The Kingdoms of Dust

by Amanda Downum

  “All I want is peace,” Samar murmured, brow creasing. “For the empire, between my family. Why does that seem so impossible?”

  Asheris kept his eyes on his empty plate until she turned her gaze to him. Then he shrugged. “Perhaps the nature of empire is inimical to peace.”

  There had been no open war in their lives—his mortal life, at least—but conflict always seethed somewhere in Assar. Skirmishes with the tribes of Iseth, or Ninayan ships, or rebels in Sivahra. Bandits like their current plague of warlords harrying the borders. Princes and chieftains who flew the lion banner but kept their former colors bright in their hearts and nursed old grudges. And the constant dynastic infighting that left so many rulers and heirs with troubled sleep.

  “If not the nature of empire, then the nature of the world.” Samar smiled wryly. “When did we become so cynical?” She sighed and poured a second cup of coffee.

  Plates and papers competed for space on the breakfast table: bread and hummus, honeyed figs and goat cheese, labneh drizzled with mint and olive oil next to reports from border garrisons and sepats. The newest of the troubles that robbed her of sleep.

  They ate in silence for a time, ignoring the papers and their news. Asheris appreciated the taste of food again, as he hadn’t for days after the storm. Though as honey melted over his tongue he couldn’t help but think of the ravaged temple apiaries.

  “Hamad and his bandits have taken Mamarr Elizar,” Samar finally said, dipping her last triangle of bread into the labneh. “At least three caravans have been lost since. We’ve warned the merchants in the city to seek other routes for the time being, but we can only buy their complacency and silence so long.” She raised her coffee cup in a sardonic toast. “So enjoy this while it lasts.”

  Asheris’s mouth twisted, but he raised his cup in answer and drained a long bitter swallow. The southeastern province Zelassa, reached by the Elizar pass, was rich not only in coffee plantations but also sugarcane, qat leaves, and grains. With warlords holding the pass through the Teeth of Heaven, markets in Ta’ashlan would soon feel the lack. Not enough to threaten famine, but shortages would mean rising prices and rising tempers.

  “We still have coffee plantations in Sivahra,” he said. “And cane.”

  “Yes. I imagine qat grows there well enough, too. That comes with the costs and dangers of shipping, though, and many caravan merchants are too set in their ways to buy ships. My finance ministers are fond of telling me so.”

  Asheris sipped lemon water to rinse away the bitter taste of coffee. “Many things must adapt or die.”

  Samar chuckled. “I do so love you when you’re ruthless. In the meantime, I suppose we could orchestrate a fondness for northern delicacies. Skarrish lokum, perhaps, though it sticks in my teeth.” Her amusement was short-lived. “I should have killed Hamad and his cronies when I had the chance,” she said, soft and vehement. “Why was I such a fool?”

  Asheris shrugged. “Mercy was a welcome change after Rahal. It went over well at the time.”

  “And now they’ve come back to plague me.”

  Samael Hamad, once a general in the imperial army, had acted as an intermediary for the former emperor, fencing smuggled diamonds from Sivahra without the knowledge of the senate. Rahal, an expansionist like his forefathers, had used the money to fund his armies. One of Samar’s first acts upon taking the throne was to strip Hamad and his co-conspirators of rank and lands and exile them.

  Who exactly had bought those diamonds was a question that had long troubled Asheris.

  “Back, and well funded.” Hamad had been popular with his soldiers; nearly half of his legion had defected with his exile, joining their commander in outlawry. Asheris and Siddir had kept an eye on them, but mostly the warlord had laid low, robbing caravans now and then and vanishing into the desert wastes.

  Until last year, when the bandits’ incursions had redoubled, fiercer and more cunning than ever, and better supplied than many imperial legions. Hamad attacked garrisons and prison caravans, recruiting any who would join him and slaughtering the rest. Merchants whom they didn’t kill they taxed. They seized salt mines and poppy fields, sometimes stripping them bare and riding on, sometimes ransoming them back to their overseers. Survivors from razed villages drifted into neighboring sepats in greater numbers, and the provincial governors demanded action. Samar had kept news of the troubles out of the streets of Ta’ashlan, but that elision couldn’t last.

