Of Sand and Malice Made

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  She had planned to chew it immediately, to devour it, but the moment the moth’s delicate wings touched her tongue, a euphoric rush welled up from somewhere deep inside. It brought with it an endless flow of thoughts and memories, their combined fabric flickering like the surface of a sun-dappled river.

  Her mother raising her wooden shinai in the air, waiting for Çeda to do the same.

  Running through the dusty streets of Sharakhai with Emre, each with a mound of stolen pistachios cradled in their arms, shells dripping like rain as they sprint along.

  Peeking through the parted blankets of a stall in the spice market late at night as Havasham, the handsome son of Athel the carpetmonger, thrusts himself over and over between the legs of Lina, a girl three years Çeda’s elder who is not beautiful but has a way of talking with the boys with that sharp tongue of hers that makes them want her.

  Çeda felt her consciousness attempt to expand, to encompass all of who she was, all she’d experienced. She wondered, even as her own awareness threatened to consume her, whether everyone experienced this same thing or if it was to do with the petals. She could feel it now—the verve the petals granted her, the strength, the awareness.

  Through the irindai she could feel others’ minds as well: those closest, their eagerness to feel more from Çeda; those beyond, who had done this many times before but because of that hungered to experience it again; and Rümayesh, who was someone different altogether.

  Where Rümayesh stood, there were two, not one.

  Two minds, sharing the same body. One, a lady of Sharakhai, highborn, a woman who’d lived in her estate in Goldenhill her entire life.

  And the other—

  A chill rushed down Çeda’s frame as more memories tumbled past.

  Cutting her first purse, the exhilaration as she ran down the Trough, the lanky man chasing after her.

  Swimming naked in the Haddah in spring with Emre and Tariq and Hamid, feeling the small fishes nip at her ankles and toes.

  She drew herself in, ignoring the rush of her life, focusing instead on the second soul inside the woman who stood before her. It was something Çeda had never seen or experienced before. How could she have? Its mind was deep, foreign, and by the gods old—not in the way Ibrahim the storyteller was old, nor even in the way the Kings of Sharakhai, who’d seen the passage of four centuries, were old, but in the way the city was old. In the way the desert was old.

  This was no human, but some creature of the desert, some vestige of the desert’s making, or one of the ehrekh that haunted the forgotten corners of the Great Shangazi.

  Çeda knew immediately that few others had ever felt this being’s presence, for it now awoke from a slumber of sorts. It grew fearful, if only for the span of a heartbeat, and in the wake of that realization, Rümayesh—or the woman Çeda had thought was Rümayesh—strode forward and placed her hand around Çeda’s neck, gripping it tightly enough to limit Çeda’s breath. She leaned down and stared into Çeda’s eyes, imposing her will, sifting through Çeda’s memories.

  Çeda couldn’t allow this.

  She couldn’t allow Rümayesh to have her way, for if she did, she would be forever lost.

  This was the gift of the adichara petals that Hidi and Makuo had granted her—the ability to remain above the effects of the irindai, at least to some small degree.

  But what to do about Rümayesh?

  As more memories were examined, then tossed aside like uncut jewels, Çeda thought desperately for something that might divide these two, something that might give the highborn woman a reason to throw off the chains Rümayesh had placed on her.

  She found it moments later. A memory flashed past—of stepping into the blooming fields to cut one of the adichara flowers. It was discarded immediately by Rümayesh, but the woman huddling beneath that greater consciousness, a highborn woman of Sharakhai, flared in anger and indignation. Rümayesh tried to settle on Çeda’s first fight in the pits, but Çeda drew her mind back to the twisted trees that grew in a vast ring outside the city’s limits. Had Çeda not had the effects of the adichara running through her, she would surely have succumbed to the onslaught Rümayesh threw against her defenses. But with the petals she was able to focus on that memory, to share it with all those gathered within the cellar.

