The Seared Lands

by Deborah A. Wolf

  The girl is echovete, his treacherous heart whispered, and ne Atu. She could wear the Mask of Sajani, and I the Mask of Akari. Together—

  Even as a longing for the life and love he had left behind stirred in Ismai’s heart, desire welled up that part of him that was the Lich King—the desire for power. This new development was… invigorating. Ismai picked up a horn of mead and stared into the golden liquid. Sulema was mead and honey-bread, he thought, laughter and life. She was all things good and beautiful—

  And she was Sa Atu, the Heart of Atualon.

  Together we could take Atualon, he thought. Together we could weave sa and ka in equal measure and send the restless Sajani back into her deep and dreamless slumber.

  Or together, the dark shadows of his soul whispered, that part which had slept through ages and should never have been roused. Together we could wake the dragon, and watch the world end. It would be something new, after a thousand years. Something… interesting. It would be glorious.

  Ismai raised the horn to his lips, and drank.

  FORTY - THREE

  The Lich King was a man with two souls, neither pure. Legend held that Kal ne Mur, the greatest Dragon King ever to rule from Atualon, was descended from both the First People and from the Dae. The old stories held that he was more than a man, more than human, and the very fact that he had risen from the dead was, Ani thought dryly, proof of that.

  While Ismai…

  Ismai, she thought, and her heart was wretched with grief. Sweet boy, what have they done to you? What have you done to yourself? She could feel pain in his bones that went beyond charred skin and ruined eyes. He was all wrong on the inside, desecrated by misuse and betrayal, strayed so far from his soul’s intended path that Ani could not see how she might ever light his way home. To attempt it, she was certain, was to risk becoming lost herself.

  And the Lich King…

  Ani shivered. Nothing in her life—not being sold away from her family when she was a child, not her first battle, not even her own wicked magic terrified her as deeply and utterly as did Kal ne Mur. His face, to her magicked eyes, was a column of black flame and a pit of a mouth endlessly screaming. To others he no doubt appeared charming, handsome even, with the face of a fine youth overlaying that of a king. To her he was the epitome of horror.

  She could not simply drive the Lich King from Ismai’s body, as if he were a song that needed to be unsung. That tenebrous soul had permeated the boy’s body as the smoke of battle might cling to a warrior. More deeply still. Even the foulest ash might be steamed from the face and skin, whereas Ismai’s bones were steeped in the stench of undeath until not even she could tell where one left off and the other began. If she attempted to separate the two, certainly Ismai would perish. And if she did nothing, this war they waged for Ismai’s body would leave them dead sooner rather than later. Dead, or worse.

  What of the undead legions, Bonesinger? Inna’hael asked, his voice a soft snarl. What of the monstrosities your kind have called into existence? If the Lich King is killed, will their unhappy shades be banished in his wake, or will they be loosed upon the world to wreak what vengeance they might? I rather think it is the latter.

  Ani rather thought so, too, but kept it to herself. She could feel the struggle within Inna’hael, whom she knew was powerful among the vash’ai—how powerful, she could not guess, though she had her suspicions—and whom she feared might yet side with those of the greater predators who wished to simply wipe out humans and their incessant abuse of the world’s magics. Faced with the horror that was the Lich King, and for which humans were wholly responsible, Ani could not entirely disagree.

  Ani could not cure Ismai from the Lich King’s taint, but she could not simply let the two of them remain as they were, locked into a single body and with a war raging between them. Neither would the danger be mitigated—even had she the heart to do it, which she did not—by slaying Ismai’s body, corrupted as it was. Ani could see only one way through this goat-shit-laden path, and that was to use a bonesinger’s deepest and most strictly forbidden power: she would have to fuse the two souls into one, erasing both songs from the music of the world and creating a new one.

  Any other bonesinger would have been obliged to kill her for entertaining such a thought.

  Fortunately for me, she thought as she readied herself to the task, I am the last of my kind.

