The Black Khan

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  “Unless you can summon the Claim the way you did in the Registan, we must get to the city without further delay. Can you, Arian?”

  His eyes traced the fading marks of the bruises on her throat. “I don’t think so—not yet.”

  They didn’t speak of what else Arian had done with the Claim in the courtyard of the Clay Minar—the death she had offered the Ahdath in spades, the wild, secret pleasure she had taken in it. Her remorse had come much later.

  “Who leads this army?” she asked him.

  “Each Talisman brigade is commanded by an Immolan from one of the Talisman tribes.”

  “And at the center?”

  He knew what she was asking. “Shin War. They command the army.”

  Sinnia’s head whipped around. She couldn’t conceal her dismay.

  “My lord, this is a quandary you shouldn’t have to face.” She saw a look pass between Arian and Daniyar and added hurriedly, “Not that I’d expect you to abandon the First Oralist.”

  She blushed at his knowing smile, but all he said was “Their presence may be an advantage I can use, but it’s too soon to tell. Lead the way, Arian. We must consult the guards at the outer wall at once.”

  Sinnia’s horse kept pace with his on their descent down the ridge, the last chance they’d have to speak until they reached the ramparts.

  “You haven’t been to Ashfall before, my lord?”

  “Once,” he said. “To attend the Conference of the Mages. I had no need of secrecy then, so I took the open road.”

  Alisher echoed his words with some amazement. “The Conference of the Mages? I thought the Conference a myth—folktales we were told in childhood.”

  “I as well,” said Sinnia.

  Daniyar smiled at Sinnia again. He reached across to her horse and pressed her hand with genuine warmth. “You thought me a myth before you met me. Would you not say I’m real?”

  Since he offered her the opportunity, Sinnia’s bold glance sketched his face with frank appreciation—the chiseled planes, the finely shaped mouth, the glory of the brilliant silver gaze. “Real and unreal, such beauty,” she teased.

  “I could say the same to you—a young queen of the Negus.” He returned her glance with such forthright masculine approval that Sinnia blinked. He smiled at her momentary confusion, and seeing the smile, she shook her head at them both.

  “Don’t try your tricks on me, my lord. I assure you I’m quite immune.”

  “Pity.” His tone was so indulgent that Sinnia grinned to herself.

  “If you’re quite finished trying to charm me, tell me about the other Mages.”

  His voice still soft, he answered, “Ilea, the Golden Mage, leads the Council of Hira. Rukh, the Prince of West Khorasan, has inherited his brother’s role as Dark Mage. There is also the Mage of the Blue Eye. The others, I do not know. Perhaps they were creatures of myth. What I do know is that each Mage is gifted with some ability with the Claim, though study and practice are required.”

  “How do you study, my lord? What do you study? And what is it that binds the Mages of Khorasan together?”

  She was touched when he answered her frankly, as if he considered her worthy of his trust. “In my case, the Candour was my guide. It lists many of the rites of the Mages. Over the years, the Candour led me to other manuscripts that guided me further. But you should know, the Golden Mage has even greater ability than I, as she has more knowledge of the Claim. She’s had a lifetime to study from the treasury of manuscripts at Hira.”

  “The same must be true of the Black Khan at Ashfall. It is said that Ashfall’s scriptorium is one of the wonders of the world.”

  “I hope so,” Daniyar said grimly. “But I cannot speak to the Black Khan’s abilities. When a Conference of the Mages is convened, the Claim redoubles its power, and we are able to make of its magic nearly anything we choose—either for good or for ill.”

  The grim line of his mouth eased a little, as he saw the hope in Sinnia’s eyes. She had struggled so long at Arian’s side that she had thought the two of them would always be on their own, with no one else to aid them. Now, though …

  Alisher was listening too, rapt at this review of what he had believed to be folklore.

  “This must be why you do not fear these armies,” he said. “Perhaps if the Mages wield this power, there is nothing that can defeat them.”

  Daniyar sighed, shifting in his saddle to stretch the sore muscles of his back. He had given hope to the others and kept his doubts to himself. But a more honest explanation was warranted.

