The Kingdom of Copper

by S. A. Chakraborty

  “Fair point.” They crossed under the delicate archway leading to the pavilion that fronted Zaynab’s apartment. A rich teak platform floated over the canal, framed by the wispy fronds of slender palm trees.

  Zaynab was there, perched on a striped linen couch and examining a scroll. Relief coursed through Nahri, followed swiftly by confusion when she saw who was seated with the princess.

  “Aqisa?”

  Muntadhir marched across the platform. “Of course you’re here. Doing my brother’s dirty work, I assume?”

  Aqisa leaned back, a move that revealed the sword and the khanjar belted at her waist. Looking unbothered, she took a leisurely sip of coffee from the paper-thin porcelain cup in her hand before responding. “He asked me to convey a message.”

  Zaynab deftly rolled the scroll back up, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “It seems Ali was quite inspired by our last conversation,” she said, tripping over the last words. “He wants us to remove Abba.”

  Muntadhir’s face crumpled. “We’re beyond that, Zaynab.” He sank into the couch beside his sister, gently taking her hand. “Abba is dead.”

  Zaynab jerked back. “What?” When he didn’t say anything further, her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh God . . . please don’t tell me Ali—”

  “Kaveh.” Muntadhir reached for his sister’s relic, carefully removing it from her ear. “He unleashed some sort of magical vapor that targets these.” He held up the relic before hurling it away into the depths of the garden. “It’s bad, Zaynab. I watched it kill four guards in a matter of seconds.”

  At that, Aqisa ripped out her own relic, sending it flying into the night.

  Zaynab had started to cry. “Are you sure? Are you sure he’s really dead?”

  Muntadhir hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry, ukhti.”

  Not wanting to intrude on the grieving siblings, Nahri edged closer to Aqisa. “You came from the Citadel? Is Ali all right?”

  “He has an army and isn’t trapped in a palace with some murderous mist,” Aqisa replied. “I’d say he’s doing better than we are.”

  Nahri looked out at the dark garden, her thoughts roiling. The king was dead, the grand wazir was a traitor, the Qaid was gone, and Ali—the only one of them with military experience—was involved in a mutiny across the city.

  She took a deep breath. “I . . . I think that leaves us in charge.”

  The night sky abruptly darkened further—which Nahri thought a rather apt response. But when she glanced up, her mouth went dry. A half-dozen smoky, equine shapes with wings of flashing fire were racing toward the palace.

  Aqisa followed her gaze and then grabbed her, pulling her swiftly inside the apartment. Zaynab and Muntadhir were right behind them. As they bolted the door, they heard several thudding crashes and the distant echo of screams.

  “I don’t think Kaveh is working alone,” Muntadhir whispered, his face ashen.

  Three pairs of gray-toned eyes settled on her. “I have nothing to do with this,” Nahri protested. “My God, do you really think I’d be in your company if I did? Surely you both know me better than that.”

  “I believe that,” Zaynab muttered.

  Muntadhir sank to the floor. “Then who could he be working with? I’ve never seen magic like this.”

  “I don’t think that’s what’s most important right now,” Zaynab said softly. There were more shouts from somewhere deep in the palace, and they all went quiet for a moment listening before Zaynab continued. “Nahri . . . could the poison spread to the rest of the city?”

  Nahri recalled the wild energy of the vapor that had chased them and nodded slowly. “The Geziri Quarter,” she whispered, voicing the fear she could see in Zaynab’s eyes. “My God, if it reaches there . . .”

  “They need to be warned at once,” Aqisa said. “I will go.”

  “As will I,” Zaynab declared.

  “Oh no, you won’t,” Muntadhir replied. “If you think I’m about to let my little sister go dashing off while the city is under attack—”

  “Your little sister isn’t asking permission, and there are people who will believe my word more readily than Aqisa’s. And you’re needed here. Both of you,” Zaynab added, nodding at Nahri. “Dhiru, if Abba is dead, you need to retrieve the seal. Before Kaveh or whoever he’s working with figures out how to do so.”

  “Suleiman’s seal?” Nahri repeated. She hadn’t even given a thought to that—the king’s succession seemed a world away. “Is it with your father?”

  Muntadhir looked like he was about to be sick. “Something like that. We’d need to get back to him. To his body.”

