The Black Khan

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  In moments, the pursuit was joined. With less care than Larisa’s company had taken, the Ahdath’s horses thundered down the slope. They could hear the captain shout out orders: he’d left men to guard the bonfire—there was no chance of doubling back.

  “Come on,” Larisa called.

  Without light, their pace was halting. Larisa looked for an opening only she could see. When they arrived at it, they found themselves before a pit, their horses skidding to a halt. A platform was suspended above the pit. Though its balance was skewed, it was broad enough to support a company of men. Behind the platform, two tunnels led off the circle.

  “The tunnel on the left is the path that will lead us out. Take my horse ahead with you.”

  Before they could stop her, Larisa had dismounted, gathered herself, and taken a running leap onto the platform. It teetered until she found her balance.

  “Go!” she shouted, and the Ahdath came.

  Sinnia didn’t hesitate. She slipped from her horse and vaulted onto the platform. Now both women struggled to find their footing. Then they drew their bows, Sinnia with a cynical lift of her brow.

  “I’m guessing that since we’re on this platform nearing our doom, you’re not planning to fight hand to hand.”

  “Just don’t miss,” Larisa answered.

  Arian and Alisher moved ahead, leaving Daniyar behind. Larisa signaled to him to go, but he shook his head, his shield raised before him, his hands otherwise unencumbered.

  “He listens only to Arian,” Sinnia warned. “He’s a beautiful, dedicated fool.”

  Larisa had no time to be astonished at this characterization. The Ahdath had entered the circle around the pit, nudging their horses along the narrow ledge, whorls of smoke chasing at their heels. Sinnia and Larisa loosed their arrows. But even in the light from the Ahdath’s torches, both women missed their targets. They fired again, missed again, and this time the Ahdath fired back, the arrows whizzing over the platform. As they ducked, the platform shifted and they lost their footing, tumbling over to the edge. As Larisa slid from the platform, Sinnia threw herself flat, her bow still clutched in one hand.

  Larisa grabbed her hand as arrows fell like rain through a blossoming cloud of smoke.

  Then there was a counterattack—not from the Silver Mage, as Sinnia had supposed, but from Arian, who had returned. She had taken Alisher through the tunnel and made her way to the opposite rim of the pit. She sat calmly astride her horse, facing down the Ahdath, her bow strung with careful finesse, oblivious to the swirling smoke.

  Two of the Ahdath riders fell from their horses but didn’t retreat from the fight. They grabbed instead at the chains that held the platform suspended. Ahdath riders found the space between Daniyar and Arian and came up on the other side of the pit, reaching out for Larisa.

  Instead of drawing them away from the platform, Daniyar began a slow, steady murmuring in a language no one recognized. There was a note of reproach in the murmur and, just as gently, a hint of encouragement. And before anyone could perceive Daniyar’s objective, the Ahdath closest to the Silver Mage were no longer in position to assist the others. Their horses had reared up on the ledge, sending their riders into the pit. The horses found their way to the tunnel on the left and pounded away out of sight.

  On the platform, Sinnia pulled Larisa to safety as they swung back toward the Ahdath on the opposite side, whose weapons were poised in their hands. Sinnia leapt at them, the knives in both hands flashing down. Another soldier bounded onto the platform to seize Larisa with a powerful lunge. They battled fiercely through the smoke, the platform swaying on its chains. Larisa freed herself by stabbing the Ahdath’s hand. He let her go with a cry, staggering away, and she used the platform’s momentum to launch herself at his legs, bracing herself on his thigh to leap up and grab the chain. She climbed as high as she could, then jumped back to the narrow rim, nearly tumbling into the pit.

  Arian caught her before she fell, coughing as smoke rose over their heads.

  On the far side of the platform, the horses of the Ahdath refused to move ahead, despite the command of their riders or the vicious spurs they sank into their flanks.

  The Silver Mage raised a hand and motioned them back. One by one, the horses responded to the sound of his voice. Realizing their efforts were futile, the riders abandoned their mounts, racing to the edge of the circle, and now Daniyar faced them, sword in hand.

