Of Sand and Malice Made

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “There,” Emre said, pointing.

  “Bless your sharp eyes,” Çeda whispered.

  The ifin was little more than a dark stain against the mudbrick of a three-story building farther up the lane. When Çeda and Emre neared, it launched itself into the sky, which was slowly brightening with the coming dawn. The strange beast circled three times, then flapped down the next street, its body wriggling like a sidewinding snake.

  “You shit!” Çeda shouted. “You bloody fucking shit! We’ve been that way three times already!”

  “Quiet!” Emre hissed. Then more calmly, “Adzin said it might do that.”

  “He also said the ifin would find Kadir by dawn if he could be found.”

  They’d been at this for hours, and Çeda was ready to collapse from fatigue. A dozen times already she’d walked into walls or scraped her arms or legs because she could no longer see straight. Everything kept going wavy on her, and sometimes she’d wake up paces from where she last remembered being, or on an entirely new street, not even realizing she’d fallen asleep.

  “Nalamae’s teats, Emre, I’m walking in my sleep.”

  “What?” Emre asked.

  “Never mind.” She stopped and put her hands on her knees, trying her best to wake up. “Maybe Adzin grabbed the wrong ifin.”

  “Only one answered the call. Come on.” He took her arm, supporting her as he led her down the street where the ifin had flown. “One way or the other, it’ll be over soon.”

  They followed the ifin and found it atop a bronze statue of one of Sharakhai’s Kings—she couldn’t remember which. The statue stood in a dry fountain, shamshir raised high, the ifin circling the King’s turban as if it were about to nest. Or take a shit, Çeda thought. Its twin pair of wings flapped slowly, its head swinging this way and that, smelling or tasting, or in some other way sensing its quarry.

  “What if he’s gone, Emre?” The very thought made her want to fall to her knees and weep. “What if he’s dead?”

  “The ifin wouldn’t follow a trail that led to a dead man.”

  “After those ridiculous questions Adzin was asking? I don’t know.” Any confidence she might have had while speaking with Adzin on the ship had long since vanished, replaced with a growing certainty that they’d been sent on a fool’s errand, or worse, swindled out of a year’s worth of pay.

  She looked back up to the winged demon, wondering if it was actually sensing anything. Fucking thing was probably laughing at how much money it had helped its master to steal from them.

  “It might not matter what the damned ifin does,” she said weakly.

  “Why?”

  Çeda swung her head toward Emre. “What?”

  “You just said it might not matter.”

  “Oh.” She pinched her eyes tight and licked her lips. “It’s just . . . I’m going to collapse, Emre. I can hardly keep one foot plodding in front of the other. I can’t take another night of those dreams.”

  But Emre was no longer looking at her. He was staring at the statue. The flutter of the ifin’s wings filled the cold morning air as it took flight. “Why don’t you let me chase it? Go home, and I’ll return when it’s done.”

  She shook her head. “Can’t, Emre. What if it’s using me to find Kadir?”

  In the predawn light, she couldn’t see Emre’s face well, but she could tell he was frowning. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  She pulled herself up and took as deep a breath as she could manage. “Let’s go. I’ll last for a while yet.”

  They chased the ifin down another street, waited while it rested on a lamppost outside a tavern, then down a gap between two buildings so narrow the two of them had to sidestep through it, and along a paved walkway that hugged the dry southern bank of the Haddah.

  When the ifin flew across the riverbed, however, a chill ran down her frame. The creature had been mercurial before, like a butterfly flitting here then there, but now it was flying straight, with purpose, it seemed to Çeda, and it was heading in a direction that Çeda thought would be one of the last places Kadir might be found. Why, though? Why would he have returned to that place?

  Settle yourself, Çeda. You don’t yet know if that’s where he’s gone.