  “Those powers are not quite as ascribed by myth. Consider how little they aided me before the Authoritan.” He nodded at the Talisman standards in the distance. “Our real power rests in knowledge.”

  Puzzled, Alisher asked, “What magic does knowledge afford you? Or any of the Mages of Khorasan?”

  “Why would the Immolans fear knowledge enough to burn it if it didn’t threaten their rule?” Daniyar chose not to elaborate further, glancing over at Sinnia. “Are you well enough to undertake this journey? You would be safer at Hira. You could take Alisher with you.”

  They had nearly reached the great white plains of the salt lake, the ground rippling beneath their horses’ hooves. She waved away his concern, making light of her injuries at Jaslyk. “You know I won’t leave Arian’s side,” she said without apology. “Just as I know what you were prepared to suffer on her behalf. You and I, we are bound to her. Wherever she rides, we ride.”

  She was answered by a brusque nod of his head.

  Perhaps seeking to assert his own commitment, Alisher quickly said, “I may serve a purpose at Ashfall. They say the Khan is an admirer of verse. His interest may allow me to slip inside the city, if other methods fail.”

  Sinnia clicked her tongue at him. “We are not in the habit of abandoning our friends. We will see you safely to the palace.”

  They fell into conversation, and Daniyar rode ahead to join Arian. “What is your plan, Arian? I sense you have something in mind.”

  She was measuring their progress around the salt lake, comparing their speed to the Talisman’s advance. Holding her injured wrist in place, she nodded at the outer walls. “We must lend our aid to the company at the wall. If we cannot assist them in holding the outer wall, at least we will gain enough time to deliver a warning to the Khan. Then we must make for the Emissary Gate.”

  On the eastern front, the Emissary Gate was for ambassadors to the court at Ashfall. The Messenger Gate to the west was named for the Messenger of the Claim.

  “And the Claim?”

  “Whatever use I can make of it, I will.”

  “Will you use the Verse of the Throne?”

  “Yes. I’ve taught it to Sinnia as well. And you—do you remember?”

  His eyes held hers, a shadow crossing his face. “I remember everything.”

  “Don’t,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Don’t think about Nevus.”

  His gaze settled on her bruises, then drifted back to her cheek. “If he had branded you with the bloodmark—”

  “He didn’t,” she said swiftly. “And even if he had, it wouldn’t change anything between us.” Her voice slowed. “Would it?”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. She fanned her fingers across his beard.

  “You know it wouldn’t.” They nudged their horses ahead, the wetlands giving way to solid ground. The Talisman drums were louder, pounding through drifts of night. “When the Black Khan sold you to the Authoritan, he broke the vow he made to the Council. If he was willing to besmirch his honor, his desperation must have been great. How will you persuade him to cede the Bloodprint to you?”

  “With the Claim,” she said. She looked across the plains to the gathering of the Talisman’s forces. “I will promise my aid in defending his city in exchange for the Bloodprint.”

  “And if you are prevented from using the Claim? Or unable to?”

  Arian’s reply was matter-of-fact. “No man wil
l collar me again.”

  A series of high-pitched whistles sounded above their heads. They looked up, expecting to see Saqar, the falcon that had tracked them from Hira. The sky was dark, but at the ramparts ahead, they caught a flicker of torchlight against the lens of a spyglass.

  “They’ve spotted us.” He motioned to Sinnia. “Show them the tahweez.”

  He found a long match in his saddlebags and lit it against the night. It flared against their circlets before he blew it out. The whistle sounded again—two short, sharp blasts.

  “They’ve understood. Ride hard now.”

  He spurred his horse a short distance apart from theirs, riding closer to the Talisman encampment. They had the cover of night, but all it would take to discover them was a presentiment of danger and a well-aimed spyglass.

  The Talisman had no magic to use against them. What they had was strength of arms. Daniyar’s mind raced with calculation. How and why had the Black Khan been so negligent? Had he returned to his city from Black Aura, or had he been ambushed along the way?

