The Black Khan

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  It was time for Larisa to remember that she led the Usul Jade—her duty was to the women behind the Wall and to the people who still upheld the teachings of their father. As the daughters of Mudjadid Salikh, they bore a responsibility unlike any other: resist until the battle was won or until their resistance atrophied into dust.

  As leaders of the Basmachi, she and Larisa were not tools to be used by the First Oralist, no matter the nature of the bargain Larisa had struck with the Black Khan. The First Oralist may have dismantled the Registan, but she’d also delivered Ruslan to his fate at the gates of the Gur-e-Mir. Ruslan, her dearest companion, the one who’d rescued her from Jaslyk, risking agonies greater than hers. She closed his eyes with her fingers, his bracelets softly striking hers. Then she spat out her rage on the ground.

  She was on the hunt for the First Oralist.

  And she would take her measure of blood.

  3

  SEVEN DAYS. SINNIA HAD BEEN IN JASLYK SEVEN DAYS, EACH DAY BRINGING forth new torments, new reasons to pray for rescue. Not that she’d been idle—her first course of action had been to attempt to rescue herself. The wardens of Jaslyk seemed to have no memory or knowledge of the Claim, and she had been able to use it with some success, escaping a room, a ward, a building. only to run into Jaslyk’s guards or its impenetrable defenses. The watchtowers were like the eyes of a dragon-horse. Red and fiery and unblinking. No matter which route she took to steal from her cell, the watchtowers picked her out along the perimeter, setting off a collision of horns. Then the guards of Jaslyk would come, dressed in black, wearing blind-eyed masks, four crimson slashes marking their chests and spreading across their ribs.

  They looked like they’d been clawed by demons.

  She’d never seen their faces or heard their voices. She’d simply felt the grip of implacable hands covered with leather gloves whose palms were studded with tiny spikes. Her arms were marked with dozens of pinpricks that healed over, then formed again with each new attempt to escape. The pinpricks burned, but they were only a reminder of her failure.

  And they were nothing compared to the mask.

  On the third day, Sinnia had learned about the mask. Two of the guards had chained her to a bed in a locked room at the far end of a dismal corridor. At once she’d missed the cruel teasing of the Ahdath. When they’d turned her over to Jaslyk, she’d met an incarnation of their regiment more to be feared than the soldiers who guarded the Wall. They were called the Crimson Watch, a name given to the Ahdath elite. The crudely jovial soldiers of the Ahdath who’d handed her over to their care had fallen silent during the transfer. One had flashed her a look of regret, muttering to his partner. The other man shook his head. They spoke with surprising deference to the soldiers of the Crimson Watch. The masked men didn’t speak. They waved the Ahdath away.

  When they’d chained Sinnia to the bed, her body had tensed in dread. The Claim coiled up in her throat. The scent of blood was fresh in the room. It oozed from every door in the ward, a patina that formed a pattern on the floor. Fear ripened in her mouth.

  “Please,” she said, “don’t do this.”

  A third guard entered the room, pushing a steel-framed cart before him. It bore a tray of instruments. Torture, she thought. They’ve come to torture me. For a moment, it seemed like a reprieve.

  But the largest of the three guards lifted a bizarre contraption from the cart: a thick leather mask with sightless glass eyes that protruded like eyeballs distended from a skull. A long black hose at the back of the mask was attached to a dark green canister on the cart. It appeared to breathe on its own. At the base of the mask were six round nozzles, three to either side.

  The guard wheeled the cart closer to the bed where Sinnia lay chained.

  She wanted to scream, but the sound died in her throat. She wrestled with the chains they had fiendishly attached to the circlets on her upper arms. One of the guards held her down. The other raised her head so the third could fit the mask over her head.

  Her body bucked on the bed. The inside of the mask smelled of horror and fear. It suffocated her. Her breathing constricted, she mumbled the Claim to herself. There would be words, there had to be words, to stop this.

