The Forbidden City

by Deborah A. Wolf

  “He is dying,” Sulema said.

  Hafsa Azeina grunted, flattening her lips together, and grunted again as she stood. How long had she been sitting in one place? Years, it seemed. Perhaps it is time for me to take up weaving, she thought irritably.

  “Ehuani.” She bit the word off, and in so doing she meant all truth is beautiful, but not all truths should be spoken.

  “Not Khurra’an,” Sulema protested, hands clutching at the sooty mane, a look of shock on her face. “That’s not who I mean.”

  She did not know, Hafsa Azeina thought, and her heart clenched like Sulema’s fists. For a wise woman, I am a very great fool.

  “Who, then?” she asked softly, and in doing so she meant I have failed you again and I am sorry.

  “The Dragon King. My father.”

  “You knew this already,” she reminded her daughter, gently. “Before we ever came to this land.” As her eyes fell on Khurra’an, it occurred to Hafsa Azeina that knowing, and knowing, were two different things.

  “He is dying,” Sulema went on, “and his power is like a great whirlpool in the Dibris, sucking me down to a watery hell, like in one of Nurati’s old nurse-tales. I cannot swim away from him, I have nothing to hold onto, and I will drown.” She looked to Hafsa Azeina. “Help me, Mother.”

  Hafsa Azeina touched the fingers of one hand against her heart as the room swam around her. “Help me,” Tadeah had pleaded, on the night Hafsa Azeina fled with her daughter, her true daughter, her own flesh and blood and no one else’s. He will destroy me…

  And he had. Now, it seemed, he would consume Sulema as well.

  Not while I live, she vowed. Not if I have to destroy the world to stop him.

  “How long have you felt… drained like this?” she asked.

  “Since I saw the skulls? Maybe? Since I saw his mask for the first time? I am not certain,” Sulema answered, passing one hand over her eyes as if they pained her. Hafsa Azeina saw that her daughter’s eyes were shadowed, her face thinner than it had been, and that she moved as if her shoulder hurt. “It was strongest when he raised the Sulemnium, but I can feel him dragging at me even now. Even now,” she repeated, as if to herself, “when I am here with you I can feel him pulling at me. Mattu says—”

  “Mattu Halfmask,” Hafsa Azeina interrupted, “is not to be trusted.”

  “Mattu says,” Sulema went on, setting her chin in the stubborn slant that her mother knew only too well, “that Father does not intend to teach me how to wield atulfah. He says that instead, he—”

  Her voice broke. Hafsa Azeina’s heart, cold and dead as it was, broke with it.

  The girl loves her father, she realized. Just as Tadeah did. Just as we all did. The dragon-faced hearth roared to life as she was seized with a sudden fury. We all loved him. And he has betrayed us, every one.

  “He killed her, did he not?” Sulema asked, and Hafsa Azeina watched as her daughter’s face tightened into a warrior’s mask. “His other daughter. Talia.”

  “Tadeah,” Hafsa Azeina corrected. “Yes, he did.”

  “Why did you bring me here? Why did you let me come?”

  “For the same reason I stole you away, all those years ago,” she answered, and this time the beauty of truth rang through her words clear and pure as a new-forged sword. “To save your life. Ka Atu is the only one with the power to heal reaver’s venom. Had it not been for that, I never would have—”

  Too late, she saw that it had been the perfect trap.

  “Can you help me?” Sulema asked. “Will you help me?”

  “Yes,” Hafsa Azeina answered. She strode to where the girl still sat, held out her hands, lifted her daughter to her feet, then did a thing which surprised them both. She embraced her daughter, kissed her forehead. She had to pull the girl’s face down to hers, and tugged at her fiery warrior’s braids. In doing so she meant I love you.

  “I can help you, and I will. I am your mother,” she finished, as if that explained everything. Or, perhaps, as if it excused anything.

  “You are my mother,” Sulema agreed with a smile, and some of the tension melted away from her body. “And my mother is fierce. What have I to fear, in all the world?”

  “Nothing,” Hafsa Azeina agreed, though the lie pained her. A little. “Go now, get some rest. Mama has work to do.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Were Daru here, her small apprentice would have done his best to dissuade her. Were Khurra’an not dying, her kithren would have grabbed her by the scruff and shaken some sense into her. But she was alone, truly alone, with no one to act as her conscience.

