The Black Khan

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  He stood still, his arms at his side, his palms spread wide. “She’s safe, I swear it to you.”

  Elena pressed the tip of the blade through crimson armor. “Liar.”

  Illarion was much taller than she was. He seemed bemused by her actions, staring down at her, his blue eyes wide. “Anya—”

  “Where is she?”

  “Here, Elena, I’m here.”

  Elena didn’t move at the sound of a new voice. She switched out of the Common Tongue to the secret language of the Basmachi. “Is this a trap?” she asked.

  “No, let the Ahdath go.”

  Larisa jumped down from the rock wall behind the double cupola, one hand on the sword at her hip, the other shielding her face from the white glare of the moonlight. She was unfettered and alone. “Let him go,” she said again.

  Elena shook her head. She pressed the blade deeper into the Ahdath’s breastplate. His breath hitched in his chest. He held the same nonthreatening pose until Larisa moved between them, removing the knife from her sister’s hand.

  “The only good Ahdath is a dead one,” Elena said, not taking her eyes off Illarion.

  “I know. But he’s not Ahdath. He’s … something else.”

  Illarion fingered his ruptured breastplate.

  “Don’t be stupid. With Araxcin dead, Captain Illarion is now Commander of the Wall.” Elena’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s take him. Let’s ransom him for some of ours.”

  It was Larisa’s turn to shake her head. “You know the Ahdath won’t ransom our fighters. They’re on a killing spree even now.”

  Elena’s face tightened. “Then why did you call me to the Hazing? And why did you bring him with you? You’ve put us both at risk.”

  “I need your help, Elena. I need to break a prisoner out of Jaslyk.” She said this in the Common Tongue despite Elena’s furious glare.

  “What madness causes you to share your purpose with the enemy?”

  “We have to hurry,” Illarion cut in. “It won’t take them long to find us.”

  Elena’s rage boiled over. How dare this Ahdath speak of himself as one of them when he knew they shared no common cause? The violent urge to bury her blade between his ribs renewed itself. She spun around to face him. “Why aren’t you at Black Aura, Captain? I saw you leave for the capital myself.”

  He shifted on his heels, scouting the Hazing with his eyes. “You were mistaken, Elena. I never went to Black Aura.” He stressed her name to emphasize that he now understood her earlier deception. “I turned the Khanum’s prisoner over to my men for escort. Then I arranged for your friends to travel safely through Black Aura Gate.”

  “What friends?”

  Larisa answered for him. “The First Oralist.” She seemed to search for words. “And her consort, the Silver Mage.”

  Elena’s lips formed a snarl. “You watched the First Oralist abandon Ruslan, yet you risked yourself to deliver her consort? I don’t know you anymore, sister.”

  Tears formed in Larisa’s eyes. “Yes, you do.” Her voice cracked. “Do you imagine Ruslan’s death is a loss you suffer alone? Do you think the Companion of Hira doesn’t have a list of losses as long as your right arm? A man she loved was blooded before her eyes.”

  Elena faltered. “Blooded?”

  “Yes. Her grief brought down the Registan.”

  Elena remembered her primary mission. “And the Gold House?”

  Illarion answered. “The Gold House wasn’t harmed. The Claim knew who to destroy.”

  Elena repudiated his words with a wave of her hand. “Were you there? Did you see it?”

  He nodded, waiting. Elena’s breath caught on a sob. “Then the Claim couldn’t have known, could it? Not if there’s a single one of you left to walk on this earth.”

  The bitterness and grief in her eyes held him long after she’d turned away.

  Larisa drew Elena into the shadows. Moonlight spilled over the curves of the double cupola’s domes. Beneath the chipped and feathered bricks of the domes, blue-glazed tiles formed calligraphic patterns that swam in the play of shade and light. The faintest breeze disturbed the shoots of grass sprouting from the brick. It stirred the hair at the back of Illarion’s collar. He watched as the sisters muttered to each other in secret. He’d wanted to smile when Elena had suggested taking him captive, but her rage was too raw to suffer his condescension. He rubbed a hand over the bruise on his sternum. He wouldn’t misjudge her again.

