The Kingdoms of Dust

by Amanda Downum

  “I had forgotten this story. I had forgotten so much—like a shroud drawn over my past. Ahmar’s curse burned it away. I’ll have to thank her before she dies.”

  The light vanished. “Rest,” Asheris said, rising and opening the tent flap. Starlight kissed his skin with silver. “We go farther still tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Adam woke to heat and pain, red shadows and light. He winced at the brightness and closed his eyes, hoping he hadn’t ended up in a Mortificant hell of fire and agony. He’d always hoped for a soothing afterlife. And he’d never imagined that death would feel like losing a fight—though now that he thought of it, that’s exactly what it would be.

  Blinking away tears, he looked again. The red shadow was rock—sandstone, streaked pink and grey. He sprawled in the dirt beneath a wind-polished ledge. A line of sun inched up his outstretched legs, scorching the black leather of his boots. His right hand still held his sword, white-knuckled and numb. His fingers cramped when he flexed them. The wrappings had carved raw lines in his palm.

  Pain and light were gifts after the aching chill of the abyss. His sword was a better one.

  “Lady of Ravens.” He didn’t realize he spoke until he began to cough. He swallowed phlegm and grimaced, licking chapped lips. The spasm reminded him of the slice across his ribs.

  “No,” a voice said. “Not ravens. I do appreciate carrion, though.”

  Not Brenna’s voice. Not any human voice.

  Adam drew his legs in, sighing at the absence of heat, and levered himself upright. A green-black scorpion the size of his hand skittered away from the movement, sending a shudder crawling the length of his body. He crouched under the low stone ceiling and waited out the pins-and-needles as fresh blood returned to his extremities.

  “Where am I?” All he could see ahead was sunlight and dusty sky. He kept his eyes on the dirt, in case the scorpion returned.

  “The middle of nowhere,” the dry voice said. The voice of stone eroding in the wind, of bones crumbling to chalk; Adam’s hackles lifted at the sound. “But no longer the middle of nothing, which is where I found you.”

  “Who are you?” He crawled out of the shade, pressing a hand to his wounded side. Dried blood plastered his shirt to his skin, flaking and tugging as he moved, but the scab held.

  “I’m the one who saved your life. Not that you should thank me for that, since I’ve only brought you here.”

  Adam’s joints creaked as he straightened. Late morning, closing on noon, and already the sun was a hammer. He stood on a rocky plateau strewn with boulders. Wind and time had carved them into fantastic shapes—arches and pedestals and hulking creatures balanced on spindly legs. Behind him sharp peaks rose against the sky; ahead, the red sand sea stretched toward the horizon. A deadly place—the kind that could kill a man in a day without water. But when he lifted his head to the wind he smelled moisture and cookfires. Someone survived here.

  “Why bring me here?” He was alone on the cliff, except for the now-vanished scorpion. If bugs were talking to him, he’d lain in the sun longer than he’d thought.

  “You were pointed this way already.” The voice came from behind him, and he couldn’t stop his startled twitch. “No, stay. You don’t need to see me yet.”

  The shadow spreading at Adam’s feet was larger than he could cast alone. He didn’t turn, but his muscles twitched and leapt with the effort.

  “You attacked little Arha. Bloodied her and made her cry and tried to give chase. That caught my interest.”

  Arha? Was that Brenna’s true name. He kept the question to himself, along with the bitter disbelief that anything could make her cry. But even as he thought it, memory came like a razor stroke: Brenna, blood on her hands and face and unbound hair, weeping over a breech-birthed foal she couldn’t save. Had that been a lie too?

  “What do you want?” he asked his invisible companion, walking forward to be free of its shadow. The plateau ended yards from where he’d woken, giving way to a steep slope. In the valley below lay a city.

  Adam lowered himself to the dirt to keep from being silhouetted against the sky. From his vantage the buildings looked like toys, the models generals used to plan troop movements. The streets were straight and wide, too neat to have grown naturally. Palm trees lined the avenues, shaded fountains and rectangular pools. Mudbrick houses clustered away from taller stone buildings, and on the far side a stunted orchard grew beside a pond. Nothing about it seemed natural, from the neat dimensions of the pond to the grand architecture in what seemed no bigger than a small desert village.