  In the name of the One—

  In the name of the One, the Merciful, the Compassionate—

  Ah, by the powers of the One, where were Arian and Daniyar? Surely they would save her from this … unless somehow they had fallen or been taken at the Ark. She wished she could think of them, pray for them … but in this moment of extremis, she could think only of herself.

  She could see through the bulbous eyes of the mask. The guard at the cart flicked a switch on the canister. A terrible gurgling sound came from the hose at the back of Sinnia’s neck. She breathed in sharply, her mouth filling with the acrid taste of smoke. With her first inhaled breath, the nozzles at the base of the mask fastened to her neck. She felt a searing pain.

  Inside the mask, she cried out. Her mouth and throat filled with gas. The three men loomed above her.

  Burning tears scalded her eyes. When they misted over her skin, the tears seemed to catch fire. Sinnia screamed again. The men didn’t touch her, didn’t tear at her clothes. One of them produced a small bundle wrapped in a leather cover. He watched Sinnia with careful attention. Then he began to write.

  He held a book in his hands.

  A book that chronicled her torture.

  Four days later, she was at the perimeter again. They had gassed her every day since, but when the mask had been removed, Sinnia had recovered consciousness to find herself alone, still chained to the bed by her circlets. Though they monitored her reaction to the gas, no one seemed to be observing her in the cell.

  They didn’t know she drew comfort from the circlets that were the secret strength of the Companions. Whatever the gas had done to her, and it had done something, it hadn’t stripped her of the Claim. Over time, her use of the Claim had weakened the links of the chains. She snapped them with a surge of renewed strength, taking a moment to breathe.

  The chamber reeked of the gas. Her skin smelled fetid and damp, a mix of the strange compound of the gas and the odors of sweat and blood. She knew now why the men of the Crimson Watch wore masks. They were shielding themselves from the consequences of their macabre experiments. The terror the masks invoked was a side effect of their work.

  Sinnia ran a hand over her neck, feeling the tender areas where the nozzles had raised the skin. She shuddered to think of her disfigurement, but she tried to focus on the door. Each time she escaped, they added another padlock. She could see them now from the hole at the top of the door that passed for a dreary window. She had yet to see another inmate, but she sometimes heard painful, muted whimpers as she sidled past the other cells.

  She should try to use the Claim to free the others. She doubted the strength of her skills; her failure might bring them to the same fate she faced—a renewal of the attentions of those who gassed her. She considered the risk and decided against it. She pictured her whip and bow in her mind and formed a resolution.

  If she could discover a way out, she wouldn’t forget the desperate halls of Jaslyk. She’d find a way to return and do some damage, a vow she made to herself.

  The red eyes of the watchtower settled on Sinnia again. Horns sounded like heralds of a hastening end, a palpable assault on her hearing. The scars on her neck began to throb in anticipation of the agonies of the mask. The guards dragged her by the arms, their studded gloves scoring her shoulders with dozens of bloody strikes.

  She sang out verses of the Claim—the music of it seized up in her throat.

  She had asked herself this question many times. Why did the Claim deliver Arian from every difficulty while she was able to summon it only in small bursts? What did this say about Sinnia as a Companion or as a member of the Council? Was she not worthy of the Claim? Had the Negus of her country chosen her as his emissary to Hira in error?

  She made her body as heavy as possible, forcing
the guards to drag her by the heels. They barely slowed their pace as she bumped along the bloodstained floor, pausing for a moment to study the shattered padlocks. Sinnia fought with all her physical strength, aggression and panic rising together as she heard the sound of the cart rattling down the length of the corridor.

  She made a temporary break from the arms of her captors, leaping across the hall and crashing against the door of another cell. She fastened her arms on her circlets, holding fast to the strength of the Companions. She choked out one verse of the Claim, then another. For the briefest moment, the actions of the Crimson Watch were suspended—the cart held still, the guards with their bloody palms motionless in the air.

  A moan sounded from behind the door. Sinnia glanced up. A man was standing at the hole for the window, his hair matted and wild, his thin face bloody. His eyes burned like two black coals. They fell to Sinnia’s circlets.