  They continued to a wide, well-kept road, the terminus of a winding street that ran between several of the city’s smaller estates. If the Kings of Sharakhai could be said to draw wealth and power like roots drew water at the base of some grand tree, these families were the stout branches that benefited from it. Kadir had rubbed elbows with these people for his mistress, so the fact that the ifin was headed to the richest quarter of Sharakhai aside from the House of Kings itself wasn’t surprising. What was surprising, though, was the fact that it appeared to be headed for the very same estate where Rümayesh had performed her strange ritual on Çeda. Indeed, in little time, the ifin flew over the wall Çeda had scaled to escape.

  “This is it,” Çeda whispered, stopping at the iron gates and pointing to the estate house. The ifin sat upon a low hill like a sleeping jackal.

  “Where she took you?”

  “Yes.” Çeda peered over the grounds. The small guardhouse on the inside of the gate appeared to be unmanned. She searched for the ifin, but couldn’t see it in the darkness.

  “Kadir came back then,” Emre said.

  “Yes,” Çeda said. “The only question is why.” She spotted the ifin circling in the sky. Far to the right, beyond a low stone wall, lay the mausoleums, the boneyard of the rich. “Come.”

  She climbed the gate and dropped inside, only then seeing the form lying near the gatehouse. She approached and found a guard wearing light mail lying there, alive but unconscious. She and Emre shared a look. The sun would rise soon, and the gods only knew when the guard might awaken. They made their way quickly toward the peaked roofs, and soon they were weaving between the mausoleums, looking up to the ifin to find the one it had sensed for them.

  Soon it became obvious. Ahead, the door to the mausoleum from which Çeda had escaped was cracked open. The moment she touched the door, the ifin released a short, piercing, skin-tingling cry and flew westward. It was soon lost beyond the stone roofs of the mausoleums. Çeda glanced at Emre, then stepped inside. Ahead was a hallway leading to the dark, open maws of a dozen crypts, while to her left was the set of stairs that led down to the room where Rümayesh’s ritual had been performed. Soft, golden light rose from it like the coming of dawn.

  Her heart beat heavy in her chest. For once, the exhaustion that had lain across her shoulders like a leaden mantle was gone—supplanted by fear.

  They took the stairs down. Çeda drew her kenshar, gripped it tightly in one hand. Emre did the same, his eyes bright moons in the ghastly light. They reached the level below, where a room opened up before them, most of it lost in darkness. At the far side was a lone doorway, and through it Çeda could see a man leaning over an open sarcophagus, the very one that had hidden Rümayesh from the world as she wore the skin of the beautiful matron of this estate. Of the moths, thankfully, there was no sign. The very thought of them brought the memories of that harrowing night to Çeda’s mind. She pushed them away and focused on the room ahead.

  The man, of course, was Kadir. By the light of the lantern that lay on the sarcophagus lid, his lissome form was reaching inside, one arm making sawing motions.

  Rümayesh couldn’t still be here. The boys had her. Somewhere. Certainly not here. So what in the great, wide desert was Kadir doing?

  Çeda strode forward. The floors and walls of the crypt were blackened—by blood, by fire, by the burnt remains of the irindai moths. Kadir jumped when she entered the light, then turned to meet her approach with a long, gleaming kenshar in his left hand. As he took her in, his eyes softened. He lowered his knife, but sent wary glances toward Emre when he stood beside her.

  Çeda stepped closer to the sarcophagus. Inside
was a woman’s form, swathed in white gauze. Vials of amber and myrrh and vetiver were gripped in the woman’s hands. Dried river flowers were sprinkled over her form. The cloth around her left foot, however, had been cut by Kadir, exposing her foot and ankle.

  “What are you doing?” Çeda said, her words sharp and brittle in this hard, confined space.

  Kadir stared as if trying to weigh her, to know her mind as Rümayesh might have done, though whether he had some similar ability, and if so, had succeeded or not, Çeda couldn’t tell. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Rümayesh sent me.”

  Kadir shivered. “She what?”

  “She sent me here.” She told him of the dreams she’d been having. She told him of the cold room, the strange ridge with the dead trees. She told him how Rümayesh had called out his name when Hidi had begun torturing her. “She wanted me to find you. The only question is why.”

