The Black Khan

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

“I’m needed in the scriptorium. Every moment with the Bloodprint is precious.”

  “This won’t take you long.” His voice held a note of bitterness at odds with the expression on his face, a fatalism she hadn’t expected.

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Look at the bowl, Arian. Please read its inscriptions to me.”

  Arian bent closer to the table. “May I?”

  He nodded as she placed her hands on the boat-shaped bowl.

  “It’s a kashkul, an alms vessel. It’s beautifully engraved.” She traced the bowl’s markings with her fingers. The body of the bowl featured a series of diamond-flora medallions crowned by a miniature rook. A brass lip ran along both sides, separating the design from the delicate script above it.

  Arian frowned to herself. It was Nastaliq script, a script of Khorasan; a man as well schooled as the Khan would know how to read it for himself. And there was another peculiarity she had never seen in an alms vessel: both ends of the bowl were raised up to form two dragon-headed extremities, their mouths gaping outward, their eyes obsidian black.

  She was struck by a chill and dropped her hands, tilting her head up at Rukh. For a moment, she glimpsed a probing assessment in his eyes. Then seeing her watch him, he masked it.

  “What does it say?” he asked.

  “You must be able to read it for yourself.”

  “Read it to me. You have nothing to fear from the words.”

  He was telling her the truth: she’d read the four couplets above the rim. They were verses that enhanced the legitimacy of the Messenger of the Claim. Even in the quiet of the room, they hung like grace notes on the air.

  Not quite certain of her ground, Arian recited the words to Rukh, her voice sweetening the verses to a slow and rhythmic cadence.

  “Again.”

  Arian offered the words again, growing more disturbed by the minute. Rukh’s shoulders and back were tight with tension, his head held at an autocratic angle.

  “Once more.” There was a pulsing urgency in his voice, a throb of something like magic. Arian was struck by the feverish glitter of his eyes. She did as he asked, hoping the words would soothe the strain he seemed to be under.

  When the words had died away, his shoulders slumped a little. They were close enough to each other that he could touch her hair again or take her hand, or hold her under the spell of his darkly languorous gaze. He did none of these things, his attention fixed on the bowl. Then he straightened his shoulders and turned the bowl so that its mirror-script faced Arian.

  “And these. Please, Arian. Three times.”

  Arian read the couplets to herself, strangely tense. What did he hope to gain from this? These verses were as innocuous as the others, descriptions of the mission of the Messenger of the Claim. Was Rukh a man of deeper faith than she’d imagined? Did he seek to anoint himself before riding into battle?

  She gave him the verses as asked, and when the echo of her voice had died away at the end of her third recitation, he came to a moment of decision. With a curt note of demand, he asked her to give him her hand.

  Compelled by that pulsing throb in his voice, Arian placed her hand in his. He turned her hand palm up, the gesture measured and careful, absent of seduction.

  Their eyes met and held for a moment. Arian wished she could read his thoughts.

  “Forgive me,” he said bleakly. And before she could react, his dagger flashed up and sliced at the center of her palm. She cried out, trying to snatch back her hand. He held it firm above the kashkul, letting her blood drip into the bowl until its base was covered.

  “Wait,” he said. “Don’t use the Claim against me—it would be dangerous at this moment.”

  She believed him. An oppressive aura of augury, the foretelling of a dark descent, rose like a mist in the room. Her blood oozed slowly from her palm. When he let her go, she sprang away, drawing her hand to her chest.

  “Why? Why do you never allow me to trust you?”

  He ignored her. Her bleeding palm, her pale face—he made no attempt to soothe her or to explain his actions. Instead, he read the verses on the bowl himself, repeating them three times—a repetition she now recognized as a formula. He turned the bowl away and did the same with the other side. Then he inhaled deeply, almost as if he were steeling himself to a course.

  A shout sounded outside the door—Wafa’s voice, Wafa seeking entry before his cries were muffled. Booted feet thudded across the floor, echoed by the ring of steel. The Black Khan’s men were defending the door to his chambers. Arian ran to the door, but before she could throw it open, Rukh’s sudden movement arrested her flight.

  He rose to his feet and raised the kashkul to his lips.

