Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  “I thought we were talking about the Lions.”

  “To speak of one, you must understand the other.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. I know that you’re hard to see in the dark.”

  “And?”

  “And you do a hell of a job on magi and their shadows.”

  The flicker of a smile on his face. “That bothered you?”

  “It inconvenienced me. I had business with them. Also, one of my people got hurt.”

  “And you stabbed Aribah,” he said. “What happened in the tunnel was business. We are both what we are.”

  “And what, exactly, are you?”

  He pulled the cork and took a long draw on the water skin. “Long ago? We were demon hunters . . . djinn trackers. Under the Caliphates of Brass, and on into the reigns of the early despots, we were charged with bringing judgment to those magi who trafficked with darker spirits.”

  “‘Judgment’?”

  “Judgment. Death, yes, but other things as well. We brought the laws of heaven and man into the warrens of spirit and smoke. My tribe long ago learned how to write enchantments into the warp and weft of their robes. Magic couldn’t see us, and because magic couldn’t see us, neither could its servants.”

  “You mean the djinn,” I said, remembering what Raaz had told me.

  “I mean the spirits of the air and the sands and the heat and the night: the djinn and the ifrit and the angels of the barren places—”

  “Angels?” I said, sitting up.

  The assassin smiled and shook his head. “No, not the figments your people worship. I speak of the real thing: of the spirits who haunt the forgotten places, shredding the minds of men so they can use their empty husks to come back and wreak havoc among the living.”

  “You have different angels than we do.”

  “As I said, ours are real, and we hunted them and the sorcerers who brought them down from the skies and up from the earth. We are the neyajin, the scythe that harvested the djinn. Or at least we were, until they learned to make the bindings.” He took another pull from the skin, then spit off into the shadows. “Just as the sorcerers had learned to bind the dark spirits, so the despot and his magi learned how to bind magicians.”

  “You mean those things on their wrists are real?” I said, thinking back to the iron shackle Raaz had shown me on the way to the disaster in the tunnel. “I thought they were just symbolic.”

  “They are now, mostly, but originally, the shackles were truly enchanted. The despot Inaya—”

  “May her name be three times cursed, and three times again,” said Aribah, clearly following some kind of formula.

  “—and her High Magi—”

  “Sons of three-legged dogs, all!”

  “—set the neyajin the task of finding and binding the various sorcerers and magicians of the Despotate. And we did. It was neither easy nor pleasant, but as more magi were bound to the despot, she began to gather them into tals, or schools. Each received her patronage, but she never kept it constant—one year one school gained more favor; another year, a different tal saw its star rise. And always, as more magi took the bracelet, so they joined the tals.”

  “She used her favor to keep them off balance, to keep them plotting against one another rather than herself,” I said. Oh, Christiana would have liked this despot, I could tell.

  He nodded. “Yes. And, over time, as the wajik tals became established and the magi became used to turning to the despot for favor and advancement, the need for the shackles diminished. Shackles of iron and silver became shackles of promises and tradition—symbols that held the magi and their students stronger than any precious metals or spells. Shackles of honor.”

  “Honor the despots heaped upon the magi even as they stripped it from us,” snapped Aribah. This didn’t seem part of the recitation. “We, the neyajin, who had once counted our robes of merit by the roomful and been presented with turbans of the greatest size by the hands of the caliphs themselves, were reduced to prostrating ourselves for ribbons from ministers and minor chains of favor from secretaries.”

  Her grandfather glanced over his shoulder at her again, but this time there was a glint of pride in his eye.

  “She speaks the truth,” he said. “We who hunted djinn and and their summoners for the despots were cast aside. As the magi gained favor, they remembered the neyajin as the serpent remembers the hawk. We thought ourselves too valuable, grew too secure in our standing, but when—”

  “You were kicked to the gutter,” I said.

  “We were hunted and driven into it,” said the old man, glaring at the interruption.

  I shifted my seat and grunted as circulation resumed in parts of it. Bits of me had begun to settle as the old assassin spoke, and I could feel my fatigue building like a wave on the horizon. Ahrami could only do so much, and between the darkness and the fight and the miles I’d covered in the last day and a half, I was starting to realize just how little I had left in me.

  “Listen,” I said, leaning forward onto my thighs. “I love history. Really. Especially this kind of thing. But I’ve had the shit knocked out of me today, and not just by you. So if you could get to the part about the Lions of Arrat and my night vision, I’d be grateful.”

  I watched as the old man glowered and the young woman seethed, and tried to get worked up about having pissed on the treasured tale of two assassins. I couldn’t. Instead, I swallowed a yawn and rubbed my face.

  “The Lions,” said the old assassin, “are those who were sent to hunt the hunters. Guardsmen and agents of the despot, granted the powers and sight of the djinn so they might move through the night where we were blind. They tracked the neyajin for generations, using their newfound favor to hunt us down, first to break our tribes, then to scatter and slaughter our clan. When they finally stopped—when we finally became too few, and thus too much work, to track down—there was little more than a handful of families and households left to us.