  The smell of smoke was clearer now, and the sharp grassy scent of a stable. He saw movement in the distant orchard, but the streets were empty. Worse than empty—lonely, desolate. Haunted.

  “Qais,” he whispered.

  “Yes.” The voice was beside him again, once more staining him with its shadow. “The child Arha stole is held here, and this is where they mean to bring your necromancer.”

  “Why?”

  The shadow croaked; it might have been a laugh or a curse. “That I am forbidden to say. And forbidden to stop. Bringing you here is all the leash I have to spare. So make the best of it, won’t you?”

  Adam turned in time to see a dark inhuman shape unravel on the breeze. Then he was alone with the wind and sun, and the scorpion watching him from amongst the stones.

  He retreated to the shade for the remainder of the day, arranging a careful truce with the scorpion. He didn’t know enough to make a plan, so he spent the hours resting, trying not to think about the moisture leaking out of his skin. Trying and failing not to think of Brenna.

  He’d pitied Isyllt once; she could never be free of Kiril, even when the love brought her only pain. At least she’d loved a real man. The woman he’d thought he loved—and later hated—was nothing but a mask. A convenient disguise. But he still smelled her when he closed his eyes.

  As dusk fell, a solitary lamplighter kindled the streetlights in the empty city. Adam had counted only a handful of people from his vigil on the cliff, and none of them lingered out of doors. He’d seen villages beset by bandits and demons act this way, but if a threat hid in the mountains, he neither saw nor smelled any trace of it.

  When night settled heavy and silent between the walls of the canyon, he began his slow descent. The climb was steep and treacherous, and any incautious step sent rocks and scree hissing down the slope. If the denizens of Qais were so nervous, the hills would be warded and watched.

  Disquiet filled him as he neared the valley floor. His ribs burned, and his bad knee ached more than the climb should warrant. He’d snuck into enemy camps before, but now misgivings plagued him with every step. This was suicide. He would die here, leaving Moth and Isyllt alone, and the mocking laughter of a woman who had never existed would follow him into the final darkness.

  He’d felt this crushing despair before, he realized, when his hands were slick and shaking. This was the touch of the storm in Sherazad all over again. The ghost wind.

  Was this its home? And if it was, what sort of fool was he to walk into it?

  The sort who’d been paid for a month of service, and had four days left.

  Scents drifted on the breeze: garlic and olive oil; hay and dung; the wetter stench of a human privy. The cloying bitterness of myrrh hung over everything, stronger than a street of temples—that must be what they harvested from the orchard. Human scents were fainter, and he caught no trace of Brenna or Moth.

  Hugging the shadows, he prowled a circuit through the city. Tracks and scent-trails wove paths through the dusty streets. Most led to one hulking central building. It had the look of a small fortress, all high walls and narrow shuttered windows. He saw no defenses, but who knew what magic it contained? No light burned in the windows, and the heavy brassbound doors were shut tight; the wood had been darkened by passing hands, the wide front steps worn in the centers. Crouching sphinxes flanked the entry—only decorative sentries, perhaps, but Adam resolved
to avoid them just in case.

  Another trail, faint but regular, led directly north from the palace, through a broad field of columns to a tall, stair-stepped building. He wasn’t much for religion, but he knew a temple when he saw one. The sight of this one prickled his nape, though he couldn’t decide why. At least it didn’t have dried blood on the steps. One more place to avoid.

  Moving west, he finally encountered light and noise, and another familiar structure: a barracks. Voices trickled from open windows, and occasional laughter. The sound drew him like a siren’s lure. The first proof he’d had that Qais was peopled by anything but ghosts.

  The next proof was a soft footstep behind him. Downwind. Cursing his distraction, Adam spun, to find himself facing the tip of a sword. Starlight silvered the razored edge, and gleamed in the eyes of the dark man on the other end.