  Horrified by his action, Arian flew back to his side to wrest the bowl from his hands. “Stop!” she cried, oblivious to her bleeding palm. “What on earth are you doing? This is—this is …”

  “Necromancy,” he supplied. His lips were stained by her blood. “Dark sorcery, dark power, for I am the Dark Mage.”

  Arian backed away, her hands falling to her sides. His black eyes were lit by a flame, the pupils outlined by fire, a sorcerous dark corona.

  “In Ashfall’s name, I rise.” This time he didn’t hesitate. He tipped the bowl forward and drank again.

  Arian let out a cry—he was linked to her, twisting her by claiming her blood. Her circlets tightened on her arms. A pulsing resistance to the Claim rose inside her throat.

  “Stop it!” she demanded. “You don’t know what you’re doing. To drink my blood from the kashkul—these are the Authoritan’s rites. You are occulting the Claim!”

  Someone was pounding on the door. There were sounds of a skirmish outside the Black Khan’s chamber. Rukh set the bowl on the table.

  Arian’s blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth. A terrible dark tide rose behind his skin, covering him with deadly animus.

  “Come here.” Even his voice was different—colder, sharper, a projection of itself.

  Arian called up the Claim to meet it, fighting against herself.

  “Do not barter the messages of the One for this small and trifling gain!”

  The words stopped him. He raised his hands to his throat. A wild trembling took hold of his limbs. She watched him master it, dipping his hand inside the bowl. He smeared his fingers with Arian’s blood; then he brought his hand to his lips and licked his fingers. A cruel smile shaped the edges of his mouth.

  “Your necromancy will overtake you,” Arian cried. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You do not know the bloodrites; your powers are untapped. This is not how to awaken your gifts. Call Daniyar back,” she said in a frantic voice. “The Silver Mage will guide you.”

  Terrible words fell from Rukh’s lips. Esoteric curses, threats of annihilation, a litany of destruction.

  Death to the Silver Mage. Death to Darius. Death to the Council of Hira.

  The words spilled like a tide of blood, and with each one, he moved closer to Arian, his arms reaching for her, overcome by what he’d unleashed.

  “Give me your hand. I would drink your blood from its source.”

  Flames danced at the centers of his eyes, expanding outward like a nimbus. Arian had seen it before: it gave his eyes a crimson tint. She stared at him in horror, twisting her palm behind her back, calling out verses of the Claim.

  Her desperate words didn’t matter. He’d called up a sorcerous inversion of the Claim: untrammeled and unloosed, his powers were staggering. He grabbed her by the wrist, raising her palm to his lips, drinking from the open wound.

  “Don’t!” Arian raged at him. Even the Authoritan had not bled her. “This will not save Ashfall. It will only damage and darken us both. The blood-madness will destroy you!”

  His sleek tongue lapped at her palm, sending spears of fire through her veins. She tried to bend him with the Claim, but what it was doing to either of them, she couldn’t begin to guess.

  The noise outside the door ceased. A hard h
and forced the door open—Arsalan, breathing as if he’d run a great distance, his hair disheveled, his face taut with apprehension. He took in the scene at a glance, then barred the door behind him. He ripped Rukh away from Arian, the violence of the act upending the bowl on the table. It crashed against the floor, the remnants of Arian’s blood leaking into the stone.

  Rukh raised his arm, pointing at them both. Arsalan moved swiftly, so that Arian was sheltered behind him. In turn, she was murmuring the Claim, harboring Arsalan in the refuge of her words. He wasn’t conscious of it; his first instinct was to shield Arian from the Black Khan’s assault.

  Rukh held up his dagger. He traced its crimson edge with the tip of a finger, then brought the finger to his lips. Shocked, Arsalan watched him savor the taste of the First Oralist’s blood.

  “You are not wanted here, Commander.” Rukh spoke in the silky accents of a prince, dismissing Arsalan with a cold disdain. “You should be at the ramparts.”

  Arsalan faced the Black Khan like an enemy, keeping his hand on his sword. The loyalty he’d offered Rukh was stripped in an instant from his voice. “How dare you harm the First Oralist?”

  As sharp-eyed and unerring as a hawk, Rukh flicked the dagger at Arsalan. Arsalan leapt aside in time, keeping Arian behind him.