  He was due back at the Wall. And he was due to report to the Khanum. But before he could do either of these things, he needed to get these sisters out of the city to Jaslyk. Though Jaslyk held other dangers. They would have to face down soldiers of the Crimson Watch. They would also be risking a run-in with the Technologist—the madman who supervised the prison.

  But if there was a chance to save the Companion, Sinnia, the risks they were taking would be worth it.

  Doubt gnawed at him: Could the Companion still be alive? And if she was, did Larisa and Elena stand any chance of successfully bringing about a rescue?

  Larisa interrupted his thoughts. “Come with us,” she said. “We know how to circumvent the patrols. Unless you think you’ll be missed.”

  He studied the two sisters standing side by side, each with a knife in one hand and a sword in the other. Larisa was by far the comelier of the two, but it was Elena he couldn’t look away from, Elena who burned with a volatile fury that reminded him of the First Oralist raging against the murder of her friend with a fury that had fired the sky.

  “I can spare a day or two before I must return. The Authoritan will send a regiment from the Ark led by Captain Nevus. Nevus is to assume control and command of the Wall. If I’m not there to receive him, it will raise suspicions.”

  “That sounds like they don’t trust you.”

  He raised an eyebrow, as if to remind them both that his presence in the Hazing at their side gave the Ahdath reason to doubt him.

  Elena snorted, then pressed on.

  Illarion followed the women through the double cupola, where the body of the soldier he’d killed lay hidden in the shadows. He prodded it with his foot. “They’ll take it for a Basmachi kill.”

  “As it would have been,” Elena snarled at him. “I didn’t ask for your rescue.”

  Illarion ignored this. His stomach had lurched at the sight of the man’s assault upon Elena. She’d been helpless, a fact she wouldn’t admit to him. Or to any man, he suspected, though she had let her sister tend to her wound with an indifference that spoke to what the sisters had endured.

  He focused on answering Larisa as she led the way down the hill, moving in and out of the shadows of the Hazing’s once-graceful mausolea. She stopped for a moment at the Tomb of the Living King, adjusting a floral decoration on its faience. It rotated east without a betraying sound. He wondered if the Tomb of the Living King held any significance for these sisters beyond a place where they left messages for the Basmachi. He’d seen grown men fall to their knees crying at the door to the tomb, pressing their lips to its inscriptions. For himself, he was a man without religion. When everything was holy, nothing could be holy.

  “Nevus is the Authoritan’s man. It was the Khanum who chose me as second to Araxcin. The Authoritan prefers his own men in command, but the Khanum will call me soon enough.”

  “Then go to her.” Elena’s scowl was fierce. “We have no need of your escort.”

  So she would go to Jaslyk. Despite the rift with her sister, somehow Larisa had managed to persuade her to rescue the Companion of Hira. “I’ll see you safely to Jaslyk,” he answered, keeping his voice even.

  Elena gave a mirthless laugh. “We know Jaslyk better than you ever will.” She spat again at his feet, narrowly missing his boots. He suppressed the urge to yank her by the hair and offer her her blade in kind. But Larisa Salikh was watching him, her narrow eyes pale and intent.

  Nor was Elena finished. “If you make it to Jaslyk, Ahdath, you won’t be leaving alive.”

  T
he message Larisa had left wasn’t to abandon the Hazing. She trusted Illarion no more than Elena did, but he’d told her something she hadn’t known, something he wasn’t aware that he’d betrayed.

  He didn’t have command of the Wall. And the new commander, Nevus, wasn’t due to arrive for another day or more.

  She knew what the Ahdath were capable of. She was equally aware of their deficiencies.

  For a day at least, the Wall was undefended, the opportunity she’d been waiting for—a chance for the Basmachi to weaken the Ahdath’s defenses from inside their own stronghold. A task she couldn’t accomplish on her own—not if she was headed to Jaslyk with Elena. She tipped her head to one side, weighing the risk against the gain. Strike too soon or miss the chance altogether? Success depended on timing. Her mission was to rout the Ahdath without allowing the Talisman to overrun them, exchanging one set of masters for another. To weaken the Wall as she hoped to, she’d have to take the risk.

  She sent a message to Zerafshan. And prayed his men were ready.