  Hamad, familiar with imperial tactics and with his enemies, had evaded or defeated all the troops sent after him. Age and experience couldn’t explain why no one could scry him out, though—neither Asheris nor any of the army’s battle mages. Survivors’ stories had grown in the telling to include chained beasts aiding the slaughters, or chained monsters. Having heard reports of the carnage from reliable soldiers, he was hesitant to dismiss the tales out of hand. Siddir had attempted to infiltrate a bandit camp to learn more, but his cover had been quickly blown, and he escaped with only an injured leg to show for his efforts.

  Samar reached for a fig but set it down again, frowning as if at a sour taste. “This ghost wind. Do you suppose it would swallow up Hamad and his playmates if I asked nicely?”

  She asked it jokingly, eyebrows raised, but her eyes were canny and cool. She would do it if she could.

  “You’d do as well asking the khamsin or the simoom,” he said, matching her light tone. “We understand them better.”

  She stood, pacing a restless circuit around the room before stopping beside a curtained window. “And this necromancer of yours? This entropomancer. Will she understand the storm?”

  He read an invitation in the tilt of her head and rose to join her. “She might. And if not, I’ve merely recruited an agent from Selafai. I’m sure you could find a use for such.” Siddir’s message had come an hour ago, whispered to a flame across the sea: He was coming home, with Isyllt.

  “Can you control her? I would rather not see a repeat of Symir.”

  He drew a breath, tasting the fragrance of rosemary and shea butter in Samar’s hair. Pregnancy had altered her scent, made it richer and sharper, more pungently female. She had taken to wearing perfumes outside her own rooms.

  “I believe I can trust her,” he said slowly. “She needs work and safety—we can provide those.” It was a familiar bargain to both of them; he had given Samar the throne, she gave him shelter and purpose.

  “Safety?” She snorted indelicately. “You know better than that.”

  Asheris shrugged. “I am in her debt.”

  The corners of her eyes creased, flecks of amber and tourmaline glinting in her irises. “As I am in yours.” She stroked her knuckles across his cheek, a warmth of affection behind the teasing gesture. The touch lingered. Were he mortal, she might solve her problems by naming him consort. Just as well, then, that his nature made him anathema. His appreciation of women was in the main aesthetic.

  Her hand fell. “We are all tangled in webs of alliance and debt, my friend. Never think I don’t value all you’ve done for me.” She tugged the curtain back, and morning sunlight clove the space between them. “But I won’t allow Assar to be threatened by foreign sorcerers any more than warlords or your desert storms. Bring Iskaldur here, and offer her all you wish, but keep hold of her leash.”

  Asheris spent the rest of the morning pacing his chambers. He had found only a few more records of the ghost wind since his search began, most redundant or too muddled to be of use. His hunt for rumors of Jirair’s quiet men had fared no better.

  He hadn’t yet taken his questions to the university mages, starting instead with the city’s black-market sorcerers. Sand witches and unlicensed vinculators, people who bound little spirits for sale, who would bind your enemy’s soul in a bottle for the right price. He had found answers there, of a sort.

  “A myth,” one old woman said, waving a gnarled hand in dismissal. “Stories to frighten foolish thieves and wizards. ‘Keep your head down or the quiet men will find you.
’ It’s all nonsense.”

  “Don’t say that name!” hissed the next man, a shriveled, pallid sorcerer who might not have left his basement room in years from the look of him. “They have eyes everywhere. They know.” His own eyes had narrowed then, and he spat a warding spell. “This is a test, isn’t it? Get out.”

  The last man Asheris spoke to had been saner, thankfully, but no more helpful. “Certainly I’ve heard of these quiet men.” The aging thief-keeper smiled and winked. “My wife’s cousin’s boy did a job for them once. They paid him enough to retire, but whatever he saw that night turned his hair white.”

  Asheris had asked no more since, lest he draw attention to his inquiry. Whatever these quiet men truly were, though, he had to believe they existed. And that they knew his secrets.

  When the noon prayers rose across the city, pricking him like thorns, he abandoned his fruitless paper chase and fled to the garden. The palace temple had changed incense; it drifted through the halls and arcades, filling his head with cinnamon and clove and bitter patchouli. Not an unpleasant scent, but cloying in its strength. He was grateful to reach the open air of the garden.

