Of Sand and Malice Made

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  In the desert, a league out from Sharakhai, Çeda stood next to a funeral skiff. Within the skiff was the form of a boy made with the sticks of an acacia, the holiest of trees in the desert. The form was shrouded in white, dried river flowers sprinkled over it. Vials of amber and myrrh and vetiver were gripped in the crudely formed hands.

  Her crude effigy to Brama felt silly now that she was here, out in the desert, ready to bid him farewell.

  But Brama was dead, or close enough that the distinction made no difference, and she refused to see him go unmourned. They might not have been friends. Brama might even have considered her his enemy for a time. But he deserved this much, a remembrance of the boy he had been.

  It had been a week since she’d fled the keep and returned to Sharakhai. The nightmares were gone. Not that her dreams had been kind to her. She dreamed of Brama often, and she would wake from time to time, sweating, wondering where he might be, where Rümayesh might be, using his form. Was she back in Sharakhai? Would she remain? Would she keep Brama’s form now that Çeda knew who she’d taken as her host?

  Çeda had no answers to these questions, and they troubled her greatly, but as the days had passed she found her old energy returning. She felt almost normal again.

  But that didn’t mean she’d forgotten about Brama. She hadn’t.

  Çeda hoisted the sail and gave the skiff a shove. As the wind took it and it sailed away, she grabbed a handful of sand and let it drop from her closed fist.

  “Bakhi grant you safe passage,” she said, “and Nalamae kiss your crown, that you may find happiness in your next life.”

  Çeda watched as the skiff’s tall sail dwindled in the distance, watched as it vanished beyond the horizon.

  Then she turned and headed back toward Sharakhai.

  Part Three

  Bright

  Eyes and a Wicked Demon Grin

  WEARING HER STEEL HELM, hidden by the mask of the goddess Nalamae, Çeda strode along the dark tunnel leading up to the pits. The white wolf pelt affixed to the helm flapped softly against her shoulders. Before any in the stands could see her, she halted, waiting for her name to be called. It was a day as hot as she could remember. Already, sweat trickled down her neck and along her spine.

  In the pit ahead, the lanky Pelam circled, his arms gesticulating grandly as his booming voice recounted the tale of Çeda’s time in the pits. In a strange turn of events, she was the one being introduced first. It had been well over a year since that had happened. When she was first learning her way around the pits, the crowds had known little of her. It had been natural for Pelam to introduce her early, holding the more renowned opponent, or the more intriguing, until last. But as Çeda had risen through the ranks of dirt dogs and won more and more matches, Pelam began calling her name last. Not today, though. Today the pit would be empty when the White Wolf’s name was called. And why not? She had to admit it created an intense mystery regarding the identity of her opponent. If the White Wolf had won so many bouts, then who was it that might outrank her?

  When they heard her name, many in the stands began to howl like a pack of wolves. That was when Çeda stepped out from the dark tunnel and into the pit. The boiled leather straps of her battle skirt slapped against her thighs as she raised her hand to the gathered crowd. Many howled louder, especially the young Sharakhani, boys and girls alike. Others moved with money in hand toward the two men calling odds for Çeda to win. Others still simply watched, first her, then Pelam, then the door to the pit’s underground tunnels, wondering who might emerge next from the darkness and into the intense sunlight.

  “This day, my friends,” Pelam called, striding around the pit like a peacock, head held high, one hand behind his back. “This day we have a special bout. One not seen for many years in these pits. The lords of our great city can often be found in the stands alongside you, spectators to the bouts fought within these walls, but rarely do they themselves step into the pits to bark and scrap with the dogs. Today, that all changes. We have one who comes from Goldenhill. He is young, but do not doubt his prowess! He is every bit the equal of the White Wolf.”

  Again the howls came. Others, the Sharakhani wearing the finest clothes, frowned, considering it brazen to support a fighter—even someone as popular as Çeda—when her opponent had just been revealed as a lord of the city.