  “By then, we were so used to the shadows, we remained there, turning our hands to killing for hire. No more did we dream of swaggering down the streets or sitting on great councils: We knew where we were safe.” He worked his jaw for a moment, chewing on his history and his anger. Then he looked up at me. “But you can change that.”

  “Me?” I said. “How? You’re already nearly impossible to see in the dark. And you can blind-fight better than anyone I’ve ever heard of. Seeing is nice, sure, but—”

  “Useless,” snapped Aribah. “He’s useless, Grandfather.”

  “He doesn’t understand, is all.”

  “What’s to understand? He can see, we can’t.”

  “Yes, but he couldn’t see you in the tunnel,” growled the old man. “Think. What’s he used to? How could we, who move unseen to his eye, be at a disadvantage? See as he would see it; think as he would think.”

  “I’m not—” I began.

  The old man held up his hand without looking at me. “Please,” he said. “Let the girl learn.”

  I bit back my annoyance but didn’t push my luck.

  “I think I see,” said Aribah after a moment.

  “Then explain it to the Imperial, so we can all understand.”

  Aribah turned dark eyes in my direction. “The Lions of Arat may not be able to see us,” she said, “but we see even less. Not the uneven ground, not the overturned chair, not the pile of garbage lying in the middle of a pitch-black alley. They can see on a cloudy night in the darkest of rooms, while we’re limited to starlight and the grace of the moon. We’re only as good as the darkness allows us to be, while they . . .” She paused, sorting her words. “They are as good as their vision makes them.”

  The grandfather smiled at her and turned back to me. “When we were favored by the despot and hunting renegades, our tricks and minor magics were enough. But with the magi and their pets organized and under the protection of the Despotate? On our best days, we manage a stalemate; on the rest, we try to not cross paths with the Lions. But if we co
uld see as the ak’ker jinnim see?” He smiled: It was a cold, ruthless thing. “Then we could remind the High Magi why they feared us so long ago, could stir the heart—or at least the bowels—of the despot once more. If the neyajin possessed the dark sight, our path toward redemption and the revival of our tribe would be that much clearer before us.”

  I looked back and forth between them—between the murderous gleam in his eyes and the stern, judging look in hers—and weighed my options. None of them were good. There was no way in hell I was going to fight my way out of here, and there was no way in hell I was going to be able to do what they wanted. I considered lying, but there wasn’t any angle I could think of that would get me out the door, or at least not in one piece. I was the answer to a prayer they hadn’t even known they could ask. But now that they’d found me?

  No, reassuring—and habitual—as lying might be when it came to the subject of my night vision, I knew the only thing that was going to get me out of here in one piece was the truth. I didn’t much care for the notion, mind, but what can you do?

  “I can’t help you,” I said.

  Aribah’s hand slipped from her lap to linger near a curved bit of darkness on her belt. I let my own hand drift to my boot, felt the absence there. Yup, she’d taken her dagger back.

  “Can’t,” she said, her fingers touching the handle, “or won’t?”

  “Can’t. The price is too high for me to pass it along.”

  “Price? What price? Either you know how to prepare the oils of the djinn, or you know someone who does. If it’s a matter of—”

  “No,” said the grandfather. He was regarding me now the way a thief might regard a locked strongbox. I didn’t much care for the sensation. “Listen to what he said—that the price would be too high for him to pass it along. That means it’s not a matter of teaching, but rather one of giving. Isn’t that so, Imperial?”

  I nodded. “If I give it, it’s gone.”

  He ran a finger over his beard. It sounded like pumice scraping over vellum. “Your sight doesn’t fade, does it? Doesn’t leave you after a day and night, like with the Lions?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t have the dark sight—or at least, not as we’ve been discussing it.”

  “No.”

  More scraping, more staring. Then an abrupt nod. “You’re not the answer I was expecting.” He rocked back, then leaned forward and sprang to his feet. “You’re of no use to me like this.”

  I climbed, with less grace and speed, to my own feet. “Which means?”

  Grandfather drew the edge of his kaffiyeh back across his face. “Aribah, you will see to it?”

  She bowed low to the ground. “I will.”

  Shit. I’d just become disposable.

  I took a step back. The room was lit now, which made it harder for me since we were all on the same footing. Still, he was old and she was seated; if I could duck around him and manage a quick blow to Aribah’s face as I ran for my weapons, I might—

  “Aribah will escort you back to your inn,” said the elder assassin, his jackal’s smile clearly evident in his voice.

  “She what?” I said, sounding nothing like what a Gray Prince ought to.

  “We’ve shared water and secrets,” said the elder assassin. “Two of the foundations of life. And you’ve seen my face. That leaves me one of two choices, and I think you too valuable—and resourceful—a man to waste on the edge of a blade. I would see you safely back to your fellows.” I must have looked as dubious as I felt, because he bowed and extended a hand toward the door behind me. “Please, for my honor as a host.”

  I regard him for a long moment. “Two conditions,” I said. “Seeing as how it’s for your honor, and I’ve been the one inconvenienced.”

  He rose slowly from his bow. “Within reason.”

  I gestured at Aribah’s waist. “First, I want my knife back.”

  “My knife,” said Aribah, her hand going to the shadow-edged dagger.