  Aqisa locked eyes with Zaynab. “The chest,” she said simply.

  Zaynab nodded and beckoned them farther into her apartment. It was as rich and finely appointed as Muntadhir’s, though not as cluttered with artwork. Or wine cups.

  The princess knelt beside a large, elaborate wooden chest and whispered an unlocking charm over it. As the lid sprang open Nahri peered inside.

  It was entirely filled with weapons. Sheathed daggers and scimitars wrapped in silk rested beside an oddly lovely mace, a crossbow, and some sort of barbed, jeweled chain.

  Nahri didn’t know whose expression was more shocked, hers or Muntadhir’s. “My God,” she said. “You really are Ali’s sister.”

  “What . . . where did you . . . ,” Muntadhir began weakly.

  Zaynab looked slightly flustered. “She’s been teaching me,” she explained, nodding to Aqisa.

  The warrior woman was already selecting blades, looking unbothered by Nahri and Muntadhir’s reactions. “A Geziri woman her age should have mastered at least three weapons. I have been making up for an abominable lapse in her education.” She pressed a sword and the crossbow into Zaynab’s hands and then clucked her tongue. “Stop trembling, sister. You’ll do fine.”

  Nahri shook her head, and then considered the chest, knowing well her limitations. Quickly, she pulled out a pair of small daggers, the heft reminding her of something she might have used to cut purses back in Cairo. For a moment, she thought longingly of Dara’s blade back in her room.

  I wish I’d had a few more knife-throwing lessons with him, she thought. Not to mention that the legendary Afshin would have probably made for a better partner in a palace under siege than her visibly skittish husband.

  She took a deep breath. “Anything else?”

  Zaynab shook her head. “We’ll sound the alarm in the Geziri Quarter and then head to the Citadel to alert Ali. He can lead the Royal Guard back. Warn every Geziri you see in the palace, and tell them to do the same.”

  Nahri swallowed. It could be hours before Ali returned with the Guard. She and Muntadhir would be on their own—facing God only knew what—until then.

  “You can do this,” Zaynab said. “You have to.” She hugged her brother. “Fight, Dhiru. There will be time for grief, but right now, you’re our king, and Daevabad comes first.” Her voice grew fierce. “I’ll be back with your Qaid.”

  Muntadhir gave a jerky nod. “God be with you.” He glanced at Aqisa. “Please keep my sister safe.” He nodded toward the pavilion. “Take the stairs we came from. There’s a passage close by that leads to the stables.”

  Zaynab and Aqisa left swiftly. “Are you ready?” Nahri asked when she and Muntadhir were alone.

  He laughed as he strapped a wicked-looking sword to his waist. “Not in the slightest. You?”

  “God, no.” Nahri grabbed another needle-sharp dagger and flipped it into her sleeve. “Let’s go die.”

  36

  Ali

  Ali floated peacefully in warm darkness, wrapped tight in the embrace of the water. It smelled of salt and mud, of life, gently teasing and tugging at his clothes. A pebbly soft tendril stroked his cheek while another twined around his ankle.

  A throbbing at the back of his head slowly brought him to the present. Dazed, Ali opened his eyes. Darkness surrounded him. He was submerged in water so deep and so clouded by muddy silt that he
could barely see. Memories came to him in pieces. The watery beast. The Citadel’s tower tumbling through the air . . .

  The lake. He was in Daevabad’s lake.

  Sheer panic tore through him. He thrashed, trying desperately to free himself from whatever held him. His robe, he realized, blindly fumbling. The crumbled remains of some sort of brick wall had pinned it to the lake bed. Ali wrenched it off, kicking madly for the surface. The smell of ash and blood grew thicker on the water, but he ignored it, fighting past floating debris.

  He finally broke through. He gasped for breath, pain surging through him.

  The lake was in chaos.

  Ali might as well have emerged onto a scene from the darkest circle of hell. Screams filled the air, cries for help, for mercy, in all the djinn languages he knew. Layered over them were moans, feral, hungry sounds that Ali couldn’t place.

  Oh, God . . . and the water. It wasn’t just debris that surrounded him, it was bodies. Hundreds of djinn soldiers, floating dead in their uniforms. And when Ali saw the reason, he cried out, tears springing to his eyes.