  The royal gardens were lush and green despite the baking summer heat. Fig trees and pomegranates shaded manicured lawns, along with willows and sprawling tamarisk shrubs. Fountains fed fish-stocked ponds, and exotic lizards and small furred beasts from every end of the empire prowled the grounds. The last tame lioness had died months ago and not yet been replaced. Asheris was just as glad—watching wild things grow fat and slow in gilded collars struck too close to home.

  He had thought to be alone in the rising heat; Samar sometimes entertained her courtiers beside the pools, but today she was closeted with advisors. But as he followed the winding, marjoram- and laurel-lined paths toward the center of the garden, he spotted a flash of red through a trellis. Curiosity drew him on, but he paused as he recognized the figure seated beside the pond.

  The sanguine sweep of skirts belonged to Ahmar Asalar, keeper of the temple apiaries and personal secretary to the high priestess of the Unconquered Sun. Not someone he expected to find lounging in the gardens. Samar had said nothing of a meeting with her. He would have retreated to learn more, but the Asalar’s companion glanced up at his footfalls. He walked on, unstumbling, and came face-to-face with the priestess.

  “Lord al Seth.” The Asalar smiled, as sleek and lovely as ever despite the heat. She was a tall, long-limbed woman with grace that rivaled Samar’s. The gilt-edged scarlet of her formal robes was too strong for her complexion, but her bright eyes and arching dark brows kept her from being washed out. More than faith brought crowds to the temple yard when Ahmar offered the honey alms.

  “Your Radiance. An unexpected pleasure.” He bowed over her offered hand; incense clung to her skin and robes as well. The combination of perfume and the sun’s heat left him light-headed.

  Ahmar’s hands bore the marks of her office: ink-stained nails and knuckles swollen with bee stings, as well as the blood-black ruby and honey-colored topaz in her rings. Ash streaked her fingers, smudged his skin in turn. At her touch he felt strength and quiet power—sanctity, the church would say, the Sun’s blessing. Asheris suspected it was merely a talent for magic turned inward with meditation. He also felt the usual frisson of being in the presence of the church; if the priests knew his true nature he would be banished or worse, and all who sheltered him cast out as heretics.

  Another scarlet figure stood behind her, this one veiled and armed. The Khajirite Order—red pilgrims, they were more often called—was the strong sword-arm of the church. They guarded powerful clergy and poor faithful alike, and protected distant villages from the threat of demons or hungry spirits. And, more rarely, they gathered to serve the Illumined Chair’s will, a fierce red army that gave even imperial generals pause. This pilgrim stood silently with her hands clasped, but the sword-hilt at her shoulder and ivory-hilted jabiya in her belt spoke eloquently enough.

  For one Khajiri to attend the Asalar was nothing unusual, except that Ahmar had visited the palace many times with far less deadly accompaniment.

  “I came to speak to the empress,” Ahmar said, “but found her otherwise engaged. So now I wait.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help, Your Radiance?”

  “I’m afraid not, unless you wish to add your voice to our cause.”

  For over a year, the church had petitioned the empress for a grant of land. Such gifts weren’t uncommon—the church owned farmland and forests and salt mines, the profits of which allowed it to thrive. This time, however, the Illumined Chair wanted part of the southern border, in the jungles of Iseth. Rich land, and well positioned to bring in new followers, which in turn meant fresh funds.

  It would also mean more imperial troops needed to protect the new temples, and fresh unpleasantness with the native tribes. Samar had promised a halt to expansion when she took the throne, less money spent on war and fewer soldiers dying far from home. After three generations of emperors eager to expand their realm it was a welcome change, especially to poor families whose children swelled the army’s ranks.

  Asheris had no desire to see the Unconquered Sun drive any more spirits from their homes. If the church’s power grew, the Fata would wither as dry and lifeless as the Sea of Glass.

  “Mine is not a voice Her Majesty would give weight to in such matters,” he said. The taste of smoke and spices coated his tongue, and his pulse beat hard in his temples.

