Of Sand and Malice Made

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “What makes you think Rümayesh has anything to do with this?”

  Djaga’s face was staring out at the sand, her eyes distant, but now she pulled her gaze away and stared down at Çeda. “Because she uses irindai, Çedamihn.”

  Someone, somewhere danced a dance right over Çeda’s grave. She was just about to ask, How can you know?, when Djaga went on.

  “Years ago there was a woman in the pits, a dirt dog who taught me as I teach you now. Her name was Izel, and one day she disappeared. For weeks we searched for her. She was found at the bottom of a dry well two months later, still alive, the crushed body of a cressetwing stuffed inside her mouth. We nursed her back to health, but she was never the same. Her mind was gone. She remembered nothing—not why or where she’d been taken, nor who had taken her. She couldn’t even remember who she was, not much of it, anyway. It had all been taken from her. She did whisper a name, though, over and over.”

  “Rümayesh.”

  “Just so, girl. She took her own life two months later”—Djaga drew her thumb across her neck—“a crimson smile, drawn with her favorite sword.” She looked Çeda up and down as if she were in danger even here in the desert. “You say he’s left you alone, this Kadir?”

  “As near as I can tell.”

  “Then make no mistake, the gods of the desert shine upon you!” Djaga took the gourd cup from Çeda and set it onto the keg. In unspoken agreement, they strode away from the skiff and began loosening their limbs. “Watch yourself in the days ahead, and when we return to Sharakhai, go to Bakhi’s temple. Give him a kind word and show him a bit of silver, or gold if you can manage, lest he take it all back.”

  Çeda had no intention of doing so—she didn’t believe in filling the coffers of the temples any more than she believed in giving the Kings of Sharakhai their due respect—but she nodded just the same.

  “Now come!” Djaga brought her blade quickly down across Çeda’s defenses, a swing Çeda beat aside easily. “You’ve a bout in two weeks.” She swung again, and again Çeda blocked it, backing up this time. “People know we spar with one another, girl.” A third strike came, a thing Djaga put her entire body into, but Çeda skipped back, avoiding the blow. “I’ll not have it said the White Wolf is some poor imitation of the Lion of Kundhun!”

  Çeda retreated and bowed, arms and shinai swept back while her eyes were fixed on Djaga. “Very well,” she said, and leapt in for more. For a short while, there in the desert, her troubles were lost in the spindrift and the fury of their blows.

  The days passed quickly after that.

  Çeda saw the boy again—several times, in fact, and now she was certain it was him. Once, she’d nearly trapped him in the Well, the quarter of the city that held Osman’s pits. She’d chased after him, yelling for him to stop, her hand nearly upon him, but when she’d turned the corner, she found the alley ahead empty. At a whistle, she’d craned her head back and found him three stories up, staring down at her with a wide, jackal smile. And then he was gone, leaving a knot inside her she couldn’t untie, a knot composed of anger and impotence and foolishness.

  He must be a warlock, she decided—it ran thick in some areas of Kundhun—and now for some reason he was toying with her. She vowed to find him, but for the life of her she had no idea how she would manage it. Every time she tried to lie in wait, she ended up spending hours with nothing to show for it.

  Instead she lost herself in preparations for her upcoming bout—running in the mornings, sparring in the afternoons, lifting Djaga’s stone weights beneath the pier in the western harbor in the evenings. Osman had told her she’d have no shading work until after her day in the pits, a thing that bothered her at first, but given that there was nothing she could do about it she threw herself into her training with an abandon she hadn’t felt in months.

  Djaga noticed, and even allowed a grudging nod once or twice for how focused Çeda’s technique had become. “Good, girl. Good. Now keep your rage bottled up. Release it in the pits, not before. It’s not so hard as you might think.”

  Çeda thought she understood, but as the day of her bout approached, she found herself becoming more and more anxious, not from any fear over her opponent—a Mirean swordmaster who’d had some small amount of success in the pits—but from the relentless feeling that she was being watched. Whether by some trick of the mind or the unseen workings of the boy, she felt on display, a prized akhala being paraded before auction. All across the city, men, but more often women, were spying her out. She was sure of it. And yet whenever she looked, they were doing completely innocent things, apparently oblivious to her presence.