  She breathed deeply, taking in and letting go, taking in and letting go. Let the scents of the inn imbue her senses, acknowledged that her stomach was empty and her bladder full, that the smells and sounds of riverboats and their captains vied for her attention with an itch at the tip of her nose, and then just… let it all go. She sank deep as if into a lover’s kiss, or a pleasant dream, or a warm bath, or a well-deserved and honorable death.

  There!

  Listening to the songs of the bones of the world, she beheld them both, the Lich King and the youth, like the flames of two candles lit too close together. The fires burned too hot, too close, but there might be a way, if she was as foolish and reckless as she had always accused her girls of being. With a great deal of unearned luck, if she just…

  Istaza Ani sang, low in her throat and her rib cage she sang of raindrops joining to become a river, of rivers joining and flowing together, together into the ocean. She sang of lovers twined, of flowers and bees and sweet spreading warmth. She sang of letting go, and letting be, of drops of ink taken into paper to become a mother’s book. Of letters joined into words, into poetry, into song.

  Ah, she thought.

  Almost…

  Almost…

  There! I have them.

  The twin flames began to ebb and swell in time to her music, her song, to flicker and flare and dance as one.

  As one, she thought, making it so. She imagined reaching out to two candles and pressing, pressing them together into a single column of flame. High it burned, and white-hot, a flash of heat furious enough to sear all the lands of men to dust and bones.

  Ani withdrew her dreamhands, withdrew her song slowly, slowly, and with some trepidation surveyed her handiwork. Where there had been two flames, two candles in her imagining, there was now one. A single column, imperfect and twisted but whole, and from it burned a clear, clean flame.

  It is finished, she thought, for better or for worse. I have killed their songs and written a new one. It was a small thought, scarcely more than a whisper against the great maelstrom that was Kal ne Mur, but he heard her. The flame twisted and turned, and in it now she saw a face—a man’s face, strong and severe and bearing upon its brow an antlered crown.

  Bonesingerrrr, he growled, and the flame crackled. She felt the searing heat. What do you do here?

  Ani longed to flee, but her bones were deep as the mountains, a legacy passed down to her through a line of powerful women, her flesh strengthened by a lifetime of true living. Had she not called Hafsa Azeina friend? Had she not, in turn, raised a girl who would become queen? She stiffened her knees and her spine, and stared death in his fiery face.

  I am helping you, you goatfucking idiot, she replied.

  A flickering.

  Istaza Ani, is that you? Ismai’s face peered out from the flame.

  Yes, she replied, wishing that she could draw him whole and unharmed from the heart of the fire. Wishing that she had enough truth left in her bones to apologize for killing him. As much of me as is left, I guess.

  You called… the Lich King… a goatfucking idiot. His astonished laughter was lost in the next swirl of flames but would burn forever in her heart.

  This magic… is forbidden. The Lich King roared, threatening to engulf her.

  But Ismai held it back. His song rang true still, cool and sweet, and it kept the world from burning in the wrath of Kal ne Mur.

  The Lich King looked surprised, and then thoughtful.

  So… you have joined us together, he said. His voice was odd, swinging back and forth from youth to man and back again as the two halves merged into a
frightening new whole. You have made me… less… than I was.

  That remains to be seen, she answered. It was the only way to save both of you. As it was, sooner or later your struggles for dominance would have torn the heart you share until it stopped beating, and you would have both died—or become something worse. This world cannot risk such a sundered soul, not at this time.

  Did you do this to save us, then, or to save yourself from us? Ismai’s bitter laughter rippled forth.

  Both, she answered, stung by the truth in his words. And the world, maybe. I do not care for the whole world to become as the Seared Lands—or for the living to become meat for the dead. What I have done here, I have done for love.

  Perhaps. Ismai frowned. And it is possible that you have done us a great service, on this day. Yet such magic is forbidden. It has always been forbidden. To tear a song from the web of the world is worse than murder, as it erases a soul from the fabric of life. You have done this not to one soul, now, but two. Even among bonesingers, this would be seen as anathema. You have broken the ancient laws and must pay the price.