  Çeda pads along the sand as the twin moons shine brightly above. The adichara’s thorned branches sway, limned in moonlight. They click and clack and creak, a symphony of movement in the otherwise-still air. Çeda looks among the blooms, which glow softly in the moonlight, a river of stars over an endless sea. She chooses not the widest, nor the brightest, but the bloom that seems to be facing the moons unshrinkingly, then cuts it with a swift stroke of her kenshar, tucking away the cutting in a pouch at her belt.

  Çeda had expected anger from the woman Rümayesh controlled. What she hadn’t expected was anger from the others gathered here. She should have, though. They would have the blood of Kings running through their veins; they would know every bit as well as Çeda the sort of crime they were witnessing. A woman stealing into the blooming fields to take of the adichara insulted not only the Kings but all who revered the twisted trees.

  They began to mumble and murmur, more and more of their number waking from the dream they shared. At first they stepped forward like boneyard shamblers, but with every moment that passed they seemed to come more alive.

  Behind them, the highborn woman Rümayesh controlled railed against her bonds. She was more angry, more aware of herself, than she’d been in years, and she was buoyed by the anger of those around her. Rümayesh’s will was still strong, however. She held against the assault, the two of them at a stalemate. Soon, though, the woman’s anger began to ebb. Before long, Rümayesh would regain the control she’d had over this woman.

  Çeda had lost track of those around her. She realized with a start that one of the men was holding a kenshar. A woman on Çeda’s opposite side drew a slim knife of her own. A remnant of Çeda’s earlier lethargy still remained, but fear now drove her. She rolled backward, coming to a crouch, waiting for any to approach.

  A moment later the man did, the woman right after, but they both gave clumsy swipes of their blades. Çeda leapt over the man, snaking her arm around his neck as she went. She landed and levered him so that he tipped backward, then controlled him, moving him slowly toward the door.

  He tried to use his knife to strike at her arm, but she was ready. She released his neck at the last moment and snatched the wrist holding the knife with one hand, closed her other hand around his fist, the one wrapped around the weapon. Then she drew his own knife toward his neck. He was so surprised he hardly fought her, and by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. The knife slipped into his throat like a needle through ripe summer fruit. For a moment, everyone stared at the blood coursing down over Çeda’s hands and arms. No one moved. Their eyes began to roll up in their heads. They were not only witnessing his death, Çeda realized; they felt it through their shared bond.

  As the man’s heart slowed and finally stopped, the irindai burst from the walls and from the ceiling. The air became thick with them, fluttering, touching skin, making eyes bat, becoming caught in hair.

  Çeda’s mind burned in the thoughts and emotions of all those gathered. They were of one mind, now, sharing what they’d known, what they hoped to be, what they feared in the deepest recesses of their minds. It was too much, a flood that consumed them all, one by one.

  Çeda screamed, a single note added to the cacophony of screams filling this small space, then fell beneath the weight of their collected dreams.

  Çeda opened her eyes, finding a dark-skinned boy with bright blue eyes staring at her.

  “The sun shining bright, girl,” Makuo said. “Time you return to it. Let it see your face before it forget.”

  “What?” Çeda sat up slowly, her mind still lost in the land of drea
ms. She remembered who she was now—her name, her purpose here—but it seemed like an age and a day since she’d fallen to the weight of the minds around her.

  Across the floor of the cellar, bodies lay everywhere like leaves tossed by the wind. Layer upon layer of dead moths covered their forms. Hidi stood by a sarcophagus, staring into its depths. It was what Çeda had been lying upon, she realized. The lid had been removed and now lay cracked and broken to one side.

  Çeda stood and took one step toward the sarcophagus, but Makuo stopped her. “This isn’t for you,” the boy said.

  Within the sarcophagus, she saw the crown of a head, wiry black hair, two twisted horns sweeping back from the forehead.

  She thought of pressing Makuo. The two of them had won, she knew. They’d beaten Rümayesh with Çeda’s help, and until now they’d considered her their ally, but that could change at any moment.