  Daevabad’s Citadel—the proud symbol of Zaydi al Qahtani’s rebellion, of the Geziri tribe, Ali’s home for nearly two decades—had been destroyed.

  Its once mighty tower had been ripped from its moorings and dragged into the lake, only a crumbled hump remaining above the water. Jagged gashes, as if from the claws of some massive creature, had raked through the remaining buildings, through the soldiers’ barracks and across the training yards, making furrows so deep that the lake had filled them. The rest of the complex was on fire. Ali could see skeletal figures moving against the smoke.

  Tears ran silently down his cheeks. “No,” he whispered. This was a nightmare, another awful vision from the marid. “Stop this!”

  Nothing happened. Ali took in the sight of the bodies again. Djinn murdered by the marid’s curse did not remain floating upon the water; they were torn apart and swallowed by its depths, never to be seen again.

  The curse on the lake was gone.

  “I see someone!”

  Ali turned toward the voice to spot a makeshift boat, one of the carved wooden doors of the tower, making its way toward him, crewed by a pair of Ayaanle soldiers wielding broken beams as oars.

  “We’ve got you, brother,” one of the soldiers said, hauling him aboard. His golden eyes went wide when he glanced at Ali. “Aye, praise God . . . it’s the prince!”

  “Bring him over!” Ali heard another man cry from some distance away.

  They paddled awkwardly through the water. Ali had to turn away from the sight of the door pushing through the thick clutter of bodies, his fellows in uniform, too many of their faces familiar.

  This isn’t real. It can’t be real. But it didn’t feel like one of his visions. There was no alien presence whispering in Ali’s head. There was just bewilderment, grief, and carnage.

  As they neared the ruins of the Citadel, the remains of the toppled tower grew larger, rising from the lake like a lost island. A shattered section of its exterior shielded the few dozen warriors who’d gathered there. Some were curled around themselves, weeping. But Ali’s gaze immediately flew to the ones who were fighting, several soldiers fending off a pair of thin, wraithlike creatures whose tattered shrouds clung wetly to their wasted bodies.

  One was Lubayd, swinging his sword wildly. With a disgusted cry, he decapitated one of the leering creatures and kicked the body back into the lake.

  Ali could have wept with relief. His best friend, at least, had survived the Citadel’s destruction.

  “We found the prince!” the Ayaanle soldier at his side cried. “He’s alive!”

  Lubayd whirled around. He was there by the time they arrived, yanking Ali to his feet and throwing his arms around him in a tight hug.

  “Ali, brother, thank God . . . ,” he choked out. “I’m sorry . . . the water came so fast, and when I couldn’t find you in the room—”

  Ali could barely manage a response. “I’m all right,” he croaked.

  A scream cut the air, a plea in Geziriyya. “No, don’t! God, please!”

  Ali lurched to the edge of the ruined tower, catching sight of the man who’d cried out: a Geziri soldier who’d managed to make it back to the beach only to be mobbed by the skeletal beings. They surrounded him, dragging him to the sand. Ali saw teeth and nails and mouths bearing down . . .

  And then he couldn’t watch, his stomach rising. He spun back around as the djinn’s guttural cry was cut short.

  “They . . . are they—” He couldn’t even say the word.

  Lubayd nodded. He looked shattered. “They’re ghouls. It’s what they do.”

  Ali shook his head in denial. “They can’t be ghouls. There are no ifrit in Daevabad to summon ghouls—and certainly no dead humans!”

  “Those are ghouls,” Lubayd said firmly. “My father and I came upon a pair devouring a human hunter once.” He flinched. “It’s not a sight one forgets.”

  Ali felt faint. He took a deep breath; he couldn’t fall apart. Not now. “Did anyone see what attacked the Citadel in the first place?”

  Lubayd nodded, pointing to a thin Sahrayn man rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. “He was the first one out, and the things he’s saying . . .” He trailed off, looking nauseated. “You should talk to him.”

  His heart in his throat, Ali approached the Sahrayn man. He knelt at his side, laying a hand on his shivering arm. “Brother,” he started softly. “Can you tell me what you saw?”