  The experience so unnerved her that, despite her distaste over it, she took Djaga’s advice and went to Bakhi’s temple and dropped three golden coins into the alms basket at the foot of Bakhi’s altar. She thought to speak with the priestess, but the old, bent woman had stared down at Çeda’s kneeling form with such a sour expression that Çeda had immediately stood and left the temple.

  Soon, all the confidence she’d built while training with Djaga began to erode. “Enough,” Djaga said two days before the match. “We’ve practiced enough. Too much, in fact. There are times when you can overtrain, and I think I’ve done it with you, girl. Take this time before your match. Stay away from the pits, think of anything but fighting, and you’ll return a new woman.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you’ll be no worse off than you are now. You’re in your mind too much. Go to your Emre. Fuck him like you should have done long ago. Or take another to your bed. But for the love of the gods, let your sword lay untouched.”

  Near dusk that evening, as Çeda wended her way through the tents of the bazaars, waving to those who had remained throughout the dinner hours hoping to catch a final few patrons, she felt someone new watching her: a woman who Çeda could tell was thin and lithe but little more, for her head was hidden in a deep cowl, her hands within the long, flowing sleeves. Çeda had no idea who the woman might be, but she wasn’t about to lead her toward the home she shared with Emre.

  She kept her pace, moving along a narrow street that ran down toward the slums of the Shallows. When she came to the next corner and turned, she ducked into an elaborate stone archway: the entrance to a boneyard that looked as though it had stood longer than Sharakhai itself.

  She glanced over the yard for the telltale glow of wights or wailers—one didn’t treat boneyards lightly in the desert—then peered out through the arch from behind a stone pillar marking one of the graves. She saw the form soon enough, a shadow in the deeper darkness. The woman slowed, perhaps realizing she’d lost her quarry. She pulled her cowl off her head and turned this way, then that, then continued down the street.

  It was too dark to see her clearly from this distance, but Çeda knew it was Ashwandi, the woman who’d taken her to speak with Kadir, who’d led her out of the estate when they were done. What by Tulathan’s bright eyes would she be doing chasing Çeda through the streets? And why was she doing it so clumsily?

  Çeda drew the knife from her belt and followed, padding carefully in time with Ashwandi’s footsteps but with broader strides, until she was right behind her. Ashwandi turned, eyes wide as she raised her hands to fend Çeda off, but she was too late. In a blink Çeda had slipped her arm around Ashwandi’s neck and pressed the tip of her knife into her back—not enough to draw blood, but certainly enough to make Ashwandi intimately familiar with just how sharp Çeda’s blades were kept.

  “You might get away with such things east of the Trough,” Çeda whispered, “but not here.” She pressed the knife deeper, enough to pierce skin, drawing a gasp from Ashwandi. “Here, women like you are as likely to end up on the banks of the Haddah staring sightless into a star-filled sky as they are to make it home again.”

  “I’m not the one you should be worried about,” she rasped.

  “No?” Çeda asked, easing her
hold on Ashwandi’s throat. “Who, then? Your mistress, Rümayesh?”

  “I am no servant of Rümayesh! I am her love, and she is mine.” Her Kundhunese accent was noticeable, but more like a fine bottle of citrus wine than the harsh, home-brewed araq of Djaga’s accent.

  “She’s after me, isn’t she? That’s why I’m being followed.”

  “You begin to understand, yes? But I tell you, you have no idea the sort of trouble you’re in.”

  Çeda shoved her away. It was then that Çeda realized that a bandage was wrapped tightly around Ashwandi’s left hand. With a pace that spoke of self-consciousness, or even embarrassment, she used her good hand to tug her sleeve back over the bandage, then pulled her cowl back into place. Only when her face was hidden within its depths did she speak once more. “Do you know who Rümayesh is? She has seen you, girl. She is intrigued . . . Nothing will draw her attention away now, not until she tires of you.”

