The Forbidden City

by Deborah A. Wolf

  Her hair had been bleached and stiffened with lye, dyed with saffron and henna and woad so that it stood up from her head in a riot of color like a lionsnake’s plumes. Her ears and nose had been pierced and hung with gold. Gold dust had been pinched into her cheeks and lips and nipples. Dressed only in a loincloth of garish red and yellow, she was as garnished and tasty a dish as ever the hearth mothers might set out before a hungry crowd.

  Hannei cut her eyes to the side, but at the sight of Noura—dressed as she was dressed, in vile imitation of Ja’Akari—she closed them again. The other warrior’s tears were no shame, she supposed, though her own had been baked to salt in the heat of her lover’s pyre.

  The blood-maddened crowd reached its frenzied climax, shrieking and chanting and jeering as yet another life ground to an inglorious halt, and the pit slaves’ heads turned to the small arched door to bear witness as the most recent of their number was dragged from the arena. This last one had been Mamouk, a bright-eyed youth from a northern land, with skin dark as good coffee and hair like a sunset. Now he was so much offal, red-black meat and white bone, his lower jaw torn so that it flopped against his chest as they dragged his sad corpse away. A fine meal for the sea serpents, payment for safe passage of some merchant’s ship.

  Perhaps he was meant to sustain what few of them remained that evening. Hannei had long suspected that the pit slaves’ meat came from the very bodies into which it was fed. No mind. It was sweeter than goat, and more tender.

  A shadow moved in the corner and laughed with the sound of teeth on old bones.

  If you cannot save the living, the voice of old Theotara said, soothe the dying. Send their spirits off with a drink, a song, and fragrant smoke… and never forget to loot the bodies.

  Or eat them, Hannei thought.

  For a full two-moon now, maybe more, Hannei had been plagued by visits from those who should have long since traveled down the Lonely Road. Ani would have scolded her to pull in sa and ka, lest the shadows feed upon her spirit. Dreamshifter would have burned her with those golden eyes and demanded to know how she had drawn the attention of the dead, but neither of those women was near, to chastise or to save her. Even the voice of a ghul was welcome when it spoke of home. So Hannei let sa and ka roil around her like blood in hungry waters, and quietly longed for a glimpse of her lover.

  Tammas would touch me, though he has no hands. He would hear me speak, though I have no tongue. He is not long dead, there is hope…

  Where there is life, there is hope, the shade of Theotara hissed. But there is no life here. There is no hope for you, ehuani.

  Ehuani.

  Entanye stood with the other rehazot by the big wooden door, arms folded across her chest, face utterly expressionless. The pit mistresses and masters waited, Hannei knew, for the crowd to quiet and digest their last meal, then to grow restless again. The noise would grow again, like an insatiable monstrous child demanding the bloody teat. More lives would be tossed out to assuage that hunger. It was an art form, Entanye had told them, laughing. She was not laughing now, however. Rehaza Entanye frowned as she stared at Hannei, eyes darting from her to the corner and back again.

  She sees them, Hannei realized, chillflesh raising along her arms and the back of her neck. She sees the shadows.

  Though the crowd was still somnolent, mumbling and growling, Entanye jerked her chin at the two men who stood ready, gloved hands on the thick ropes. They heaved and pulled, jaws set and muscles bulging as the great wooden doors began to move. Sated or not, the crowd roared to life at the prospect of new death.

  “That one,” Rehaza Entanye said, voice bored and hand waving languidly toward Noura. “And that one. Let us see how well the Zeera fares against the Sear.” Hannei stared at the pitmistress, but the woman turned her head away, eyes slipping past like a serpent through cold waters. The once-warrior realized two things, in quick succession.

  The pitmistress meant her to die.

  At that, Hannei felt nothing.

  Noura straightened her back and gave the outsiders a last haughty glance. She was a queen among swine, that one, despite the collar and gold and rouge, a vash’ai among goats, and they shied back as she passed. Hannei followed, and the shadows came after, whispering excitedly of the feast to come.

  Akari soared high, indifferent to his daughters as they stepped out to meet their doom. Slavers’ gold flashed upon their faces, their bodies had been painted and adorned for the amusement of lesser peoples, but still they were daughters of the Sun Dragon, tall and proud beneath his blind eye. Noura turned to Hannei and smiled so wide and bright and beautiful that the shadows fell back.

  “Sister,” she said. “Come… it is a good day to die.”

  Just like that, the shadows fell away from Hannei. She returned the smile, and took her new sword sister’s hand.

  A good day to die, she agreed. None better.

  Swords had been left for them, outlander-forged shamsi thrust into the sand. They took these, tested the weight and length of them. The swords were passable, if ugly. Shoulder-to-shoulder the warriors faced the far corner of the arena, waiting to see what form their deaths might take.

  The crowd hushed as the red doors drew wide.

  A small figure stepped out onto the sand.

  Hannei blinked as Noura grunted and jostled her shoulder.

  What…?

  It was a small girl, no older than the dreamshifter’s little apprentice Daru. Her skin was dark as night, and glittered all over as if she had been rolled in gemstones. She drew near and they could see that her eyes were pale yellow, slit like a cat’s. Those eyes were wide with terror. She shook with it, she stank of it, even as she walked across the sand to meet them. She was naked, rouged and gilded even as they were, and her hands were empty.

  Hannei turned her head and met Noura’s shocked gaze. Are we to kill an unarmed child, then?

  No, Noura mouthed, shaking her head.

  No, Hannei agreed. There was no beauty in this.