  “Sahabiya,” he gasped. “You’ve come to us at last.”

  At his words, there was a murmuring along the length of the hall. Other faces came to the doors of the cells, eager hands reaching through bars.

  It was Sinnia’s turn to freeze. She should have fled during this strange suspended moment, but this was the first time she’d seen the other prisoners. “Who are you?” she whispered to the wild man. She was stirred by a fierce determination. “How do you know who I am?”

  “You came for me.” His powerful voice filled with conviction. And then an urgent warning: “Sahabiya, behind you!”

  The frozen moment ended. One of the guards caught Sinnia by the neck, squeezing down on her throat. A second man reached for her arms. He’d taken off his gloves to unlatch her circlets.

  “No! Don’t touch them!” It was the man in the cell who called out. But underneath his words there was more—a strange, low thrumming through Sinnia’s veins that carried the sound to her heart.

  Another guard rapped on the door of the man’s cell. A disembodied voice echoed through the mask. “Get back, all of you! And you there. Still alive? That will change,” he promised.

  He shoved the cart toward Sinnia, pushing her back into her cell. Her leaping, twisting body was subdued by a company of guards. The cart was wheeled to the side of her bed. She looked at its surface in terror, only to notice that the dark green canister was missing, as was the mask with the hose. In its place was a tray that held a gleaming array of instruments, polished to a shine. The sound-touch inside her veins intensified—her heart rate began to slow.

  The disembodied voice spoke again, the man in charge moving to Sinnia’s side. He held a long thin spike in his hands. “She’s ready for the white needle.”

  Sinnia forgot about the sound. All she could do was scream.

  4

  THE DOUBLE CUPOLA WHERE ELENA WAS TO MEET LARISA WAS ABANDONED, its twin domes feathered with bird’s nests. A step at a time, Elena crossed Ahdath lines, weaving in and out of the city of the dead. The soldiers were quartering the Hazing. If she hadn’t known its shadowed passages better than she knew her own scars, the Ahdath would have captured her by now.

  The Hazing sloped down a hill to an abandoned alley that branched off into several paths that led deeper into Marakand. One path led to the Wall, one to the cemetery of the Russe, another to the Registan. Fires burned on the ramparts, glowing from the Wall like the baleful eyes of demons. The night was dark and cold, and the Ahdath were armored against it.

  The First Oralist may have burned down the Registan, but she hadn’t defeated the army at the Wall. Instead, she’d left the people of Marakand to the Ahdath’s bitter revenge. Screams sounded from the alleyways as families were dragged from their homes and accused of giving shelter to the Companions. Elena could hear the sound of furniture being smashed and the crack of boots against bones.

  She waited for a patrol to cross the Tomb of the Living King. There was a small marking on the door that signaled the Basmachi had passed on her orders to abandon the necropolis. Basmachi often sheltered in the crypt below the tomb. It was a sacred site in the Hazing. Even the Ahdath had not dared to despoil it. The forty steps known as the Ladder of Sinners led to the underground depths of the tomb. Those who submitted to the One were to count the steps descending and ascending. If they missed a step, their pilgrimage to the tomb was incomplete, and the gateway to paradise was barred. Richly inscribed lapis lazuli paneled the tomb itself. The third level of the tombstone was tiled with a warning that gave the necropolis its name.

  NEVER CONSIDER DEAD THOSE SLAIN IN THE WAY OF THE ONE.

  NAY, THEIR LIFE IS ETERNAL.

  Elena shook her head. Why had Larisa risked meeting her here? She was the one who’d taught them an overabundance of caution. Now she’d broken the rules she’d prescribed for a stranger she scarcely knew. Perhaps she’d been misdirected by the use of the Claim.

  Elena passed the door to the tomb to take a step closer to the double cupola that housed the Mausoleum of the Princess. At the slight trace of sound—boots scuffing against stone—she turned to seek out her sister. She was caught by surprise by an Ahdath blade at her throat. The Ahdath clearly believed Elena was one of the Companions: he was ready to slit her throat to prevent her use of the Claim. The hand that caught at her wrist fumbled over her bracelets. For a moment, the soldier stilled. Then he shoved her into the mausoleum. She was pushed against a wall, her face turned into the stark light cast by the moon.