  “Our young lord has been trained by the best sword arms in the city, virtuosos in their craft. The young man is a prodigy. Or so they tell me. Presently, we shall determine for ourselves”—he waved one hand toward the door being rolled open by two of the pit boys—“for here he comes. Our own Lord Blackthorn.”

  From the darkness stepped a man wearing fine leather bracers and greaves. His boiled leather armor was well oiled and gleamed beneath the sun; a falcon with spread wings was worked into the breastplate. Like Çeda, his helm had a mask that covered all but his eyes, only his mask had not the face of a god, but a demon with an expression of naked rage. All of it, his helm, his armor—gods, even his bronze skin—was immaculate. Çeda was sure he hadn’t fought a day in his life, not truly, yet here he was, standing in a pit after buying his way in.

  Early that very morning, she’d come to the pits, prepared to take on an entirely different opponent. She’d taken the stairs down to the cool lower level and sprinted to the small dressing room designated for her use. She’d slowed, hearing voices, but then Osman had called to her from within the room. “Come, Çeda.”

  She parted the beaded entrance and found Osman and Pelam sitting across from one another on a pair of wooden benches. They were quite the pair, these two. Osman, a man whose frame was every bit as toned as Çeda imagined it had been when he’d fought in the pits himself, and Pelam, the master of the game, a man who looked like Osman’s opposite, a man who’d break in half with one swift crack from a staff. Osman was by far the more imposing of the two, and yet it was Pelam who was the fixture in the pits, calling and judging matches, while Osman spent less time in the pits than he ever had, leaving more of the day-to-day management to others.

  Osman motioned to a nearby bench. “Sit.”

  “I’d rather stand,” Çeda said, wanting them to be gone so she could prepare for her match.

  “There’s been a change,” Pelam said with a pinched expression, as if he’d just bitten into something distasteful.

  “What change?” Çeda removed her niqab and set it on a nearby shelf. “I’m still to fight, aren’t I?”

  Osman shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  From the chest in the corner, Çeda wrestled with the canvas bag that held her armor. She frowned. “I need the money, Osman.”

  “Kydze turned up this morning with a broken ankle.”

  Çeda froze, her hands on the neck of the bag. Kydze was one of the best fighters to come out of Kundhun since Çeda’s own mentor, Djaga. Rumor even had it she was a distant relative of Djaga. It was a claim Djaga assiduously denied, but in the way of these things her denials only seemed to make everyone wonder what she was hiding, and the more loudly she denied it, the more certain everyone was that it was true, making it one of the most anticipated bouts in recent memory.

  Goezhen’s luck, she didn’t need this. She’d lost her last match, the first time she’d fallen in the pits. She’d pushed herself too hard, trying to recover from her adventures in the desert, hoping that by taking on another fight, she could make Brama’s fate a distant memory. It hadn’t worked. Months had passed since that harrowing night in Rümayesh’s keep, and Brama’s memory continued to haunt her, making her feel like a wobbling top, ready to tumble at any moment. Her birthday when she’d turned sixteen had been especially hard. When Emre had brought her a crown of jasmine from the bazaar, she couldn’t help thinking of the crude effigy she’d made of Brama, nor the fact that Brama would have turned sixteen a week before.

  “Why are you crying?” Emre had asked.

  She’d held th
e crown and smelled its scent. “It’s only, no one’s ever given me one before.”

  Emre had rolled his eyes, but she had blinked her tears away, put the crown on her head, and kissed him on the cheek anyway. It had been a hard loss, but since then she’d managed to put Brama’s memory to rest at last. She was ready to fight. She needed to fight. But now she would have to wait.

  And yet, Osman and Pelam wouldn’t be sitting here in her changing room, waiting to talk to her, if they had no other option to present. “What, then?” she asked, turning to face them.

  “Several months ago, a young man visited me in my office,” Pelam answered. “He came from Goldenhill, his identity hidden by a veil of rich blue silk, and he requested, nearly demanded, a bout in the pits. But before I could even answer he gave me his choice of opponent, as if I’d already granted his first request. I sent him back into the streets, thinking him some lordling who knew nothing of how to fight, but he’s returned every week since, asking to be let in with, I’ll admit, more tact than he had initially.”

