reminded him. Also Daru, and your Sulema.
With great effort Ismai pushed her words aside. They made his heart leap, and this was not the time for feeling alive. He looked upon the golden warriors, the twisted and unclean perversion of his mother’s stories. At the priestesses of Thoth with their snake faces and snake plumes, their bright bottles of venom. And the rage grew hot in his breast.
This, he thought as he felt Kal ne Mur rise within him, this is a day for death. Thus, when the Lich King came darkly into his mind, Ismai did not resist.
The dreamshifter and one of the snake-women rode closer, palms out in the traditional gesture of peace. They were accompanied by a handful of others. Ismai was relieved to note that they did not have bells braided into their hair. That small breach of Zeerani protocol, the refusal to declare themselves of peaceful intent, was excuse enough to forgive himself for what he was about to do.
He drew Mutaani to a halt. She tossed her head and snorted, dancing beneath him like a hot coal. Sudduth stepped closer, shrugging into the harness she had fashioned to snug the little clay pot securely between her shoulder blades. She would not abandon her plants, not even for war.
Let me do this thing, coaxed the Lich King. Let us be one.
Ismai, looking upon the Mah’zula, gave in to vengeance. As you will.
A shudder took him head to toe. When it had subsided, Ismai looked down upon his friend, and smiled Kal ne Mur’s smile. Sudduth smiled back, a feral expression, and bared an inch of her sword. “My king.”
“These women,” he said, raising his voice so that it would carry, “these false Mah’zula defile the name of Zula Din, the memory of her warriors. These snake-women foul the memory of Thoth. What would I have you do?”
A jagged cheer rose from the ranks of the undead as the Lich King leaned down to caress Sudduth’s cheek.
“I will listen to their words, and consider them wisely,” he told her. “And then you will kill them all.”
* * *
The snake-woman spoke first, as Kal ne Mur had expected. These women were not priestesses of Thoth as he remembered them from old, but humans greedy for power. Power was a language that was understood in every age and every tongue, and none had spoken it longer than he.
“Who are you,” the priestess asked, “to ride into our lands girded and armed as if for war? A boy I see before me, mounted and dressed above his station, and he rides with… an abomination.”
The abomination that was Sudduth chuckled and spun her sword. Before she had become his captain, Kal ne Mur remembered, she had been an acrobat in a troupe of fools, and fond of putting on a show.
“If my face is not familiar to you,” he answered, forcing this youthful and untrained voice to be more than it was, “perhaps my name will be. I am Ismai son of Nurati.” He had not meant to say that. “And I am Kal ne Mur, risen to ride among you once more.”
“He is your king,” Sudduth asserted in a voice as hard as the sword at her hip. “Kneel to him or die.”
“There is no king in the Zeera,” the false Mah’zula said. She looked as if she wished to spit but did not quite dare.