  5

  “WELCOME TO THE EAGLE’S NEST, EXCELLENCY. I TRUST YOUR RIDE across the mountains was not too arduous, and that your treasure remains undisturbed.”

  The Black Khan stirred from his perusal of a message delivered to him by hawk. His sister, Darya, had sent news of events at Ashfall, along with her wishes for his safe return. He read loneliness in her words, her genuine affection for him—an affection he used against her without the slightest remorse. To do so did not trouble his conscience: such was his right as Khan. More than that, it was his duty as Prince of the Khorasan empire. He’d risked the dangerous ride from Black Aura to the Eagle’s Nest in order to fulfill that duty. Darya’s desire to see him again was the least of his concerns.

  The man who now addressed him remained a mystery to Rukh. He was dressed in a shapeless brown robe belted at the waist, with a hood that covered most of his face. A lantern burning in the limestone chamber illuminated his jaw and the bleak white line of his smile. He was known simply as the Assassin, and he might have been thirty or sixty. Rukh had never seen the Assassin without his hood.

  He’d yielded the throne in the chamber to the Black Khan as soon as Rukh had arrived. The Assassin wasn’t one for the accoutrements of power; in this way, as in so many others, he was markedly different from the Khan—a difference that Rukh had never bothered to examine. It was enough that the Assassin was his, as loyal in his own way as Arsalan, the commander of the Black Khan’s army. He stowed the scroll inside the medallion at his collar, giving the man his attention without rising from his chair. It was for the Assassin to make an obeisance.

  The man in the robe didn’t hesitate. He bowed low, hovering over the Black Khan’s onyx ring without kissing it. “Excellency,” he said again, “my fortress is yours.”

  The Black Khan’s men advanced a step to either side of the throne. The commander of his army always rode at his side, and now he moved closer to the Assassin, who backed away from him, a smooth smile edging his lips.

  “Hasbah,” Rukh greeted him. “Does the Eagle’s Nest stand ready to aid me at this hour?”

  The Assassin nodded. In all his transactions with Rukh, he’d made only one request in return: that the Black Khan should never attempt to determine his true identity. The name he permitted the Khan to use in the presence of others was a cipher, giving nothing away of his origins. It was a reasonable price to pay for the skills of a man who would execute on command any of the Black Khan’s enemies.

  The Assassin beckoned Rukh to a window that overlooked the valley below. Both men ignored the boy trussed up and gagged at the foot of the Black Khan’s seat. He whimpered behind his gag. The Black Khan nudged him aside with his leather boot.

  “What do you see, Excellency?”

  Rukh studied the valley in the moonlight that washed the glade. The Assassin had made some improvements. The climb to the top of the mountain formed a natural barricade against invaders, but Hasbah had taken steps to camouflage his position. The stone quarried up the path was the same smooth limestone of the fortress, indistinguishable from the landscape below.

  Rukh strolled to another of the chamber’s windows, this one facing the river behind the fortress, a second natural barrier. Hasbah had terraced the fertile plains below, growing and storing his own crops to prepare the fortress against a siege. The storerooms that wound down into the mountain’s subterranean channels could have rivaled those of the capital at Ashfall.

  “The Eagle’s Nest is an impressive fiefdom. Do you govern the north from here?”

  The Assassin’s answering smile was bland, as if to say there were no borders that could contain him. “Up to a point,” he said.

  “As long as you remember that you do not command the West.”

  The Assassin raised two gloved hands in protest. The arms of his robe fell back, the strange black gloves that rose to his elbows fastened by the silvery laces of a fabric that seemed too insubstantial to hold them together. The laces were another of the Assassin’s peculiarities.

  “Command does not interest me,” Hasbah answered.

  “But power does.”

  Hasbah nodded. “The power of words.”

  One of the Assassin’s servants held up a lantern and swept its light around the chamber. Rows of shelves had been carved into the limestone walls, each holding a selection of manuscripts inside a film of the same insubstantial fabric that laced the Assassin’s gloves.

  The uppermost shelf held a new treasure bound with the same gossamer material. There was a note of anticipation in the Assassin’s voice. “Twice now I have brought it to you.”

  “Your trap was well laid,” the Black Khan agreed. “It was boldly done.”