  “I plucked it straight and true during our fight,” I said. “Taking it back when I was unconscious isn’t the same. It’s still mine.”

  “I will not—” began Aribah.

  “Is what he says true?” said her grandfather.

  “It doesn’t matter! You know that—”

  “Give it to him.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, girl. We’re not thieves. Return it.”

  Aribah stood up straight. “I will not.”

  He tensed. “I am you amma,” he said. “The head of your school. You will do as I say.”

  “But, Grandfather, you more than anyone knows that what he asks is—”

  The old assassin turned and lashed out so fast I almost didn’t see it. One moment, Aribah was standing, fists on her hips, eyes ablaze, yelling at her grandfather; the next, she was on the ground, limbs splayed, eyes still ablaze, but in a different way.

  “You may be my blood and my favorite,” he said, drawing his hand back, “but until you wear the braid of a kalat, you will not question my decisions. Am I understood?”

  Aribah glared at her grandfather. After a moment, she gave a grudging nod of assent.

  “Speak!” he yelled.

  “I hear and obey, O my sheikh.”

  “May it always be so,” he replied, not sounding convinced. He turned back to me. I found my hand had gone for my own steel, even though it wasn’t there. He glanced down at my empty grip, then back up at me. And chuckled. The bastard.

  Behind him, Aribah got to her feet and drew the dagger from her belt. A moment later, it landed at my feet.

  All of sudden, I didn’t much want the blade anymore, but refusing it now would only make things worse between the two of them. I bent down and picked up the weapon.

  “You mentioned two conditions,” he said. “What’s the second?”

  “Who sent you after the magi?”

  Aribah gasped outright; as for her grandfather, he crossed his arms and stared at me so hard that I almost expected him to put a dagger in my throat. Not that I could blame him: not only was my question inappropriate in hired-killing circles; it also implied I thought he might be unscrupulous enough to name his employer. The only thing that could have made it more insulting would have been to offer money for the information.

  “You would ask who hired us?” he said.

  “I would.”

  “And I should tell you, why?”

  “You mean besides our sudden, yet enduring, friendship?”

  “Beyond that, yes.”

  “Three reasons,” I said. “First, because I need those magi alive, and I’d like to know who’s after them. Second, because I was down in that cellar, too, and I don’t appreciate being a target, even tangentially. And third, because, if it’s who I think it is, you don’t have much to lose by telling me.”

  The elder assassin glanced at his granddaughter then back to me. I saw his eyes crinkle into a smile. “You could learn from this one, Aribah. Not even an hour with us and he is already reading our motives. Very well: It was Fat Chair who hired us. Is that what you thought?”

  I nodded. It made sense. Fat Chair had flat out told me he thought I had an organization in place in el-Qaddice when it came to smuggling glimmer. And to believe that, he had to have reason to believe that magic had already been coming in from the empire. That meant that Jelem and his people had somehow come to Fat Chair’s attention even before I’d arrived. My looking for the yazani had only confirmed his suspicions, which had resulted in they neyajin being hired.

  Well, at least I didn’t have to worry about them taking another contract from Fat Chair, considering the pile of bodies they were leaving him.

  “My thanks,” I said. I offered the elder assassin the best salaam of leave-taking I could manage, given my condition, and turned to Aribah. “Shall we?”

  She grunted and brushed past me, knocking into my shoulder as she went. I turned back to her grandfather.

  “She knows I’m supposed t
o make it back alive, right?”

  “Oh, she knows,” he said. “As to whether she’s inclined to listen . . .” He shrugged.

  I recovered my steel and made sure that all my blades were in place before I followed her out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  By the time I made it back to the Angel’s Shadow, the sun was turning the eastern sky a dull gray. I rubbed at my eyes and considered another ahrami, then thought better of it. I was beyond their help at this point—taking more would only make me awake, not alert. And awake was something I was looking forward to not being soon.

  I was also looking forward to not having a surly assassin stalking at my side.

  When we reached the inn, she stopped at the edge of the courtyard, in the shadow of the entryway.

  “You’ll be safe here?” she said, her voice at once perfunctory and smoky behind the drape of her turban.

  I looked about the place. One of the innkeeper’s sons was hauling tables away from the inn’s wall, preparing the outside seating for the day. A handful of chickens pecked the ground, and I could see the window and side door to the kitchen standing open. Smoke rose from the chimney at the back.

  There was no sign of Fowler, but that wasn’t a bad thing—her job was not to be seen when she was standing Oak. I scanned the roofline, just be sure, and saw the silhouette of a head and shoulder poke up over the stables. It gave a small wave, using a hand signal I was familiar with from back in Ildrecca. A moment later, the figure vanished.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said.

  A long pause from Aribah as she considered me, the yard, and Angels knew what else.

  “This isn’t right,” she said at last.

  My hand went to my rapier as my eyes swept the street around us. “Excuse me?”

  “Grandfather shouldn’t have let you go.”

  Oh, that. I let myself relax, then thought better of it and positioned my hand closer to my dagger than my rapier. Aribah was too close for sword work should she suddenly decide to “fix” things.

  “You’re too potentially valuable to us,” she said, turning her eyes back to me. “He doesn’t see that, but I do.”