  And who besides the Shin War directed the movement of this army? The army’s formations were too vast and well studied to have been organized by the Shin War. He suspected the maneuvers of a deadlier foe, but he kept his thoughts to himself. There would be time enough to lay additional burdens on Arian. These were disciplined forces, arranged by a division of skill: archers, fire-lancers, engineers, infantry. They lacked horses, a possible outcome of the actions of the warriors of the Cloud Door. The Buzkashi had gathered a vast number of horses from the plains, acclimating them to higher altitudes. By contrast, only a handful of the Talisman’s Immolans were horsed.

  Daniyar had stayed too long at his mission in Candour, herding the orphaned boys of the city, paying scant attention to anything else. Now the orphans of Candour were on the march to Ashfall, regardless of his efforts. They carried Talisman standards into battle, rough and ready forces who would take the brunt of the Zhayedan’s response, their lives expended by their commanders with little thought to their value.

  Nearly all sides were ready for the war: the Ahdath, the warriors of the Cloud Door—and here in these lowlands, the Talisman. But where were the Zhayedan—the Black Khan’s invincible forces? If Ashfall fell, the west would lie open to the Talisman advance.

  The wind was at their rear, pushing them across the salt flats. They reached the bell tower of the outer walls. To the east, there were murmurs of discovery, torches lit in their direction, men ordered to the perimeter.

  Arian and Sinnia rode faster, their cloaks flying behind them, leaving their arms uncovered. They were the emissaries to a foreign capital, ragged, injured, and worn from the road, as was he himself. The Shin War crest he had stitched to the cloth at his throat was frayed, his armor Ahdath castoffs from Lania, his weapons not the weapons born to his hand. He didn’t have his ring; he didn’t have the Candour. For himself, it didn’t matter. But Arian should have entered the city like a queen, her black hair arrayed with jewels, her golden circlets ablaze.

  Instead, she was covered in the dust of their ride. Wounded and battle-weary, she looked fragile to his eyes. Her face was strained, reflecting what she’d endured. And other trials awaited them at Ashfall. Though the Companions of Hira were not cosseted during their training, they hadn’t faced hardships like these. Guessing at his thoughts, Arian’s eyes found his, radiating purpose. Once more, he’d underestimated her. She was wounded, not weakened. Her carriage was straight and tall in the saddle, her face calm, her judgment measured. The crucible of Black Aura had left her gifts immutable. She had no more need of jewels and silk than he did of the Candour. It was something he wanted for her, his thoughts flashing back to how Lania had dressed her at the Ark, the beauty of her curves shining through her dress, and he wondered when they would be more to each other than confederates in a cause …

  When we have defeated them, he thought.

  He glanced back at the Talisman army. A small party had detached itself from the host.

  He spurred his horse through the gate.

  38

  “PLACE IT ON THE PEDESTAL. ALLOW ME TO SEE IT FOR MYSELF.”

  Rukh’s men were in the council chamber, engaged in a heated debate manipulated by the Nizam, while Arsalan stood at the foot of the table and listened to the men without comment. Rukh had withdrawn with Ilea to the antechamber off the room where his commanders prepared for war. It was a small and intimate space, lit by candles placed in wall sconces, its surfaces inscribed with Khorasani motifs.

  A delicately enameled candle clock shed light upon a gold pedestal modeled after the Peacock Throne. A quintet of black silk curtains separated the antechamber from the council chamber, both rooms opening onto the city walls, with windswept views of the gardens. The city had gone quiet: a series of commands issued by Arsalan had set the perimeter to rights.

  The High Companion of Hira cared for none of this. She had come for the Bloodprint, at some cost to the Citadel. She did not explain to the Prince of Khorasan how she’d eluded the Talisman encampments that blocked the road from Hira, and he didn’t ask. She suspected he didn’t care, impatient to resolve the issue of the Bloodprint and return to his council of war.

  At a nod to his page, the silk-wrapped manuscript was taken from its protective folds and placed upon the pedestal. The ancient ink had dulled to a rusted gold. The elongated strokes of the Bloodprint’s script lay lightly upon the parchment.

  Ilea knelt before it and prayed, her smooth face secret and remote. “Show me the marking,” she said.