  She smiled. At last I am free to pursue my destiny. Death comes easy, indeed, when carried upon the breath of a dream eater.

  One by one, Hafsa Azeina prepared together the instruments of her dark magic. The shofar akibra, an instrument fashioned from a horn of the golden ram. Basta’s Lyre, strung with the guts of a man who had sought to slay her daughter. The flute made from the leg of a woman who thought to betray her, and, finally, the dragonglass dagger infused with the soul of Belzaleel, a wicked and powerful Annu.

  She hesitated for a moment, startled by a strange feeling, but then shrugged and retrieved the leather-wrapped bundle that contained the wicked flensing knife Ani had brought from the Bones of Eth. She had no idea what use the fell thing might have, but the instincts of a dreamshifter were nothing to dismiss, and in any case it was better to have too many weapons than too few. Finally she drew Belzaleel from his sheath and used a soft cloth to clean away the last traces of their battle with the na’iyeh.

  When I am gone, she wondered idly, will some sorcerer recall me from whatever hell I am sent to, and stuff me into a knife such as this? The thought made her laugh. The wicked and powerful dagger Annubasta, used to chop vegetables for a stew.

  At last she was ready.

  Though she had journeyed as a dreamshifter’s shade, the dragonstone walls of Atukos had been bespelled to block her physical form from Shehannam. She had grown stronger, however, she had learned much more than even Ka Atu might imagine, and so he could not prepare against her. She drew Belzaleel sharply across the palm of each hand, ignoring the knife’s sharp hiss of pleasure. Flaring her nostrils at the sharp scent of her own blood, she pressed her bloodied hands upon the walls of Atukos.

  Help me, she implored the dragonstone, cold and living heart of Sajani Earth Dragon. Help me again. Help me help my daughter.

  The walls of Atukos began to change beneath her touch, growing warm and oddly translucent as dreaming Sajani answered her plea. A long, low, round hallway appeared before her eyes. It shimmered as if through a wall of glass, of water, of light made flesh, and at its far end glowed the false light of Shehannam.

  “Thank you,” Hafsa Azeina murmured to Atukos, though this passage was more likely to lead to her death than to salvation. She pressed harder with her hands and stepped forward toward the light, shuddering at the feel of her flesh sliding through the world of the living and into the world of dreams.

  The hallway was colder by far and more silent than the surety of death. The dreamshifter tightly furled sa and ka, lest her living essence draw unwholesome attention. Her actions were forbidden by laws as ancient as life itself. To enter Shehannam in the flesh was beyond folly. Twice before had she done such a thing. The first time was an accident. New to dreamshifting, acting on instinct and half mad with terror, Hafsa Azeina had dragged herself, her small daughter, and a small Dzirani caravan from world to world. She and Sulema had survived, only just. The Dzirani were not so fortunate.

  That was one of the few regrets she had ever allowed herself to feel, as they had perhaps been the last of their kind.

  She had never told Ani.

  The second time was intentional, though she acted out of ignorance. She had thought she might learn to use the Dreaming Lands as a path between worlds, as the na’iyeh did, that she might come upon her enemies in the flesh and deliver vengeance as they slept. Thus she hoped to breach the walls of
Atukos and slay Wyvernus as he slept. It had to be her physical form, for his kima’a—a great golden wyvern—was too powerful for her own small Basta to overcome.

  When she set foot upon that forbidden soil the second time, however, she had stepped into the Huntress’s snare. The Huntress had been stalking her for a score or more of years, furious that she had slain the golden ram and stolen one of his horns. It had taken everything Hafsa Azeina possessed, and more, to survive. As it was impossible for a mere human to fight the Huntress, or escape her hounds, she had been forced to kill and eat her own kima’a, her human heart, and in doing so become Annubasta. Demon.

  Dream eater.

  That she could not regret, for regret was a human emotion. Though Basta had eventually returned to her, and though watching her daughter grow from childhood into a fine young warrior had healed some measure of the wound she had inflicted upon herself, she would never again be fully human.