  Sinnia dispatched her opponents and looked around, using her hood to cover her mouth. Seeing Daniyar in danger, she circled around behind the Ahdath, wrong-footing two who went sailing into the pit. When the rest turned to face her, she realized the odds were against her and vaulted onto the platform as it swung back into view.

  There she uncoiled her leather whip. As the Ahdath pressed the Silver Mage back, the whip snaked across the open chasm, coiling around their boots. One by one, she jerked them over the edge, sending them flailing into the pit. But she wasn’t quick enough to save Daniyar. From the corner of her eye, she saw an Ahdath slash at the forelegs of Daniyar’s mount, tumbling Daniyar to the ground, his sword tangled in the stirrups.

  The Ahdath’s sword plunged toward Daniyar’s chest.

  And then the Ahdath’s arm halted mid-descent and he reared back, his mouth open in a soundless O as he toppled into the pit.

  The noise and confusion died down, leaving only the sound of the platform swinging through the dark, with the steady whoosh of wind.

  Peering through the smoke, Sinnia glanced over her shoulder.

  Arian sat poised on her horse, the strings of her bow still quivering from the arrow she’d fired with such precision. Her eyes met Daniyar’s as he raised himself up on his elbows.

  She offered his words back to him in a tone unlike any Sinnia had heard from her, hard and devoid of music. “I will suffer no man to touch you. For you are mine alone.”

  31

  THEIR PROGRESS THROUGH THE TUNNELS WAS QUIET. WHEN THEY emerged on the other end into fresh, unpolluted air, they were at the perimeter of the graveyard. They looked up the hill, where the white stone markers seemed to bear down upon them, evoking a sense of dread.

  Arian and Sinnia dismounted to kneel at the bottom of the incline, facing the long line of graves. They pressed their hands to their circlets, echoing each other’s voices in a recitation of the Claim. It wasn’t the twisting magic of the Claim: this time they used the Claim as a graceful benediction.

  “May the clouds comfort you with their shade. The One shall aid you with a thousand angels, following rank upon rank.”

  Their circlets seemed to glow. They raised their hands and swept them over their faces.

  “Come unto that tenet that you and we hold in common.”

  They rose and embraced, the tracks of their tears visible on their smoke-tinged faces.

  Larisa and Alisher watched them wordlessly, stricken by the sacred rites of Hira. When they’d finished, Larisa asked in a diffident voice, “Do you weep for my sisters, First Oralist?”

  “All of Hira weeps. These are our sisters too.”

  Larisa’s eyes scanned the crowded graveyard. “Then you know why we fight this war, and why I must leave you now. I must return to the Wall.”

  Arian took Larisa’s callused hand into her own. She reached for Sinnia’s hand and covered Larisa’s hand with both of theirs. “The One save you from the dangers of land and sea, Larisa.”

  Sinnia echoed the words, her whole heart behind them. She would never forget what Larisa had risked to free her from the torments of Jaslyk.

  Arian continued. “We have had no Companions from beyond the Wall in centuries. When we’ve won this war, we would be honored to welcome you to Hira.”

  Larisa looked down, brushing something from her eyes. “I’m a Basmachi,” she said. “All I know is killing. I’m not fit to be a Companion. I’m too often in the company of death.”

  “Then you’ve met one of the chief requirements,” Sinnia offered with a grin.

 
; Arian touched a hand to her lips and then to her circlet. She held the hand palm upward to Larisa, who hesitantly touched it with her own.

  “Come unto that tenet that you and we hold in common.”

  Larisa’s struggle was a mirror of Arian’s, its consequences just as profound.

  “You will know when it is time.”

  They embraced and said their farewells. Soon Larisa’s horse was a speck on a desert-red ridge.

  32

  “WHERE IS WAFA? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU AFTER I WAS TAKEN IN Marakand?”

  They were camped beside a narrow tributary of the Amdar River, its blue-black water bleeding into the hills. Alisher had found this shelter on their southern route to the Black Khan’s lands, circumventing the Talisman’s strongholds along the way. The air was quiet and still, and dusk had transformed the landscape so that earth, sky, and river seemed to meld into low-lying strips of blue. They were sore and tired from their battle with the Ahdath, but mostly they were hungry. Alisher and Daniyar had gone to hunt, leaving the two women by the fire.