  The Black Khan’s page brought a basin of fresh water to him; he washed his hands again. Beset with difficulties and dangers on every step of his journey back to Ashfall, he hadn’t looked at the manuscript himself. Too, his triumph was tainted by the knowledge of what he’d traded to achieve it: the First Oralist at the Authoritan’s mercy. Though he knew he would make the same choice again, he was diminished by what he’d done.

  He reached clean hands to the sacred manuscript and opened it to the page bloodmarked by history. He spread the pages wide so the High Companion might find what she sought from the parchment: the blood that stained the Bloodprint.

  There was a slight tremor in the fingers that traced over the staggered marks of blood. It was the only indication the High Companion was moved.

  She read the words aloud, her recital different from any invocation he’d heard from the students who studied in his scriptorium, every last one of them male. Her voice fell on his ear strangely, a desolation to twist his heart. The words were deeply affecting. And as always, he wondered how to make use of them.

  “If they believe in that which you believe in, they have been rightly guided. If they turn away, they are only in dissension, and the One will be sufficient for you against them. And the One is the Hearer, the Knowing.”

  She looked up at Rukh, the light from the candle clock outlining her hair in gold. She seemed unearthly, an angel with a sword in her hand, except that the sword was her voice.

  “He was killed as he recited these words. His blood transformed them in ways I do not understand. Did the First Oralist have the chance to read them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No,” Ilea agreed. “How could you? Your time with her was brief once you delivered her to the Authoritan. It seems your plan came to fruition.”

  “It was your plan also, Ilea. Or have you forgotten that?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten. I yielded the foremost weapon in my arsenal in exchange for this.” She traced the bloodstains again. “Yet here it is in Ashfall, instead of at the Citadel as promised.”

  Rukh gave an elegant snort. “Did you really think I would turn it over when I assumed all the risk? You have—what? A handful of Companions who may be able to read the Bloodprint? I have a hundred trained Warraqeen.”

  Ilea tipped her head to one side, her hands folded at her waist. “You have trained your Warraqeen for how many years? A decade at most? And you t
hink them able to find within this manuscript the power of the Claim?” She laughed. “It isn’t a matter of reading it, Rukh. How poorly you understand it.”

  She pointed to the Bloodprint. “The Guided One died in defense of its tenets, so you imagine the glory of the Bloodprint is reserved to him. Your Warraqeen are men, are they not, Great Khan?” She shook her head, pitying him. “You hoped to prevent the Warraqeen’s defection to Hira, a pointless strategy.”

  He watched her narrowly, letting her say her piece.

  She placed her hands, palms down, on the Bloodprint. A golden energy pulsed from the manuscript and arrowed up into her body. He took a step back, not entirely dismayed.

  If there was another way to use the Bloodprint—

  She smiled at him as if she read his thoughts.

  “It was a woman who assembled the manuscript of the Claim. She kept it under her protection until the Guided One called for it to be returned. It is imbued with her secrets and her magic. You wonder what it is I have at Hira. A handful of Companions who are useless in this war? No, Excellency, you’ve mistaken the power of Hira. I have Half-Seen at the Citadel. Half-Seen is the descendant of the collector of the Claim. A thousand Warraqeen couldn’t match her in knowledge. Half-Seen alone could bring down your walls.”

  He didn’t doubt it. And now the reasons for Ilea’s conspiracy against the First Oralist were illuminated.

  “I did wonder how Hira could survive such a blow. To lose the First Oralist—I thought her mastery unmatched.”

  Ilea’s response was dry. “She is not Hira’s only treasure. There is also Ash.”

  “Your jurist?” He raised a silky brow. “But we’re not set upon disputations of the Claim when we scarcely know what it says.”

  “How wrong you are again.” Ilea studied the movements of the candle clock, its imperceptible machinery reflecting the workings of a subtle intelligence. “Disputation is precisely the reason Hira has been in search of the Bloodprint. As soon as Half-Seen and Ash begin its study, we will be able to dispute the Talisman’s proclamations. The Assimilate cannot stand in the face of the Bloodprint’s written proof. It shall be copied and sent to every corner of Khorasan.”