  Çeda shrugged. “So let him. Surely he offered to buy his way in.”

  “He did,” Pelam replied easily. “They always do. But I thought it unwise in this case. He has the smell of the House of Kings on him.”

  “Then he has money to spare. Were you waiting for him to increase his offer?”

  Without a trace of humor in his hawklike eyes, Pelam nodded. “In truth, yes. But I didn’t suspect then that he might be the son of a King.”

  “But you do now?”

  “I’m nearly certain of it. I had him followed. His residence is one of the elder dwellings, those nearest the wall circling the House of Kings. So you can see the trouble. I host him in the pits, and he loses . . . Perhaps dies . . . Well, it’s the sort of trouble none of us needs.”

  “What does any of this have to do with my bout?”

  “Our lordling came again this morning,” Pelam said, “and this time he offered more.”

  “Much more,” Osman cut in. He turned on the bench where he sat and swung one leg over the side so that he straddled it. He held a small leather pouch in one hand, which he upended, causing something bright and blue to fall into his waiting palm.

  Çeda had never been impressed by riches. She found the ostentatious displays of the Kings both gaudy and vulgar. And yet she gasped as she saw the jewel that had dropped from the pouch, a sapphire as deep and blue as the desert sky at dawn. It was oval, and the size of a bloody falcon’s egg. Before she realized what she was doing, her hand reached out to touch it. Though when she noticed how intensely Osman stared at her, she stilled her hand. “May I?”

  Osman hesitated, but then held it out for her.

  She lifted it from Osman’s callused palm and stared. It was heavier than she’d imagined, and beautiful beyond description. More than this, however, was the fact that it was—to Çeda’s admittedly untrained eye—free of the inclusions that most gems possessed. Gods, the sorts of things this stone might buy. A ship to sail upon. A dozen ships. A manse in the east end of Sharakhai. Food enough for a thousand mouths for a thousand nights.

  Osman nodded his head toward the gem. “He offered this so that he could fight in the pits.”

  “This merely to fight?” Çeda shook her head. “Come, there must be more to it than that.”

  “You’re right. There is,” Pelam said. “As he’s done since the beginning, he asked specifically to fight you.”

  Çeda couldn’t take her eyes from the sapphire. “Me?” She turned the stone over, still trying to find some fault with it. She couldn’t possibly be worth this. “Why?”

  “We don’t know,” Osman said. “Have you made enemies on the Hill?”

  The Kings, Çeda thought. They’re my enemies. But that made no sense in this context. If they’d learned of her clandestine activities, they’d have strung her up by now, not sent some lordling in the small hope that he’d be able to maul her in the pits.

  “None that I’m aware of,” she replied, then worked some of the other implications through. “You don’t think Kydze . . . Her broken ankle.”

  Osman shrugged. “Nothing we can prove, of course, but it does seem to be awfully convenient timing, does it not?”

  By Tulathan’s bright smile, she knew she’d gained some notoriety since entering the pits—she’d won all but one of her eleven bouts so far—but to have a man, perhaps a son of the Kings themselves, come to the pits and offer a jewel like this to have the honor of standing across from her, to harm Çeda’s scheduled opponent so that Osman might feel added pressure . . .

  “And what did you tell him?” Çeda asked.

  At this, Osman stood and took the sapphire from her hand. “This is all strange enough that I’m giving the option to you. Decline, and I’ll tell him to steer his tight little backside back toward Goldenhill where it belongs.”

  “With a bit more tact than that,” Pelam put in.

  Osman glanced at him sidelong, a wry grin on his face. “But should you accept”—Osman held up the gem—“then part of this is yours.”

  The gem twinkled in the lantern light.

  “How much of it?” she asked.

  “A hundred rahl.”