  No! Ismai wailed, but his voice deepened, even as that of the Lich King grew smoother in timbre. Soon where there had been two faces, two thoughts, two souls, there would be only one—and that one would want her dead.

  Not dead, the voice said, gentler than she had expected. Not dead but gone. Banished from the lands we claim— Dzirana Ani, last daughter of the deep magic, Keeper of the Song of Souls, you are hereby banished from every land we have claimed or will claim. In no city of mine may you show any of your faces, from Quarabala in the west to Eid Kalmut in the east you are hereby banished upon pain of death. In consideration of this service which you have rendered us, and at risk of your life, I give you four moons’ time for your preparations and farewells. After such a span of days—and not one day more—you must absent yourself from my lands.

  It is done.

  The Lich King pursed his fiery lips and blew. Ani’s world went dark.

  * * *

  “Ani, Ani! Oh, sweet girl, do not go, do not leave me here alone…”

  Ani’s heart broke to hear Askander’s voice thick with weeping, and so she decided to open her eyes and live. She drew a great breath as she imagined a fish must when thrown back into the river, and it burned.

  “I am not dead,” she rasped, and was seized by a fit of coughing fit to crack her ribs. “Ow! Help me up. I—” Another fit of coughing, worse than the first, and for the next little while she could do nothing but fight to keep her lungs on the inside where they belonged. All the while Askander held her as if she was precious, as if she was fragile, as if she was the last good thing in the world and only he could keep her safe.

  Finally the terrible coughs subsided. Askander offered her a waterskin, which she drained in one long pull.

  “That helps,” she said, and she relaxed back into his familiar embrace. “Ugh, I feel half dead.”

  “You smell half dead,” Askander said into her hair, muffling a sob and a laugh at once. “You smell like… smoke. Like a funeral pyre. What happened?”

  “Well, I either helped to save the world, or to doom it,” she said. “At this point, I may be too tired to care. I need a bath, and a meal, and a good night’s sleep, and then I need to get my girls out of one last mess before I leave these lands forever. I have been banished from all the cities of men between here and Eid… Eid Kalmut.” The enormity of this hit her at once, and her voice broke. Was she never again to set foot in Aish Kalumm, to rest beneath the trees? To ride with the warriors of the Zeera, to see Akari Sun Dragon spread his wings across the desert sky?

  Was she never to see Sulema again, to hold the daughter of her heart? It was too much, too much. Tears flowed like the river in springtime, washing away all traces of hope.

  “Ah well,” Askander said slowly, as his arms tightened around her, “I never much liked cities anyway.” Her heart leapt, but Ani tried to shake her head, to pull free.

  “You do not have to come with me.”

  “Of course I do.” His arms were a tight band, strong and unyielding. Ani knew then that he would not let her go, not willingly, ever again. “Silly girl. You are not alone. You have never been alone—do you hear me?”

  “I do,” she said, and she meant it. In that moment, tired as she was, in pain, and sorrowing, Ani smiled through her tears, finally seeing for herself the beauty in truth. She would never be beautiful as Nurati had been beautiful, or wield such power as Hafsa Azeina. But she was Ani.

  That was, and always had been, enough.

  FORTY - FOUR

  The young man walked at first ahead of her, then behind, shadows dancing at his feet and his lovely mantid trilling a harmony as he played the bird-skull flute. Waymaster, he called himself now, and smiled a silent refusal whenever she asked what he meant by that.

  Sulema had often found herself resenting the attention paid to her mother’s frail apprentice, scant as that had been. He had not been so much like a brother to her as a shadow and an unwanted one at that; his disappearance from Atualon had scarce raised any more fuss than had his birth, and grieved her less than it should.

  Daru had vanished from the world moons ago, pop! like Mad Perian in the old stories, and pop! here he was again, full-grown and with eyes full of secrets. He wore strange, soft clothes of shimmering fabrics and walked with strength in his step. Daru played his flute as he led them through Shehannam, and shadows fled. Dreams begged for attention like children at his feet.