  Steer you well wide of the will of the gods, old Ibrahim had always said after finishing one of his tragic stories. She’d heard dozens of those stories, and none of them ended happily. She’d always thought it a trick of Ibrahim’s storytelling, to end them so, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  “What of Ashwandi?” Çeda asked.

  Hidi looked up from whatever it was that had him transfixed, his scar puckering as he bared his teeth. “She free now. Her sister’s wish was always for Ashwandi to leave the ehrekh’s side, to return to the grasslands.”

  An ehrekh, then . . .

  Rümayesh was an ehrekh, a twisted yet powerful experiment of the god Goezhen. Few ehrekh remained in the desert, but those that did were powerful indeed.

  “Is she alive?”

  “Oh, yes,” the boys said in unison, their eyes full of glee, “she lives.”

  “What will you do with her?” Çeda asked, tilting her head toward the sarcophagus.

  At this they frowned. Hidi returned his gaze to Rümayesh’s sleeping form, while Makuo took Çeda by the shoulders and led her away. “The sun shining bright,” he said. “Time you return to it.”

  Çeda let herself be led from the cellar, but her tread was heavy. Rümayesh may have tricked Çeda, may have wanted to steal her memories, but something didn’t feel right about leaving her to these godling boys.

  Makuo led her up a set of winding stairs and at last to a metal door. Çeda paused, her hand resting above the handle.

  Steer you well wide of the will of the gods.

  There was wisdom in those words, she thought as she gripped the door’s warm handle. Surely there was wisdom. Then she opened the door and stepped into the sunlight.

  Part Two

  Born of a Trickster God

  AT THE EDGE OF SHARAKHAI’S GRAND BAZAAR, a crowd had gathered beneath the old fig tree. Çeda could hear the man she’d come to see, old Ibrahim the storyteller, but she couldn’t yet see him. The sheer density of the gathering wouldn’t allow it from her current vantage, so she skirted the crowd, standing tiptoes every so often and looking for an opening.

  As she walked, the desert wind toyed with the fig tree’s branches. The movement gave life to the sunlight, stippling the assemblage with pinpricks of light. Men, women, and children, burnooses and kaftans and abayas, brightened then darkened, making them seem to sway, first this way, then that. It was a riot of color and movement that became so dreamlike Çeda had to blink and look away until she’d recovered.

  Ibrahim was one of the city’s most popular storytellers, but even so this crowd was unusually large. Çeda had no idea why at first, but then she vaguely recalled Seyhan the spice merchant mentioning the caravans when she’d stopped by his stall the day before. More than a dozen of them—two hundred ships all told—were setting sail over the desert tomorrow. For many who’d come to Sharakhai, the siren call of the city was strong. They wanted one last chance to wander the stalls of the bazaar, to pick up a bag or two from the spice market, to hear a tale from the exotic city they’d so longed to visit. And so, even though it was the time of day when Ibrahim would normally have returned home to grab a bite to eat and have a short nap while the desert’s warmest hours sailed past, the storyteller had remained. Ibrahim, like most in Sharakhai, would suffer much for money.

  When she made it past the row of fruit sellers, a space opened up and she saw Ibrahim clearly at last. He was spreading his arms theatrically as he wove his tale, his baritone rasp waxing gaily about the goddess Nalamae and her travels across the Great Shangazi. His old, dusty blanket was spread on the ground, coins glinting on its surface like bright cities on a map of the Five Kingdoms. Again the play of light, this time on the coins, made her feel as though the ground beneath her was unsteady. She breathed deeply, pinching the inner corners of her eyes, though it did little to clear the burning itch of lost sleep.