  “Basmachi,” he said with satisfaction. “Even better for me.”

  He was broad-shouldered and powerful in the manner of the Ahdath. With her arms twisted behind her, there was no way Elena could overcome his strength. He shoved a knee between her legs; Elena spat in his face. He slashed his blade across her torso; she fought back a scream of fury. The wound bled freely, darkening his hands, but it wasn’t enough to defeat her.

  This wasn’t Jaslyk—she could fight him. She just had to wait for her moment. She sagged in his arms, forcing him to take her weight.

  Another man entered the cupola and she groaned. One she could fight off. Two or more, and it was over.

  “Who do you have there?”

  “Join me,” the first man grunted. “She’s not one of the Khanum’s doves, but she’ll do.”

  “Do you know who you’re speaking to?”

  The Ahdath who’d slashed her across the torso swiveled halfway around, his right arm blocking her throat. He stiffened as he recognized the newcomer. “Captain, she’s a Basmachi fighter—she bears the signs of the Usul Jade. I was bringing her to the Wall.”

  The captain’s eyes stayed on his man. “So it seems.”

  The Ahdath relaxed at the captain’s note of humor. He shrugged. “I have no access to the Gold House.”

  “Nor I,” the captain said. “Let’s have a look at her, then.”

  “She’s not much to look at,” the Ahdath said.

  “No,” the other man agreed.

  A horn sounded in the street behind the cupola. Though she should have been thinking of herself, Elena’s heart sank. Had they captured her sister as well? Both men turned at the sound, and Elena seized her chance. She bit down on the Ahdath’s arm, sinking her teeth to the bone.

  He dropped his arm with a roar of pain. Elena brought up her knee to shove him in the groin. She connected, but his leather was too thick. He slammed her back against the wall with both arms, her head crashing into brick. Stars danced before her eyes. A moment later she was slumped on the ground.

  She didn’t see what happened next. Instead, she heard the sounds of movement: the ring of steel, a hiss of surprise, a thud. Then the sound of something being dragged.

  For a moment the world was suspended upside down. Elena felt herself raised as easily as a child; she smelled sweat and felt the scrape of a man’s rough beard against her face. She was tossed onto his shoulder and carried away from the mausoleum, into the shadows of the Hazing.

  Behind the mausoleum, the captain of the Ahdath set her down on a broken tombstone.

  Her h
ead reeling, Elena muttered, “Is it your turn now?”

  “Take a moment,” the captain suggested, “before you lacerate me with your tongue.”

  “I’ll scream,” she warned him, unable to see his face in the shadows.

  “Then you’ll bring a patrol right to your sister’s hiding place.” His tone was matter-of-fact.

  Elena went still. It couldn’t be. Of all the Ahdath who could have tracked her to the Hazing, it couldn’t be the one who knew she’d rescued the First Oralist from the Gold House, delivering one of the Khanum’s doves to this Ahdath in her stead.

  The man stepped out of the shadows, showing her his face. A pang of terror struck at her heart—she had walked into an ambush. This Ahdath had come for their heads, using her to trap her sister.

  But the captain from the Gold House spoke to her with unexpected kindness. “It’s not what you think, Anya. I came with Larisa to find you.”

  Elena stood up, backing away from the man. She gave him a careful nod, wondering if she could outrun him even with the knife wound at her ribs. “Captain Illarion, you’ve made a quick return from Black Aura. I’d appreciate your escort to the Gold House.”

  Illarion smiled at her, a rueful smile that didn’t lighten his cold blue eyes in the least. “So you can cut my throat on the way? I know who you are, Anya. Larisa asked me to find you—that’s the reason I’m here.”

  Like a tiger of the Shir Dar, Elena sprang at him. Her hand snaked to the knife at his hip. A second later it was at his heart. “What have you done with my sister?”