  Sinnia listened as Arian unfolded the story of her captivity at the Ark. The darkness in her eyes deepened as Arian described the agonies the Silver Mage had endured, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. As Sinnia listened to the recital, compassion bloomed in her chest. She had suffered violence against her mind—a violence leavened by the golden glimmer of the Claim—but Arian had been collared. Collared and exposed without the Claim. At the mercy of the Authoritan’s whim, forced to endure the suffering of the man she unquestionably loved. That much was clear to Sinnia. Despite the commandments of Hira, Arian had bound herself to Daniyar. And in doing so, she had made herself vulnerable in a way she’d never been before.

  Just as Sinnia had been vulnerable to the predations of the white needle, helpless to seal her deepest self away from the ravaging of her mind. She and Arian had been sisters in their strength; now they were sisters in the act of being unmade. A less-than-honorable fate for two Companions of Hira.

  Her mind had wandered. Arian was speaking of the treachery of the Black Khan and his long-planned theft of the Bloodprint. Now she listened with singular attention. From their first meeting at Hira, Arian had suspected the Black Khan’s motives, whereas Sinnia had been beguiled by his manifest allure.

  Friends could be enemies, she realized. And then she thought of Illarion’s stratagems at Jaslyk: enemies could also be friends. The trick was to know which was which.

  But as Arian continued to speak, the horror of the Black Khan’s deception was balanced by the finding of the Bloodprint.

  The sacred manuscript was real.

  Arian had touched it with her hands. She had read from it.

  And it held the promise of deliverance.

  Sinnia’s eyes blazed with triumph, her injuries set aside. Salikh had told her—he had promised her—and now his promise was fulfilled. Their sacrifices would have some meaning. Turan murdered at the Bloodshed. Wafa stolen by the Khan. The tortures she and Arian and Daniyar had endured. The Authoritan’s forces had tried to break them … but none of them had been broken. Instead, they had found a means by which to bolster their belief. For the first time, they had reason to hope.

  Nothing could conquer them now.

  And then Arian spoke of the Khanum and her fate at the Authoritan’s hands. Lania was the Khanum, and Lania now held the Wall. A disclosure as shattering to Sinnia as the revelation had been to Arian.

  A long and futile quest come to its conclusion at last.

  Arian had found the sister she’d searched for all these years, the sister she believed she’d failed. And perhaps to punish herself for the failure, she had given up Daniyar.

  Given Arian’s choices, would Sinnia have done the same? Was her calling as deeply rooted? But she had more than her calling to consider—she bore the trust of the Negus and of all the people of her lands. Their pride in Sinnia’s call to Hira was something she couldn’t set aside. She wouldn’t abandon Hira, nor would she betray herself.

  To assert her own ascendancy, Lania had done something neither Arian nor Sinnia would ever contemplate, as neither would yield the things that had made them who they were. What they were—Companions of Hira who viewed their calling as a trust.

  Her blood thundering in her veins, Sinnia looked at Arian and knew that no matter the hazards that oppressed them, they were still sisters of the heart.

  Silence filled the campsite. Arian began to strip off her armor and linens; Sinnia followed suit, both welcoming the chance to bathe. Arian didn’t want to think of how she had been perfumed and displayed for the pleasure of the Authoritan’s court. She shuddered to remember the look in Nevus’s eyes as his glance had stripped her bare, or worse, his hand upon her breast. Even the subject of Lania was less painful to her than this, for Nevus had sought to tear away her sense of personal sanctity. It was the same thing she’d faced in her years of fighting the Talisman—the disavowal of her humanity based solely on her status as a woman.

  The way in which Lania had known the same truth was more than Arian could bear.

  Sinnia’s voice interrupted her bleak thoughts. “Was Lania looking for you, just as you were searching for her?”

  Arian shook her head. “Only as a means to the magic of the Silver Mage. It was Daniyar she needed, Daniyar she wanted.”

  There was a curious hitch in her voice that spoke of her unsettled emotions, but Sinnia didn’t press her. They submerged themselves in the river, letting the waves wash away the blood and grime, along with the tang of fear and the persistent darkness of their memories.