  Çeda felt suddenly exposed and foolish, a fly caught in a very intricate web. “What would she want of me?”

  “You’re a tasty little treat, I’ll give you that. She’s taken by this girl who shades at night but fights in the pits by light of day.” Even in the dying light, Çeda was sure Ashwandi caught her surprised expression. “Yes, she knows of your other pursuits with Osman, and now she’s taken by the pretty thing that came to her estate, by the White Wolf who sank her fangs into the Malasani brute.”

  This implied much . . . That Rümayesh likely knew of Çeda’s time with Djaga, her training for her coming bout, her time in the pits, perhaps. Çeda didn’t merely feel off-balance; she felt like the world had been tipped upside down, and now the city was crashing down around her. “I came to Kadir to speak of a package. That was all.”

  “You’ve been set up, child, as have I.”

  Brandishing her knife, Çeda closed the distance between them with one long stride. “Make some bloody sense before I rethink how very nice I’ve been treating you.”

  “Kadir told you of my sister, Kesaea. For years she held the favored position at Rümayesh’s side, longer than any other, if the stories I’ve heard are true. But Rümayesh grew tired of her, as I knew she would, and I stepped into her place.” Ashwandi shrugged. “Kesaea was angry. With Rümayesh, with me. But after a week of her typical petulance, she returned home to Kundhun, and I hoped that would be the end of it.”

  “But it wasn’t, was it? She sent the boy.”

  “Boys. There are two of them. Twins. And she didn’t send them. She summoned them. Our mother has the blood of witches running through her veins, and Kesaea inherited much of it. Their names are Hidi and Makuo. Hidi is the angry one. He has a scar running down his cheek, a remnant of the one and only time he disobeyed his father, the trickster god, Onondu, our god of vengeance in the savannah lands.”

  By the desert’s endless sand, twins . . . And born of a trickster god. It explained, perhaps, why she’d been unable to do any more than see them from the corner of her eye. They’d been toying with her all along. “But why?” Çeda asked. “What would those boys want with me?”

  Ashwandi looked at her as if she were daft. “Don’t you see? They were sent by my sister to harm me. They’ve been sent to find a way for me to fall from grace, and in you, they’ve found it, for if Rümayesh becomes entranced with you . . .”

  “She’ll what, forget about you?”

  Ashwandi shrugged. “It is her way. There isn’t room in her life for more than one obsession.”

  “You wish to be that? An obsession?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like . . . It’s wondrous when she turns her gaze upon you, if you don’t fight it, that is. To be without it . . .”

  Çeda’s head was swimming. “Tell Rümayesh what your sister has done! Surely she’ll see that she’s being manipulated.”

  “I have.” Ashwandi turned, as if worried someone was watching. “But it isn’t Rümayesh who’s being manipulated. It’s us. All of us. You, me, Kesaea, even Onondu, which surely pleases her to no end. Don’t you see, girl? Rümayesh enjoys this, seeing us squabble and fight.”

  “She acts like a god herself.”

  Even from within the cowl, Çeda could see Ashwandi’s eyes growing intense, and when she spoke once more, her words were very, very soft. “You aren’t far from the mark, but there’s something you might do.”

  “Out with it, then.”

  “The boys, Hidi and Makuo. I know how to bind them.”

  “And how might you do that?”

  Ashwandi reached into her robes. “I’ve already done it.” She held out a small fabric pouch for Çeda to take. “Search for them. And when you are near, use this to send them home.”

  Çeda stared down at the pouch. “What is it?”

  Her only response was to take Çeda’s hand in hers—the bandaged one—and forcibly press it into Çeda’s palm.

  Staring at the bloody bandages around her left hand, Çeda had a guess as to what was inside. “Why don’t you do it?”

  “Because they’re not here for me. They’re here for Rümayesh, and now you, and they will avoid me when they can, for the blood of my mother runs through my veins as well.” She nodded toward the pouch. “Onondu will listen to this, and so will Hidi and Makuo.”