  “Good evening,” the man said. His voice was dark as well, deep and rumbling in his broad chest. He had more than a handspan of height and reach on Adam, and perhaps three stone of heavy bone and muscle. His Assari was thick with an accent Adam didn’t recognize. “You might have announced yourself at the foot of the hill. We do have wards, you know.”

  Melantha was still weeping when Kash arrived to return her to Qais. She expected questions and scathing jokes, but he carried out her tear-muffled request silently. The cold of between dried her tears.

  She went to her own room before finding her mother. Once the blood was sponged away, a bit of paint and powder disguised her swelling lip. If her face was pale as mutton fat jade, well, such a long trip through the void was taxing. When her mask was in place, she went before Nerium and reported her mission successful.

  Lies of omission were the second-easiest kind.

  She had meant to visit Moth, but now she couldn’t stand to face the girl. Instead she retrieved a bottle of wine from the pantry and locked the door of her room behind her. Sadly, holding her liquor was one of the many skills she’d learned over the years—one bottle was enough to warm her blood and melt her frozen tears, but not enough to grant the oblivion she craved.

  Vallish mead, the kind Brenna and Ceinn and Adam had drunk together, or a good Celanoran whiskey: Those would get the job done.

  Tears slicked her face and dripped off her chin. Wiping her eyes only made them swell faster. It doesn’t matter, she told herself over and over again. She’s dead. She’s dead and the nothing took her and now it’s taken him too.

  Or maybe it hadn’t. He’d followed her. She’d touched his hand, but couldn’t hold on. But he might have fallen out again, back into the light—

  Laughter ripped out of her in tearing sobs. “Keep telling yourself that, chara. Believe it with all your heart and you’ll make it true.”

  “You’re dead,” she spat, forcing the Celanoran lilt out of her voice. Her hands clenched white-knuckled around the empty bottle.

  Keep telling yourself that too.

  She imagined the arc the bottle would make if she threw it, the satisfying explosion of glass. Instead she opened her hands and let it fall. Glass clunked against the knotted silk rug without breaking. She tapped it with a boot as she rose, sending it skittering across the floor.

  Another bottle. Maybe two. Anything to kill the voices. Let Melantha drown—she’d find a new name. A new life.

  Take as many names as you like—her mother’s voice followed her down the hall, as if Nerium walked beside her—but this is your life.

  Maybe the first bottle had affected her more than she’d realized; standing in front of the kitchen pantry, she didn’t hear the footsteps until they were nearly on her. She spun, a flick of her wrist dropping a blade into her hand.

  “My lady.” Salah, captain of Qais’s guards, raised a placating hand. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “My fault for being distracted.” She slipped the knife back into place, nonchalant as if she hadn’t nearly gutted him. “Can I help you, Captain?”

  “Yes, actually. I’d rather not disturb Lady Kerah. We’ve captured an intruder.”

  Sitting in the darkness of his newest cell, Adam tried to think of ways that this was better than the Çirağan. The guards were more pleasant, for one—the man who’d captured him had been quite civil, had even given him water. The quarters were cleaner, though that might not last. The climate was too dry for roaches.

  Black humor was all that had kept him sane in the Çirağan, but the wretched miasma of this place soaked the stones and left no room for comedy. How did anyone live here without opening their veins?

  This place is a prison for everyone. Some pretend not to see the walls.

  Adam flinched from the hollow voice, but he was alone in the room. He sighed and laid his head on his knees. Going mad was one way to pass the time.

  He drifted for a time, skirting the edges of sleep, afraid of what dreams waited for him. A change in the light roused him; someone stood outside the door. A key scraped in the rusted lock and light spilled in around a slender silhouette.

  “Saints,” Brenna whispered. “It is you.”

  Her eyes were red and raw, cheeks flushed, and the smell of wine filtered through her skin. Had the shadow been telling the truth?

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself as he stood.

  “You know him?” the dark-skinned guard asked. A captain, Adam guessed, from the age and authority on his face, and the ease with which the other guards had deferred to him. A few of them lingered at the far end of the row of cells, pretending not to watch.