  “My prince—” His face was rigid with disbelief. “You have never raised a hand against me.”

  Triumph blazed from the Black Khan’s crimson eyes. “But I am not your prince. I am the Black Khan.”

  No sooner had he said it than his throat convulsed and he began to choke. Arian tugged at Arsalan’s arm, her palm slippery with blood. She whispered to him to take hold of the Khan and restrain him. Arsalan eased Rukh to his knees, a fine tremor in the hands that held him by the shoulders.

  Arian reached for the brass ewer. As Arsalan restrained the Khan, she tipped back his head and poured water down his throat. He coughed and spat it back up. Arsalan moved one hand to his jaw. Careful to keep her bleeding palm away from his face, Arian poured the water again, a second time and a third, until her blood was rinsed from his mouth. Then she made him drink the rest of the water.

  When it was done, she knelt at his side next to Arsalan. Rukh drew several gasping breaths, bent double over his knees.

  “‘Do not barter away My messages for a trifling gain,’” she repeated softly. “‘The One is much forgiving, the sole dispenser of grace.’”

  This time the words seemed to reach him. He sank back on his heels, the red tide receding from his eyes. He brushed a hand across his face. It was stained with Arian’s blood. He stared at his hand as if it was foreign to him. He could see himself in the wardrobe’s mirrored door. He looked like a demon at a blood-feast, a monstrous, misshapen shadow of himself.

  He wasn’t the Prince of Khorasan. Nor was he the Black Khan.

  He was no longer sure who he was.

  The magic drained from his body in a staggering, blood-quenching rush.

  He shook himself free of Arsalan’s grip, blundering to his feet. Arsalan turned to Arian; she stood with her hand clasped awkwardly to her chest. He strode across the room to the bed, where he stripped away one of the panels. He tore it into pieces and used a single strip to bind her palm. Something in his manner of tending her showed her his great reverence for Hira.

  “What brought you here, Commander?”

  A grave distress shadowed his eyes—yet it wasn’t on her behalf. “Darya begged me to come. She said the Nizam had urged the Prince to a course of self-destruction. I didn’t know what she meant, but she insisted I had to find him.”

  He had left the walls at the moment of attack at the merest hint of danger to his prince. She was stunned by the depth of his loyalty. If in his darkest hour the Prince of Khorasan had a man like Arsalan at his side, there was reason to hope that his recklessness would not bring the city to ruin. Arsalan was akin to Daniyar—a man to be relied on.

  He was already looking for Rukh, who had wandered into an antechamber: when they followed him, they found him at the windows, brooding over the sight of the Talisman’s formidable army. His hands gripped the stone wall, his face austere in his despair.

  Arian tried to soothe him with soft incantations of the Claim, freed of the abhorrent sense of dueling her own abilities.

  But Rukh tossed his head like a mettlesome horse, his restless gaze lighting on her injury. “I’m not worth it, First Oralist. I cannot be redeemed by the Claim.” He turned on Arsalan with sudden fury. “You overstepped your bounds. You acted to aid the First Oralist, when your first allegiance is to me.”

  Arsalan sounded bewildered by the charge. “This is how I demonstrate allegiance. By stopping you from doing damage to yourself.” He paused for a moment. “What were you doing? Why did you taste the First Oralist’s blood?”

  When Rukh remained silent, Arian answered for him. “He had some idea of unleashing a power like the Authoritan’s.

  He thought he would be able to use it to make his stand against the Talisman.” “He used the kashkul as a bloodbasin?” There was a gray tinge beneath Arsalan’s healthy color. “Sahabiya …” Whether he was more alarmed on her behalf or on Rukh’s, Arian couldn’t tell. Then she realized the truth. Arsalan was a man of faith; he viewed the occulting of the Claim as a sacrilege.

  “It is a perilous magic,” she told him. “It cannot be awakened in an instant. He could have destroyed himself.”

  “Did you know this?” Arsalan seized Rukh’s shoulder. “Did you have so little faith in my ability to defend you that you were willing to sacrifice yourself? Don’t you know what that would have cost us—what it would have cost me?” A powerful current of emotion ran beneath the words.

  Rukh turned his bloodstained face to Arsalan. He tried to shake off the grip on his arm, seething with rage at the contact.