  Kadir looked around the room, calculating. When he met Çeda’s eyes again, he seemed to have come to some decision. “She needs you to find her.”

  Çeda shook her head. “She needs you. That’s why she sent me to find you.”

  Kadir waggled his head, granting her the point, but only grudgingly. “She needs us both.” Before Çeda could protest, he raised one hand, then pointed to the interior of the sarcophagus with the tip of the knife. “Come look.”

  He took the lamp and lifted the woman’s foot so that the light shone brightly against the exposed skin. A tattoo was imprinted upon the sole: In the room of golden reflections, beneath a heart of stone.

  “It’s the location of her sigil stone,” Kadir said.

  Her sigil stone. The place where her name, her true name, was imprinted. “It’s what the boys are after,” Çeda whispered.

  Kadir nodded.

  “But how . . . Why is it here,” Çeda motioned to the tattoo, “on the sole of some woman’s foot?”

  Kadir held the lantern still, staring into Çeda’s eyes, waiting for her to stitch the clues together.

  “It’s a message,” Emre said, stepping more fully into the light.

  “She walked this form,” Çeda said, the pieces falling into place. “It’s a message to you, if her form dies.”

  Kadir nodded. “You’ll recall Rümayesh left this place under . . . unusual circumstances. Because of your actions, the woman did not in fact die when Rümayesh left her form.”

  “She’s dead now,” Çeda said plainly.

  Kadir slipped the knife into the sheath at his belt and seemed to choose his next words with care. “Her soul took a bit of convincing before it agreed to depart these shores.”

  Gods, Kadir killed her, or at the very least arranged for her to be killed, all so that he could come here and find this secret: the location of Rümayesh’s sigil stone. Could he not have simply drugged her? She looked to Kadir and considered the question, and came to the conclusion that he had been chosen as much for his ruthlessness as for his attentive care of his mistress. With Rümayesh taken, he likely wanted no additional complications.

  Kadir set the lantern down and began heaving the sarcophagus’s lid back into place. It set home with a boom. “Do you know how to ride a horse?”

  “Poorly,” Çeda replied. “Why? Where are we going?”

  “We can talk freely in the desert. I have a horse that is well trained. He’ll offer you no trouble.”

  It was clear he meant for Çeda to join him alone.

  “I’m coming as well,” Emre said as Kadir took up the lantern and headed for the stairs. “I’m coming as well!” He repeated to Kadir’s retreating form. He made to follow, but Çeda blocked his path.

  “Let me ride with him, Emre.”

  “I’ll not leave you.”

  Çeda knew the information she wanted from Kadir would be difficult for him to share, which meant she needed him as pliant as possible, so, while she hated to do it, she took Emre’s hand and held it tenderly. “We’re going to talk and he’s going to help. That’s all.”

  “Then let him do it while I ride with you. I can ride farther back if he’s worried about me hearing.”

  “He doesn’t trust you, but he knows I’m wrapped up in this as deeply as he is.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “You’ve done me a great service in bringing me this far. Now return home so I can finish what we’ve started. I’ll return as soon as I’m able.”

  Emre wasn’t happy about it, but he finally agreed. He squeezed her hand, and together they headed toward the stairwell, which dimmed like the sunset as Kadir treaded higher.

  Leagues east of Sharakhai, Kadir rode on a horse with a golden coat, an akhala, a rare breed widely considered the finest in the desert. Çeda bounced along behind him on a silver mare with a mane of copper, one of the most beautiful horses she’d ever seen, which made it all the more galling that it refused to bow to her will. A horse this beautiful ought to have better manners, and despite Kadir’s assurances that the horse was sweet-tempered, the beast was constantly pulling at the bridle, turning left when it pleased when it was clear to god and man alike that Çeda was asking it to follow alongside Kadir’s horse.

  As they rode deeper into the desert, Kadir told her of his flight from the estate after Rümayesh had been taken by Hidi and Makuo. He’d stolen into the tomb several days later, finding it both empty and clean—as if by doing so the matron could wipe away her memories of the bloodshed. He’d searched for Rümayesh across the city, hoping to find her in one of the places they’d called home these past many years.