  “I do. He has more lives than a cat, it seems. Let him go—I’ll vouch for his good behavior.” She cocked an eyebrow at Adam, daring him to argue. When the guard hesitated, she added, “And I’ll explain this to my mother.”

  “As you wish.” Relief flickered across his face, swiftly concealed. “What about his weapons?”

  Brenna’s eyes narrowed. “Keep those for now, but make sure they’re cared for.”

  Adam frowned, but decided not to argue. Think of Moth, he told himself. Think of the job.

  He followed her out of the guardhouse into the empty street. In the scant light spilling through the door, her eyes glittered as she glanced at him. “Are you going to hit me again?”

  His hands tightened, but he kept them at his sides. “No.”

  “Good. Let’s have a drink, then.”

  She led him into the main building—not past the guardian sphinxes, but through a side door—and through a maze-like twist of stairs and dark hallways. Even his night vision failed in a few black corners, but she moved with the ease of long familiarity.

  “You live here?” he asked when they finally reached her rooms. They smelled like her, at least, her and wine; if he’d hoped for any revelations about her true identity, there were none to be found.

  “I don’t spend much time here. In Qais. Mostly I work abroad.” She set a bottle of wine on a small desk and began to unscrew the cork.

  “Like Celanor.”

  Her chin rose. “Among many other places.” The wine opened with a pop.

  “Where else?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  He shrugged. “I’m curious.”

  She turned away, searching the shelves until she found a second glass. “Ninaya, northern Assar, Iskar, Andemar—”

  “So Andemar wasn’t a lie, at least.”

  “Damn it, Adam.” Glass thunked against wood. “It was my job. I remember some of your stories. Don’t pretend your hands are clean.”

  “No. Never that.” An apology was more than he could manage, so he held his tongue. She pressed a glass on him and he took it; she waved him toward a chair and he sat. Drinking was a bad idea while he was still dehydrated. He raised the cup anyway. The glass was swirled blue and green, imperfectly balanced and flawed with a dozen tiny bubbles. Pretty, in a magpie way. The wine was dark and dry and burned its way down.

  “Brenna—”

  She flinched. “Don’t call me that. Brenna is dead. I thought you were dead too.
How did you get here?”

  He lifted one shoulder—the wrong one, he remembered, as the scab on his ribs pulled tight. “It’s your magic trick. You tell me.”

  Her eyes narrowed, lips quirking. She knew, he guessed, about the shadow that had spoken to him on the cliffs, but that was no reason for him to volunteer information. She opened her mouth and shut it again with a frown. When she spoke, it was a different accusation than he’d expected. “You’re hurt.”

  “Just a scratch. You used to be better than that.”

  “Hah! If I’d wanted you dead, you would be. Let me see.”

  He wasn’t quite proud enough to let a wound fester rather than let her treat it. He stripped off his torn shirt and let her sponge away the blood and grime.

  “What is this about?” he asked while she worked. “Kehribar, Moth…”

  She discarded the dirty cloth. “Wait a moment—I need bandages.” She stepped into a shadowed corner. Even anticipating it, Adam shuddered as she vanished into darkness. She returned a few moments later, from a different shadow this time, carrying folded bandages and jars. The smell of aloe rose from the first one she opened, the sharp blood-metal scent of copper from the next.

  “The people I work for want Iskaldur,” she said, each word carefully measured. “Her help, that is, not harm. I was sent to make contact. But when I saw you, I panicked.” Her jaw tightened with the admission.

  “So you kidnapped a child instead of talking?”

  “You would have talked, instead of attacking me? It was a mistake,” she continued, when he didn’t meet her gaze. “But Moth is safe, and so are you—though following me into shadow was stupid, and by all rights you should be dead. Besides—” She nudged his arm away and smeared a cool, rust-red paste along the cut. “Iskaldur will be safer away from Ta’ashlan. The city is a stronghold for the people who want her dead. Be careful with this,” she said, changing the subject as she wrapped his ribs. “Qais is…not healthy. Wounds don’t always heal as they should.”