  The Assassin preened at the Black Khan’s praise. “I could have rid you of the First Oralist once the deed was accomplished.”

  At his words, the trussed-up boy whimpered.

  “Be silent, boy,” Rukh said, not unkindly. “I haven’t harmed a hair of her head.” He shook his head at Hasbah. “She’s more powerful than you suspect, old friend.” He gave an elegant shrug. “And I’ve no wish to attract the wrath of one such as the Silver Mage.”

  The Assassin’s posture conveyed his surprise. “I could have dispatched him as well, Excellency.” A note of doubt crept into his voice. “You are the Dark Mage. The Mages are natural allies, your magics are closely bound.”

  A reasonable interpretation of folklore, though not necessarily true at present.

  What was true was that the Assassin knew too much about his affairs. Rukh suspected him of intelligence-gathering. The Assassin must have missed, though, that when the Conference of the Mages had last been held at Ashfall, it was Rukh’s half-brother Darius who’d acted as the Dark Mage. It was a birthright the brothers shared, though Rukh himself had had no luxury to study or awaken those powers. Nor would he humble himself before the other Mages. He’d attempted a rapprochement with the High Companion of Hira—Ilea, the Golden Mage. But she’d met those advances with scorn. He wouldn’t belittle himself again. Now that he had the Bloodprint in his hands, the others would bow to him. A small smile curled the edges of his lips: how little they knew of his schemes.

  What he needed was to make his way to Ashfall. With that in mind, he’d come to the Eagle’s Nest to seek the help of the Assassin. The Talisman had cut off the road to his capital, under the thrall of the One-Eyed Preacher, whose animus against the written word had become the law of the land: an ignorance the Talisman sought to extend across Khorasan, under their bloodstained flag. The Talisman were marching on his capital to burn his scriptorium down. They would take the women of his city and sell them to the north as slaves. Unless he found a weapon to wield against them—and he fiercely believed that the Bloodprint was that means.

  Now with the Bloodprint under his protection, he needed a safe route home. He also needed men—men who would relish taking the heads of those Talisman commanders who sought to bring his city to ruin.

&
nbsp; The Assassin had those men in legions.

  Hasbah snapped his fingers. Servants scurried to do his bidding. A carved table was brought into the chamber, numerous dishes arranged on its surface. Sherbet was poured into golden goblets. The Assassin himself placed a chair for the Black Khan at the head of the table.

  Rukh nodded at the boy. One of the servants moved to undo the boy’s gag. The Black Khan passed him a goblet and a plate. “Your name is Wafa, yes? Prove your loyalty, then. You will dine, then I and my men.” His eyes sought out the Assassin beneath his hooded robe. “And when the boy has tasted my food, you will tell me what you seek in exchange, old friend. Currency, coin, or women? Whatever you ask shall be given, but I must reach Ashfall before the Talisman assault.”

  Hasbah took the chair opposite the Black Khan. He steepled his gloved fingers, watching the boy eat with a ravenous hunger, oblivious to the fact he was tasting the food for poison.

  “My needs are simple, Excellency. While you provision your men for the journey ahead, I require a candle’s length of time to read in this room on my own.”

  Wafa stopped chewing, his mouth half-open, his amazement clear that here was another who could read.

  The Black Khan signaled for the return of his goblet. He tipped it toward the light to study the liquid inside. “And what will you be reading, old friend?” He asked this even though he knew the answer.

  The Assassin wanted an hour with the Bloodprint.

  “Excellency, if you honor my request, I would offer a gift in exchange.” The Assassin indicated another wall of the chamber. Its shelves were broader and held a selection of treasures displayed in open boxes: gemstones, talismans, astrolabes, sextants. A silver light pulsed from a slender box at the far end of the room.

  “What does that box contain?”

  “The tokens of the Silver Mage. I … liberated … them from his safehold in Maze Aura. Would you like to take them for your own?”

  Rukh fingered the symbol of empire on his hand: the onyx ring carved with a silver rook. It was token enough for him: whatever his reputation, the Prince of Khorasan wasn’t a common thief, though it intrigued him that the Silver Mage had set aside the symbols of his rank. He remembered the other man’s self-contained strength with a scowl, admitting to himself that perhaps the Silver Mage had no need of his tokens at all.