  Just as well, she thought, reaching down to touch the gut-string lyre and the leg-bone flute. Regret was an emotion she could ill afford, if she was to save Sulema. This would be the third time she set foot in Shehannam in the flesh. Deep in the very marrow of her bones, where the secrets of her heart lay, Hafsa Azeina knew that this would be the last.

  When she reached the end of the hallway, the forbidden doorway and the verdant lands beyond, Hafsa Azeina stepped through without hesitation. She would not creep into death as prey, cringing at the thought of claw and fang. She would roar into its face like a true queen, she would go down fighting.

  Ah, little one, Khurra’an whispered into her heart, you would have made a fine vash’ai. As she felt the vash’ai slip away from her and into true sleep, Hafsa Azeina knew she would hold those words to her heart like a talisman for the rest of her days, few though they might be.

  The moment her bare foot touched the strange, soft grass, a shudder ran through the Dreaming Lands, like the tolling of a great bell, the tintinnabulation of a swordsmith’s forge, the cry of a golden shofar. Shehannam itself had marked her for death, and there would be no hiding for her now, not in this world or any other. Hafsa Azeina smiled and took a deep breath as a lifetime of fear lifted from her soul.

  When all roads lead to death, she realized, there is no wrong path.

  Finding a place in the Dreaming Lands would be all but impossible, even for the most experienced of dreamshifters, but finding her way back to a known place was as simple as breathing. She set off at a run, in a land where running could be as dangerous as breathing, and never once bothered to look over her shoulder. In the distance she could hear the first notes of a shofar, and the baying of hounds.

  Let them hunt me, she thought, let them come. They will find that I am no easy meat, after all.

  She arrived at the clearing where Sulema lay bound, now in her kima’a form. The first bindings gave way before her physical presence as they never would have beneath the touch of her dreaming shade. She played Basta’s Lyre, and the golden veil shattered at the first notes, dispersing like fog under the wrath of Akari.

  The fennec—

  Jinchua, she thought. Her name is Jinchua.

  —lay on one side, panting, her pale form wrapped in layer upon layer of bonds. The Shroud of Eth, foul webs of darkness woven by an arachnist, had grown strong since last she had cut them. Hafsa Azeina knelt and drew Belzaleel in the same movement. Snick-snick went the wicked blade, chortling with glee as he absorbed the fell magics, and those bindings once more fell away with a scream.

  Very good, Belzaleel purred, and now we are finished.

  Hold your forked tongue, Annu, she told him. I am done with your lies. Did you ever think me so foolish as to believe them? You told me before that I should leave these bonds be. I think… not.

  Snick-snick went the blade in her hand as, unwilling though it was, she used it to free her daughter. Belzaleel howled with outrage, but Hafsa Azeina paid him no mind. She had eaten souls more powerful than his, after all.

  She cut the golden bonds that Wyvernus had fashioned from honeyed lies and false adoration, and she cut the bonds that Sulema herself had woven in her hunger to be loved. She cut the Web of Illindra which, indeed, stretched in either direction farther than she could see, in so doing freeing her daughter from the wheel of time and destiny.

  Finally, the blade in her hand trembled over the blackthorn bindings, which throbbed and pulsed with the unlight of all the worlds, binding Sulema to the fate of another.

  What of this? she asked Belzaleel in a tone that forbade deception. Answer me true, or I will destroy you here and now. What is this binding?

  It is the fate of this world, for good or for ill, the angry demon hissed. Sever it or leave it be. I care not. He would say no more. She hesitated, and in that moment the decision was made for her.

  The fennec opened her eyes, and as she woke the blackthorn vine began to fade. The tiny fox sprang to her feet. With a yawn, a wink, and a flash of her bushy tail, she began to dash from the clearing, trailing the smoke-thin vine.

  A great shadow fell upon them, and the fox yipped with fear.

  “Kii-yii,” she cried, and tried to run, but the blackthorn slowed her, the land forbade her, and the being that chased her was too powerful to be denied.

  Scaled hide flashed painfully bright in the thin gleam of Shehannam, as gleaming claws reached forth, and wicked teeth gaped wide in a victorious snarl as an immense golden wyvern, the kima’a of Ka Atu, stooped and snatched the fennec up. Those immense wings beat once, twice, three times and he rose into the sky, as untouchable as Akari himself. With a flash and a laugh the wyvern disappeared. The Dragon King was gone from this world.