  Gods, a hundred rahl. A century of golden coins. She’d never seen so much in her life. But there was more to it than simple coin. The sapphire proved how desperate this man was to fight her; she found herself wanting to agree just to deny him the win. This prat from the east end of Sharakhai thought he could come here and steal glory from her? Perhaps a bit of pride while he was at it?

  “You don’t mind if I leave him crying on the pit floor do you?”

  Osman smiled. “I don’t mind one bit. In fact”—he dropped the sapphire into its leather pouch and cinched it tight—“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

  In the pit, Çeda watched the Lord Blackthorn preen before the crowd. She hadn’t thought it possible, but it made her even more desperate to grind his face into the dirt. She found herself bouncing on the balls of her feet, a thing her mentor, Djaga, had tried again and again to beat out of her. For the most part she had, but there were days like this when Çeda couldn’t wait to begin. They must be quite the sight, the two of them, a highborn lord and a girl who’d risen from the slums, their identities hidden behind their armor. Even Çeda was not immune to the poetry of it all; were she in the stands, she’d be watching rapt as well.

  Çeda was given first choice of weapons. She chose a three-section staff, after which her opponent chose a simple fighting staff. He swung it over his head, around his back, in a dizzying series of useless moves meant only to impress the crowd. And it did. Gasps came. Many moved closer to the front, jockeying for position.

  The betting had died down. The crowd fell into an eager silence, glances alternating between Çeda and Pelam and Blackthorn. Pelam held out his gong. He paused as the tension crescendoed, bringing the crowd to utter silence. Then he struck the gong once and backed quickly away.

  Çeda pretended she was ready to rush in, but then stopped and unleashed a series of moves aimed at his head, then legs, then head again. Blackthorn blocked the chained sections of her staff easily, keeping careful distance. Holding one end of her three-section staff, she gave ground to avoid a strike to the ribs, then countered. He blocked, catching the mid-section of her staff, at which point Çeda snapped the end she was holding. The movement caused the farthest section to whip inward, and it caught Blackthorn across the helmet. It had little power behind it, but the crowd loved it. They stamped their feet and shook their fists.

  If Blackthorn was angry, she couldn’t sense it in his movements. He remained composed, even as she managed to use the move again, this time striking his shoulder, and a third time, connecting with his knee, a sharper blow that sent him hobbling backward for a moment. Each time it happened, the crowd roared louder, both eager, and not, for the end
of the bout.

  Blackthorn pressed, but he was playing into Çeda’s strengths. She was a patient fighter. She had to be. Too many of her opponents were larger and stronger, so she’d reined in her impatience, and with Djaga’s help had learned how to make it seem as though she were pressing without actually doing so.

  Blackthorn’s staff became a hummingbird, darting in over and over. Çeda blocked, retreated, twisted away, and riposted. She struck him again and again—light hits only, but he was becoming defensive. She disguised her next move well, leaving her defenses low to bait him. He tried a few simple snaps of his staff toward her head, blows she blocked, but then he struck low and reversed, putting his weight and brawn into the swing.

  Stepping just outside the arc of the downward swing, she caught the top of his staff in the short chain between two sections of her own. She twisted the ends, catching the staff in a vice-like grip between the steel caps and chain. She dove forward and rolled, wrenching the staff away from him. She realized well too late that he’d been prepared to lose his weapon, that he’d likely been ready for the whole gambit.

  As she was rolling away, she saw him launch himself toward her even as his staff twisted away. He snatched her left wrist, then snaked behind her. She tried to keep her momentum, tried to roll again, even with him draped across her back, hoping to twist out of his grasp. But again he was ready for it, and soon they came to a stop, his arm around her neck as he craned her body backward.

  “Well, well, well, Çedamihn. Had I known you were this good I daresay I might have arranged to come sooner.”

  Gods, that voice.

  The words had come out strangely slurred, but she knew as she knew her own name that this was Brama, the thief she’d taken with her to save Rümayesh. When she’d seen him last, he’d just written his blood on a piece of obsidian, one that had given Rümayesh new life, and Rümayesh had repaid him by possessing him, stealing his form with the help of her most loyal servant, Kadir.