  When she opened her eyes again, she tried to focus only on Ibrahim. He was just telling the crowd how Nalamae, after giving life to the River Haddah, had wandered the desert, creating oases that the twelve tribes could use in their ceaseless wanderings. He had his wide-brimmed hat off and was using it to fan himself, though when he came to a particularly dramatic moment he’d slip it back on his head and spread his arms in broad sweeps. Every so often, someone in the audience would toss a copper or a few six-pieces at the storyteller’s feet; one even dropped two sylval before walking away, those nearby shifting like soldiers to fill the gap.

  Ibrahim’s voice, the rapt audience, the bright sun, a tableau that likened itself to a dream. The occasional clink of coins would momentarily pull her from the trance, but then the dream would resume and whisper in her ear to lie at the foot of the tree and curl up in sleep.

  “Are you very well?” a low voice rumbled.

  Çeda nearly jumped from her skin. She turned and saw a man with dark skin, wearing a rich ivory tunic and toga, staring at her with a look of mild concern. The more she stared at him, saying nothing, the more his concern deepened.

  “You need something to drink, girl?”

  It was more statement than question, and perhaps she did, but before she could reply, a cup was being pressed into her hand. Rosewater lemonade, laced with peppercorn and nutmeg. She drank deeply from it, then reached into the purse at her belt for a copper khet to give the man, but he took her hand in both of his, keeping the coin where it lay in the palm of her hand.

  “Keep it and be well.”

  “Thank you.”

  The man was soon lost among the ceaselessly shifting traffic of the bazaar. Somehow by the time she’d finished the lemonade and returned her attention toward Ibrahim, the crowd was breaking up. Ibrahim himself had already collected his coins from the blanket and was walking away. She sprinted to catch up, blinking the sleep away, and fell into step alongside him.

  “There you are,” Ibrahim said as he took off his hat, ran a sleeve over his sweating brow, and replaced it. The brim bounced as they walked toward the Spear, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Sharakhai. “What’s happened to you?”

  “Nothing.” She drew in a sharp breath. “What do you mean?”

  “Are you having trouble with Emre? Is he treating you well?”

  “What? Of course he is!”

  “Well there’s something the matter. You look like my mule’s been treading on you for days, girl.”

  Çeda tried to keep herself from blinking, but she became so conscious of it she was forced to pinch the bridge of her nose and clamp her eyes shut for a bit of relief. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Do tell . . . The question is, why not?”

  “Are we trading, Ibrahim?”

  He considered her for a moment. “If there’s something you wish from me, then yes, I’ll trade for this.”

  She had meant it as a joke, but she could see that Ibrahim was serious. “I don’t know if I’m willing to trade it,” she said.

  She was used to Ibrahim’s affable nature, his easy laugh, so when he st
opped just short of the Spear and turned to face her with the most serious look she’d ever seen on him, she was caught off-guard. His kindly old eyes looked her up and down as the sounds of traffic passed along the Spear behind him. “I’ve never seen you like this, Çeda. You’re normally the bright star, but the girl I see before me is nothing more than a guttering candle.”

  A blade glowing red from the heat of a fire, the edge moving ever closer. Çeda blinked away the image. “As I said, I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Then tell me why. Ibrahim might be able to help.”

  “In all our dealings, Ibrahim, you have made me tell my stories first. This time, you’ll tell me what I wish to know, and then I’ll tell you something in return.”

  Ever the businessman was Ibrahim, so much so that she thought he might deny her request, but he didn’t. “Very well.” He resumed walking, guiding Çeda to the right when they reached the Spear and merged into the jostling traffic. “Ask me your questions.”

  “I wish to know of the ehrekh,” Çeda said softly so those around them would have difficulty overhearing.

  “What of them?”

  “Can they be imprisoned?”

  Ibrahim shrugged. “There are many stories of magi imprisoning ehrekh, though most close with a dramatic and unfortunate end for the ones who had the impressively bad idea to do so.”

  “How? How can they be imprisoned?”

  “Most tales tell of the magi learning their true names.”

  “But then what?” Çeda asked. “They are bound to your word if you but speak their name?”