  “Were you young when you joined her?” Çeda asked.

  Kadir reined his horse up and motioned for Çeda to do the same. He urged his horse into a walk, guiding it along the trail behind them. Reaching into one of the saddle bags, he scooped a handful of salt and sprinkled it over the tracks of their horses, a thing he’d done twice already on their ride out from Sharakhai. When he returned to her side, his golden akhala shaking its reins momentarily, he said, “Yes, I was young. What of it?”

  “It’s only . . . I’m surprised she would place her life in your hands. In anyone’s hands.”

  Kadir merely shrugged. “We share a mutual trust in one another.”

  Ahead, Çeda could see a swath of land that looked strangely shadowed, as if dark clouds hung over it. The sky, though, was blue as blue could be. As they rode closer, Çeda understood. The shadows were actually the trunks of long-dead trees, hundreds, thousands of them.

  As they neared the border of the strange forest, the ground became dusty and dry. The air smelled acrid, like a smithy’s forge. No boughs graced the petrified remains of the trees. No branches. Only the trunks remained, standing like the spears of long-dead soldiers, the men who once wielded them gripping the hafts from within their earthen graves. More than this, though, the place felt cursed, as if it once had been a place gifted with rain and rich soil, a respite from the harshness of the Great Shangazi, but one day the desert had tired of it and come to reclaim it.

  The two of them rode into the dead forest. Çeda’s skin went immediately cold. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  He scooped another handful of salt, rode behind, and sprinkled it along their path. “Not much farther now.”

  He hadn’t answered the question, but she was too tired to argue. She already knew this was the place from her dreams, the place Rümayesh was being kept, and for now that was enough.

  Kadir led them a quarter-league farther, then reined his horse short. He slipped from the saddle with practiced ease and tied the reins around one of the thinner trunks. Çeda lumbered down from her saddle and did the same, after which Kadir led them east. As they walked, the only sound was that of the rocky soil crunching beneath their boots; nothing else, not even the sigh of the wind, broke the oppressive stillness, and it was making her feel as though everything in the desert for leagues around could hear them.

  “C
ome,” Çeda said, if only to break the unnatural silence. “I don’t enjoy games. Tell me why we’ve come.”

  “You know already that the godlings are looking for Rümayesh’s sigil stone, the piece of obsidian upon which Rümayesh’s name was written.”

  “Because they wish to control her.”

  Kadir nodded, granting her the point. “I was worried they’d been sent to kill her, but after you told me she was alive, and that they were torturing her, I think it likely they plan to take her to their father, Onondu. With her true name they could make her a slave to the God of the Endless Hills, a thing he would no doubt enjoy immensely.”

  Rümayesh, in a way, had tried to enslave Çeda. She’d been trying to take Çeda’s memories from her and hand them out like bites of some rich dessert. It was an unforgivable thing, and yet Çeda had to admit there was a part of her that cringed at the thought of allowing Hidi and Makuo to do the same to Rümayesh. There might be slave blocks in Sharakhai—a concession to the trade that occurred there between the border kingdoms—but the desert itself had none; it was a thing too barbaric even for the cruel Kings of Sharakhai to allow. And, she had to admit, she owed the twins a strange sort of debt. She might have been a plaything in their schemes, but they’d also shown her the path to escaping that crypt with her mind and soul intact.

  Through the dead columns of trees, Çeda could see they were coming to some sort of drop-off or cliff. Before they reached it, Kadir dropped salt on their trail one more time and motioned Çeda to lay flat on the ground. She did, and together the two of them slithered over the rocky ground to the edge. A valley opened up below them. It was neither wide nor deep, and was largely filled with scrub trees and wiry stands of grass and stone the same red color as the ground upon which they lay. But in the valley’s center was a keep with a tall tower.

  “She is there,” Çeda said.

  Kadir nodded. “Your dreams confirmed it for me. But that isn’t all. The stone lies within that place.”