  The man kept rocking, his eyes bright with terror. “I was keeping watch on my ship,” he whispered. “We were moored over there.” He pointed to the ruined pier where a broken Sahrayn sandship had been driven up onto the shattered docks. “The lake . . . the water . . . it spun itself into a monster. It attacked the Citadel. Ravaged it, pulling what it could back into its depths.” He swallowed, shaking harder. “The force of it threw me in the lake. I thought the curse would kill me . . . When it didn’t, I started swimming . . . and then I saw them.”

  “Saw what?” Ali pressed.

  “Warriors,” the man whispered. “They came racing out of the lake on the backs of smoky horses with their bows drawn. They started shooting the survivors and then . . . and then . . .” Tears were rolling down his cheeks. “The dead came from the water. They swarmed my boat as I watched.” His shoulders shook. “My captain . . .” He started to weep harder. “They tore out his throat with their teeth.”

  Ali’s stomach plummeted, but he forced himself to peer through the darkness at the beach. Yes, he could see an archer now: a racing horse, the glimmer of a silver bow. An arrow went flying . . .

  Another scream, and then silence. Fury surged through Ali, burning away his fear and panic. Those were his people out there.

  He turned to study the ruined Citadel. And then his heart stopped. A ragged hole had been punched into the wall facing the street.

  Ali grabbed the Sahrayn man’s arm again. “Did you see anything go through there?” he demanded. “Are those things in our city?”

  The sailor shook his head. “The ghouls, no . . . but the riders . . .” He nodded. “At least half of them. Once they were past the city walls . . .” His voice turned incredulous. “Prince Alizayd, their horses—they flew . . .”

  “Where?” Ali demanded. “Where did you see them fly?”

  The pity in the man’s eyes filled Ali with awful, knowing dread. “The palace, my prince.”

  Ali shot to his feet. This was no random attack. He couldn’t imagine who—or what—was capable of something like this, but he recognized a strategy when he saw one. They’d come for the Guard first, annihilating the djinn army before it could muster to protect the next target: the palace.

  My family.“We need to get to the beach,” he declared.

  The Sahrayn man looked at him as though he’d gone insane. “You won’t be able to get to the beach. Those archers are shooting everything that moves, and the few djinn w
ho make it out are being eaten alive by ghouls the moment they step out of the water!”

  Ali shook his head. “We cannot let those things into our city.” He watched as a soldier dispatched another pair of ghouls when they attempted to climb upon the ruined tower, their gaping mouths full of rotted teeth. The man did so fairly easily, a single sweep of his blazing zulfiqar severing both in two.

  They are not invincible, Ali noted. Not at all. It was their numbers that gave them an advantage; a single, terrified djinn, exhausted from navigating a gauntlet of arrows, stood no chance against dozens of hungry ghouls.

  Across the water, another djinn was attempting to climb onto a floating bit of wreckage. Ali watched helplessly as a torrent of arrows cut him down. A small band of the mysterious archers had set themselves up on a section of broken wall that ran between the water and the ruined Citadel complex. Right now, Ali and his fellow survivors were safe, a shell of the tower curving up to protect them from the archers’ view. But he didn’t imagine their reprieve would last for long.

  He examined the stretch of water separating their small sanctuary from Daevabad’s shore. It was a manageable swim if not for the fact that anyone who tried would be visible to the archers the entire time.

  A decision settled upon him. “Come here,” he said, raising his voice. “All of you.”

  Ali waited for them to do so, taking advantage of the moment to study the survivors. A mix from all five of the djinn tribes, mostly men. He knew nearly all by face, if not by name—they were all Royal Guard except the Sahrayn sailor. A few cadets, a handful of officers, and the rest infantry. They looked terrified and bewildered and Ali couldn’t blame them. They’d trained all their lives as warriors, but their people hadn’t seen true war in centuries. Daevabad was supposed to be a refuge from the rest of the magical world: from ghouls and ifrit, from water-beasts capable of dragging down a tower that had stood for centuries.

  He took a deep breath, well aware of the near suicidal nature of the counterattack he was about to propose. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he started. “I don’t think any of us do. But we’re not safe here.” He gestured to the mountains, looming far from the distant shore. “The curse might be gone from the lake, but I don’t think many of us could make that swim. The mountains are too far away. The city, however, is not.”