  He had taken her daughter’s soul with him.

  You should never have left, beloved. His voice rolled across her soul like a hot desert wind. And you most assuredly should never have come back.

  Hafsa Azeina screamed. She roared her fury as her own magic—no match for the wyvern’s—slipped from her grasp like a handful of shadows. She faded as her song faded, but even so, she was not so easily bested.

  She was Annubasta, Eater of Dreams, and her work was not yet finished. Even as she was flung from the Dreaming Lands, even as the way back pulled at her feet, Hafsa Azeina clung deep to the bonds of her stubborn heart. The passage back dragged at her, but to return the way she had come, now that she had been marked out for the Huntress, was folly. Neither did it put her in a position any stronger than she had held before this venture.

  It seemed to her that for all of her efforts, there should be some gain.

  Hafsa Azeina had never been one for games of chance. She held tight to control and left the gambling to her friend Ani. But when hunted, the path most taken was the path best left be. Once more she reached into the void, touched the dream best left dreaming, and one final time she begged for help.

  Help me, she pleaded. Help me help my daughter.

  This time, the Dreamer heard. This time, She answered. Hafsa Azeina felt a wrench as if some great hand had stretched forth, diverting her from her path.

  * * *

  The walls glowed and gave way before her. She stepped forth, not into the false light of Shehannam, not into the red light of some blasted hell as she had feared, but into the welcome light of a fireplace much like the one in her own room. She strode forward one step, two, three, and pop! into an overly warm chamber.

  The overly warm bedchamber of Aasah, shadowmancer to the Dragon King, to be precise. The man was seated crosslegged on a low, round bed piled high with pillows and silks of crimson and gold and bright, hot yellow. He blinked at her twice with those big, pale blue eyes, but that was all the surprise he showed. His large hands cradled a small red book, which he closed carefully and set aside. Then he stood.

  Yeh Atu, get a hold of yourself, woman, Hafsa Azeina snapped at her own distracted mind. You have seen naked men before.

  Yes, whispered some sly, hidden part of herself, but you have never seen such a—

  “Queen
Consort,” Aasah intoned in a voice she could feel through the dragonstone, “this is a… pleasant surprise. How might I serve you?”

  She bit back the first answer that occurred to her, and said instead, “I need your help.” She had not planned to ask him. Then again, she had not planned to come here, at all.

  “Of course.” Aasah nodded, solemn blue eyes seeking to peer through the glamours and lies she wore. “But what makes you think I can help you against the might of Ka Atu, Meissati?”

  He knows.

  “What makes you think I might betray your king?” he continued. “It is not as if we share a bloodline… or a common enemy.”

  “Your king,” not “my king,” she thought. Why would she ask this man, of all men, for aid? And what could she possibly say to entice him toward her cause? Unless…

  Of course.

  She brought forth the flensing knife in its leather wrapping, and held it between them.

  “Oh,” she told him, “but we do share a common enemy.”

  He stared for a long moment at her—at her, not at the bundle she held—and the room deepened, darkened. His eyes deepened, darkened. A shiver ran through the shadows of Atukos as deep away, far away, the Nightmare Man laughed.

  “Let me call my apprentice,” he told her finally, “let me have the servants bring up food and drink. If we are to speak of treason, and war, and dark magics, we are going to need sustenance.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, and cleared her throat. What would Ani say? Hafsa Azeina allowed herself a small smile. “Sustenance… and clothes.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The mantid Pakka had fallen asleep, curled tight in the crook of Daru’s bad arm. Daru worked his way carefully down the endless tunnel he had found, groping ahead and to the side in absolute blackness, using his good arm like a blind and very lost old man.

  It was a winding, twisty little passageway, and again he was reminded uncomfortably of what it must be like to be on the inside of a lionsnake, trying to find his way out. Though the ceiling did not touch his head, it was close enough to ruffle his hair once or twice, and the walls to either side were close enough that a good stumble would result in a bruised shoulder. There were no side passages, or at least he thought not. It was hardly possible to touch both walls at a time, what with his arm being broken and all. The throb, throb, throb of it was as good as a war drum and he marched ever onward, ever downward.