  Arsalan dropped his hand but didn’t cede an inch of his ground. “Answer me, Rukh. You risked the First Oralist as well.”

  Rukh didn’t look at Arian. He made a careless gesture that pointed to the Talisman advance. Drained of the power that had infused him, he spoke with a sense of defeat. “You were at the walls; so was the Silver Mage. The Companions were with the Bloodprint. Every last soldier of the Zhayedan was prepared to defend this city. How could I do any less? I am the prince of this empire, and the Nizam warned me—”

  Arsalan cut him off. “I should have known the Nizam was behind this.”

  Rukh scowled at his general. He reached past Arsalan for Arian’s injured hand, perhaps thinking to make amends. But Arsalan stood toe-to-toe with Rukh, keeping Arian out of his grasp. She’d had no notion of Arsalan as a protector, and no thought at all that she needed one. She was that thing unknown to Hira before her coming: linguist, visionary, conqueror of the Word. But her battle with Rukh had shown her there was no part of the Claim’s vast mystery that she could take for granted.

  Impeded by Arsalan’s actions, Rukh snapped, “Get out, Arsalan. Go back to the walls. You don’t want me as your enemy.”

  “You could never be my enemy, nor I yours.” His brows raised in disbelief, Arsalan gestured at Arian’s injured hand. “Is this how you take your measure as a man? By wreaking violence upon a woman?”

  And when the Black Khan didn’t answer, he gripped Rukh by the shoulders again, forcing him to meet his gaze.

  A bitter fury broke through Rukh’s control. “I know how you would take my measure,” he snarled. “I am not blind to your lust. Get your hands off me, Arsalan. Don’t ever assume I share your corruption or that I ache for your touch.”

  Arsalan staggered back, the shock of betrayal in his face. He looked at Rukh as if he’d never known him—as if he hadn’t sacrificed everything he had … everything he was for Rukh. It was a sundering even the bloodrites had not been able to achieve.

  In an agonized voice, he said, “You touched me. You are the one who trespasses, the one who always encroaches. You gave me leave to think—”

  Rukh cut him off, the color hi
gh in his face. His rejoinder was relentless and cruel. “You saw what you wanted to see. You chose to ignore my desire to make the First Oralist my queen. Next to her, what are you? Debased, debauched, unworthy.” He spat the words in Arsalan’s face.

  Arian gasped at the insult, at all that had been revealed.

  Rukh’s fury subsided in a rush. He pressed his hands to his eyes, weakness swamping his limbs. Arsalan made no move to help him, and Rukh was left with a hollow sickness at the damage he knew he’d done. At the wound he’d inflicted in Arian’s presence, dishonoring Arsalan in her eyes.

  Slowly Arsalan said, “I did not think myself unworthy of serving you, my prince. Of loving you, perhaps.” He shook his head.

  That even for a moment he’d allowed himself to believe …

  “Though I witnessed your treatment of Darya, I did not know you thought of me simply as a means to an end.” Humiliation darkened his face. “You had no need to deceive me. I would have done anything you asked.”

  “Arsalan—” The pain in Rukh’s voice spoke to the depths of his remorse.

  Too little, far too late.

  “Excellency.” Arsalan bent his head. “You have defamed me before the First Oralist. I thought better of you.” Though his voice was even, its resonance was colored by grief.

  Hesitantly Rukh touched Arsalan’s arm. Arsalan shook off his hand, his face pale beneath the blotches on his cheeks. Arian watched the two men and wondered. She had admired their closeness, but this was something she hadn’t guessed. This was deeper and more intimate—more painful to them both.

  Arsalan attemped an explanation, speaking to Arian stiffly.

  “You must think me errant, sahabiya. I should be outcast from the army. Instead the Prince of Khorasan has raised me to this rank, just as he has protected me from the time that we were boys. I know how deeply he harmed you, but you must believe he acts as he does on behalf of the city he loves.”

  “Arsalan.” Rukh murmured his name again, a note of entreaty in his voice. That Arsalan would still defend him … But Arsalan had nothing more to say.

  Arian fought back a blush. She had never spoken of these matters with a man. She had seen the Talisman execute men who sought their pleasure in each other, but she had known their conduct for hypocrisy: there was nothing they had outlawed for themselves.