  Arian’s hair drifted long and loose in the water. She felt a momentary freeing from herself, from all that made her First Oralist of Hira. Now that her search for Lania had ended, how easy it would be to leave it behind her.

  Then she remembered Larisa giving no quarter to the men behind the Wall. Larisa had fought in the Hazing, she’d returned to the scene of her nightmares at Jaslyk, and then she’d fought in the maze of tunnels that led through the Nightshaper mines. Larisa would never yield.

  She knew the same was true of Sinnia. Just as she knew Sinnia had permitted her the barest glimpse of what she’d suffered. Setting her torments in Jaslyk aside, Sinnia had focused on the Bloodprint, stubborn and determined in her faith.

  Gradually Arian’s sense of loss and defeat faded, to be replaced by an urgent, pulsing anger. Anger at Lania, anger at the Ahdath, anger at the Talisman’s desolation of the south, and a burning, rising rage against the man who’d taken the Bloodprint and left her to the Authoritan’s care. The Black Khan—who had promised his loyalty to Hira, to betray them all in the end.

  She sensed the untapped power of the Claim surging up in her throat. She looked over at Sinnia, whose dark skin seemed to glow under the dreamlike caress of the water. How beautiful Sinnia was—though she had been marked by Jaslyk. White scars stood out against her skin, a circle stacked on two others, within the confines of a star. Her movements were tentative, gingerly testing out the limits of her strength.

  “Sinnia,” Arian said suddenly, “Nevus attempted to misuse me at the Ark. Was it the same for you? Did the Ahdath oppress you?”

  Sinnia’s eyes drifted closed. She scooped up a handful of water and let it slide over her face. To Arian, the drops resembled tears—a silent accusation she had earned.

  Hesitantly she said, “I led you into danger without thought of the consequences to you.”

  Sinnia’s eyes snapped open. With a proud tilt to her head, she said, “Don’t belittle me, Arian. I make my own choices; I take my own risks. You mean it kindly, I know, but I am used to governing myself.”

  Arian’s eyes widened, admonished by the queenly lift of Sinnia’s head. Struggling over her response, she said, “I would still value your forgiveness.”

  Sinnia tilted her head back in the water. “I wondered why you didn’t come.” She raised one hand from the water, pointing to the bruises at Arian’s throat. “But I didn’t kno
w of the Black Khan’s betrayal or of the tortures of the Ark.” A shiver whispered over her skin. “If you consider my Audacy, Arian, I didn’t come to your rescue either.”

  This was a new thought for Arian—that she would hold Sinnia to such an exacting standard that Sinnia would blame herself in turn. In truth, they had both been savaged by forces beyond their control. It was a lesson in not bearing blame that wasn’t theirs to take on. They were sisters to each other: they needn’t be martyrs besides.

  In that same quiet tone, Arian said, “You still haven’t told me of the Ahdath. Did they oppress you at Jaslyk?”

  “They have another wing for that. I was in the Technologist’s Wing, under his personal care.” Stumbling over the words, Sinnia recounted the torments of the white needle … and what it had felt like not to know her own mind. “I still don’t feel like myself—I don’t know what the needle did to me, though Mudjadid Salikh told me it granted me greater power over the Claim.”

  Arian shuddered. “Any control we have is an illusion. It’s the Claim that masters us, though I cannot quite see how.” She returned to the subject of the Technologist. “Larisa and Elena spoke of a dependency created by the needle. Have you experienced the aftereffects?” She reached over for Sinnia’s hand, warmed by respect for her friend. “Are you able to command yourself now?”

  They floated side by side in the water, their clothing and circlets on the riverbank, the clouds parted above their heads to disclose a sliver of moon.

  “Larisa told me. She warned me that my body would fight itself. She said I would sweat on the outside and bleed on the inside. She said I’d beg and plead and cry for the needle, that I’d do anything to gain it—including give myself to the Ahdath.” Her voice became grim. “I think the Salikh sisters have not told us half of what they endured behind the walls of Jaslyk.”

  She rose from the water to dry herself and dress.

  “You still haven’t answered me, Sinnia. Is it something you cannot speak of?”