  Sulema was made happier than she would have guessed by his odd and wonderful reappearance into her life, and not simply because he had come back from the moons—or wherever he had been—to lead them through the Dreaming Lands.

  Shehannam was not a place, she had come to understand, that one wanted to wander through in the flesh without a guide. She had traveled to Shehannam in her dreams, but walking these woods in her waking flesh was not the same thing at all.

  Even more than she had resented Daru’s presence in her life, Sulema had begrudged the time her mother spent wandering the mysteries of Shehannam; she had imagined it a place of beauty and deep mysteries. And it was; beautiful as a sandstorm, mysterious as the Lonely Road. But it was a perilous beauty, a terrible mystery, and if it was a dream it was the kind of dream you might wake from and be glad of the light. There were voices in this place that belonged to no body, winds that blew with no sound, and birds that were no more than clusters of eyes and wings.

  The worst were the trees. They moved, she was sure of it. Sulema’s eyes ached just from watching the trees, waiting for one of them to drop a branch on her head or try some other wicked trick. Daru had warned them not to pluck so much as a flower or leaf from the trees in Shehannam, or to even gather dead sticks for a fire, but they had scarce needed to be warned: nobody wanted to touch a tree that growled, the bark of which felt like human skin.

  I love Daru more than I had expected, Sulema mused, and Shehannam rather less.

  Sulema did not know how long they had been walking through the Dreaming Lands. More than an hour, she thought, less than a day. But it could have been a day and a half for all she could tell, or they might only have come a mile. The sky overhead—if such a thing could be called a sky—was cottony-gray and drear, giving no indication of the hour. The only shadows in this place were the ones they had brought with them, and Daru did not let them stop to eat, or drink, or answer any call of nature.

  “Stray from the path but a little,” he had warned, “and you will be lost.”

  None of them, not even the children, needed to be told a second time. The trees crowded oppressively close to the path, while the odd eye-birds careened through the air above them.

  From somewhere deep in the woods there came a wail that was half-howl, half-scream; Sulema was altogether certain that she did not want to meet whatever foul thing made that noise. A horn sounded, two short blasts and one long, and a chorus of dream-rending howls sprang up behind them and to e
ither side.

  “We are being hunted,” Tamimeha remarked. She spoke the words in a matter-of-fact tone, but her eyes shone white round the edges.

  Hannei slapped the back of one hand sharply into the palm of the other, and jerked her chin at the long line of people moving in a slow huddle like frightened sheep along the wild road. Hurry, she signed. Hurry. Though it was hardly necessary—the blood-chilling howls had encouraged even the most wretched and road-weary of them to greater haste. Daru’s music leapt into a livelier tune: pip-pip peeeeeeee, pip-pip peeee-ohhhh!

  Daru did not need to sleep while dreamshifting as her mother had; he simply half-closed his eyes and played the little bird-skull flute as he danced along, choosing this path or that seemingly at random. As he played now the trees seemed to press in on either side, moving closer together on some paths and clearing the way for others. Daru invariably took the closer, darker, more difficult paths.

  “Who made these roads?” Sulema had asked him earlier. “Do humans live in the Dreaming Lands? My mother spoke so little of Shehannam.”

  “There are people who keep dwellings here—but they are certainly not humans,” Daru had said. “And these are not roads.”

  “Not roads? What are they, then?”

  “Game trails,” he had answered.

  Game trails and traps, she thought now. The trees were trying to herd them as hunters might herd tarbok into a ravine for easy slaughter.

  “Hurry!” Sulema bellowed toward the end of the line, and heard the cry taken up by the Iponui. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

  A branch crashed to the ground so close that had Sulema not jumped back, she would have been crushed.

  Somewhere in the glooming woods, something laughed.

  “It smells like a trap.”

  Sulema looked up into the brilliantly painted face of Tamimeha. The older woman stared straight ahead, grim-mouthed, but glanced at Sulema out of the corner of her eye.