  “False modesty doesn’t become you,” Ahmar said with a narrow smile. “All know you’re the empress’s closest advisor.”

  Pet mage was what he was more often called. He walked a careful wire in the Court of Lions, making friends and alliances so as not to draw dangerous rumors, but not letting anyone close enough to threaten his secrets. Some knew the sort of work he had performed for the last emperor in Sivahra, but many younger members of the court assumed Samar kept him close for the same reasons she did Siddir: pretty eyes and flattery. Asheris tried not to disabuse them of the notion.

  It’s only the truth, is it not? A kept pet. Just because Samar doesn’t make you wear a collar doesn’t mean your wings aren’t clipped.

  He shook his head against the bitter voice. Ahmar cocked an eyebrow. “Excuse me,” he said. “The sun—” He was a desert creature, more than any mortal could be, but today the heat seemed unusually fierce.

  “Yes. It is scorching, isn’t it? Perhaps we should find some shade.” She rose, shaking her robes smooth, and started down the garden path. Asheris fell in beside her, while the silent Khajiri walked several paces behind.

  “Have the temple apiaries recovered from the storm?” he asked, gathering his sunstruck wits.

  Ahmar’s expression darkened. “Not yet. It was a terrible thing. We lost so many hives. But we have new queens—we’ll rebuild.”

  Innocent enough, but the words disquieted him. The high priestess was old and frail, and as close to holiness as Asheris had ever seen a mortal come. She was shrewd as well, but he’d never known her to dabble in secular matters. Not all priests were so unworldly in their designs. When Mehridad died, Ahmar would be among the candidates for the Illumined Chair. Her election would not make for a placid relationship between church and state.

  “I’m told you’ve taken an interest in this ghost wind,” Ahmar said, her eyes narrowing.

  “I saw the worst of the storm. It was…memorable. I want to learn its cause.”

  “Yes. I imagine so.” She slowed as they neared the gated arch that led back to the palace proper. “I hear you’ve sent for a specialist in such matters.”

  Asheris’s eyebrows climbed and he slid his hands into opposite sleeves to hide his tension. It was no surprise to learn the church had agents in the palace, but he and Siddir had been very circumspect in their plans. “Your hearing is keen, Your Radiance. Yes. An old colleague of mine from Selafai. She has experience in these things.”

  “A necromancer.” Her dusky lips pursed in dis
taste.

  “Who else would one call, for a ghost? Or a ghost wind.”

  “The church also has its experts.” She tilted her head toward her Khajiri shadow.

  Knowing how to destroy something wasn’t the same as understanding it. He kept his sharp reply to himself, but she read it in his face.

  “I have only respect for the learning of the university mages, Lord al Seth, and for your judgment. But still I’ll risk a word of advice.” Her dark eyes pinned him, calm and cool. “The Fata is treacherous, as is necromancy and any traffic with spirits. Carelessness therewith is how abominations are made. Be judicious with your involvement.”

  She knows, he thought, and his blood chilled. How could she, though? And if she did, why not act? The church would never countenance a demon in the city, let alone one standing near the throne.

  If she knew what he was, that knowledge was a knife at his throat, and at Samar’s.

  “I should return to the temple,” Ahmar said, pausing at the gate. “As you’ve reminded me, the apiaries need my attention more than matters of land. My discussion with Her Highness can wait a few more days. A pleasure as always, Lord al Seth.” She offered her hand and he bowed over it once more; his lips were numb as he pressed them to her ring. “I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.”

  “I’m certain, Your Radiance,” he murmured.

  He resisted the urge to scrub sweat and ash off his hands. The Asalar and her guard vanished into the shadow of the palace, leaving him alone in the heat and haze of clinging incense.

  CHAPTER 8

  Afternoon brought Asheris no peace. The sun’s heat lingered in his flesh, and neither shade nor chilled wine nor flavored ices could soothe it. His limbs felt clumsy and wrong; the thought of food revolted him, as did the sensation of blood pumping through flesh. He hadn’t felt like this since Jirair and the emperor’s mages first laid the binding on him. The sight of himself in the mirror—wingless, soft, dull as spent cinders—made him want to scream. Only the knowledge that he would hear a human cry and not a raptor’s shriek kept him silent.