  Çeda had heard how cruel the gods of the savannah were. They demanded much for their favors. Blood. Fingers. Limbs. Sometimes the lives of loved ones. How desperate Ashwandi must be to do such a thing simply to remain by Rümayesh’s side.

  No, Çeda realized. This was no fault of Ashwandi, nor even Kesaea, but rather the one they both longed for. How strong the lure of Rümayesh to make them both do this, for surely Kesaea had made a similar bloody sacrifice on her return to Kundhun.

  Rümayesh had cast a spell that had utterly bewitched them both, these princesses of Kundhun.

  Çeda stuffed the pouch, heavy as a lodestone, into the larger leather bag on her belt. “What do I do?”

  “Wear it in their presence. They will listen to you, and they will grant you one favor.”

  “A favor? What am I to do with that? Can I ask them to simply leave?”

  “Perhaps, but that would be unwise. They must be turned to Rümayesh now, to make her forget about you. I fear that is the only way for you to survive this.”

  “And for you to return to her good graces . . .”

  Ashwandi shrugged. “We want what we want, and I’ve given up much for that to happen.” She began stepping away, her eyes still on Çeda. “The twins are drawn to water. You’ll find them along the Haddah, often at dusk or dawn.”

  And then she turned and was gone, swallowed by the growing darkness over Sharakhai.

  With the eastern sky a burnished bronze and the stars still shining in the west, Çeda pulled the black veil across her face and crept along the edge of the Haddah, watching carefully for signs of movement along the riverbank. She had arrived hours ago, hoping to catch the godling twins either in the night or as the sun rose. She still hadn’t found them, and soon the city would be waking from its slumber. She didn’t wish to be skulking along the river when it did, but the desire to find them was palpable as a canker, and every bit as maddening.

  The talk with Ashwandi had so shaken Çeda she hadn’t gone home last night, preferring to sleep in a hammock at the rear of Ibrahim the storyteller’s tiny mudbrick home. She’d unwrapped the rolled bandage and found Ashwandi’s severed finger resting there with a leather cord running through it like some depraved version of thread and needle. She’d held it up to the starry sky, looked at it beneath the light of the moons, Rhia and Tulathan, wondering if she would feel the magic bound to it, or through it that of the twin boys. She’d felt nothing, though, and after a time she’d slipped the cord over her neck and worn the finger like a talisman, which was surely what Ashwandi had meant for her to do.

  It rested between her breasts, a
thing she was all too conscious of, especially when she walked. It tickled her skin like the unwelcome touch of a man, and she longed to be rid of it, but she couldn’t, she knew. Not until this was all over.

  She parted the reeds and padded farther down the Haddah. She passed beneath a stone bridge, looking carefully along its underside, which was more than large enough for the boys to hide in, but when she found nothing she moved on, heading deeper into the city.

  Above her, beyond the banks, a donkey brayed. A woman shouted at it, and the sounds of a millstone came alive, dwindling and then replaced by burble of the river and the rattle of stones as Çeda trekked onward. The sky brightened further. Carts clattered over bridges. Laborers trudged along, their lunches bundled in cloth. A boy and a girl, both with wild, kinky hair, headed down to the banks of the Haddah with nets in hand. She even saw one of the rare Qaimiri trading ships rowing toward a pier, her lateen sails up, catching a favorable wind.

  But of the twins she saw no sign.

  She was just about ready to give up when she saw movement near an old acacia. Half the branches were dead, and the thing looked as though it were about to tip over and fall in the water at any moment. But in the branches still choked with leaves she could see two legs hanging down, swinging back and forth. The skin was the same dark color she remembered, and when she looked harder, she saw movement in the branches above—the second twin, surely, sitting higher than the first.

  She took to the damp earth along the edge of the bank to silence her footsteps, then pulled her kenshar from its sheath at her belt, whispering a prayer to fickle Bakhi as she did so. Reaching past her mother’s silver chain and locket, she slipped Ashwandi’s severed finger from around her neck, whipping the leather cord around her hand with one quick snap of her wrist.