  They held out their shamsi at arm’s length, ready to drop the blades into the sand and die at the hands of the pitmistresses rather than murder a child…

  Then the child began to dance.

  Her expression changed. She threw her arms wide, head jerking back so that her throat was exposed and the cloud of hair about her head bobbed. Small feet beat rhythmically upon the pounded sand, rum-bum-ba-bum, as her body undulated. She whirled, eyes fierce, thin arms and legs whipping around her like weapons. She was a tiny warrior defying their swords, and it was glorious.

  Sword still held at arm’s length, Hannei gaped first at the child and then at her sword sister. What? she mouthed. How were they to fight this, this dancing child? Noura shrugged, round-eyed as their sword arms dropped to their sides.

  “A warrior does not murder children…” she began.

  Then the shadows woke.

  They rose around the little girl’s feet, faint at first as if they were dust kicked up in the wake of her frenzied dance. Shadows twined about her ankles, legs, and hips like snakes, thickening to opacity, till the child’s form could scarce be seen in their midst. The arena darkened, and shadows drew like a black touar across the face of Akari Sun Dragon.

  The Ja’Akari crouched, swords readied. Hannei, who moments before had cared so little whether she lived or died or was thrown down the throat of a dragon, felt the blood pounding in her ears in time to the child’s movements.

  What is this? her mind cried. What is this? Though she had been sword sister to a dreamshifter’s daughter, Hannei had never much liked magic. Belatedly, she drew in sa and ka, lest the roiling clutch of shadows strip the soul from her body and leave her deathless.

  The dancing girl faced them, body twisting this way and that, yellow eyes and star-studded skin gleaming within the patch of night sky she had woven about her body. Hands no bigger than a bird’s claws clasped before the thin chest. She raised them to point…

  …and the shadows struck.

 
A thick maelstrom formed about the child’s body, faster and thicker, till a swaying column of black rose from the arena and their opponent was entirely obscured. Hannei’s neck prickled as she looked up, up… There were voices in that shadow storm, voices as soft and hateful as the whispers that fell from her own tongueless mouth in the dead of night as she wept of vengeance and loss. The voices tore at her, at the edges of her so recently raw and unprotected, as the column grew in weight and depth. It took on the form of a massive black hooded viper with a belly full of dancing malice. Great yellow eyes, bright as stars, turned toward them as the thing hisssssssed and readied to strike.

  “Ai yeh,” Noura breathed, and her voice shook. “It is a good day to die. I am sorry, Sister.”

  I am sorry, child, the night snake echoed, laughing with Sareta’s voice. Thus perishes the line of Zula Din. Then it struck.

  Shocked or no, the Ja’Akari were no easy meat. They whirled back-to-back, facing toward and then away from each other, even as the passing of shadows kicked dust up into their faces. Sunblades rose and fell and rose again. As her blade struck the thing’s flesh, though it was insubstantial, it seemed to pull against Hannei’s palm as if she had tried to cut into a swift-moving river. The thing shrieked, a whisper of sound half-heard and half-imagined, and it drew back from their dull blades, rearing high and swaying stark against the sunlight.

  Best to cut the taint out now, it hissed, still mocking Hannei with the voice of the First Warrior who had killed her. Cut it out. Bones in the sand. It prepared to strike again.

  Cut it out, Hannei thought, and the sky cleared as Akari Sun Dragon smiled his approval. Of course. She hissed between her teeth to catch Noura’s attention, gestured with a sweep of her empty palm and a flash of sunlight upon her soulless blade.

  That way. Noura nodded, eyes flashing, and took off running toward the crowd. The shadow snake narrowed its eyes, gave a long hiss, and struck. Its snout collided with the front row of seats, raising a chorus of bloody screams from the audience as the monster shook its head and sought its prey. Deer leaps away became dancing sand-dae, and Noura Ja’Akari spun in a cloud of sand.

  Hannei scarce spared the Zeerani warrior a second glance. She ran, sword tucked tight to her hips, chin tucked against her chest as she prayed to the uncaring sky. She prayed for her life, not because it was worth living, but because the voice of Sareta had reminded her of her purpose.

  Let me live, she prayed to Akari Sun Dragon, to the bloodied sand beneath her pounding feet, to the uncaring lapis sky. Let me live, and I will bring your wrath upon them. Let me live, and I will shed such blood that even you might be satisfied.

  Let me live.

  Even as the shadow snake caught its prey’s scent and struck out at Noura, Hannei reached the far end of the arena, and the dancing child. This close, she could see through the dark veil to the small girl, sweating and weeping with the effort it took to dance her magic. Thin arms trembled, thin legs shook. She was younger than Hannei had thought, a child of eight perhaps, and her face was wet with tears. No doubt she had been taken from her family by slavers and lived a life of misery. No doubt she had vengeance of her own to wreak.

  Hannei did not need to brace her heart. It was long gone to dust and ash, a cup of poison spilled upon the sand. She raised her blade high and brought it down in a sweeping motion, catching the child just above her neck and cleaving the small body nearly in two. The child fell to the ground without so much as a whimper, taking the false shamsi with her. Behind Hannei the shadow snake burst in a silent explosion, shadows fleeing in terror from this new truth.

  The crowd was silent.

  Akari take you all, Hannei thought, and sprayed spit at them. To the hells with you.

  Noura jogged over to her. Her face was grim, eyes bleak as Hannei wrenched her sword from the child’s hacked corpse. When she wiped the blood off on one thin leg, the warrior grimaced.

  “Ja’Akari do not kill children,” she said, voice low and hard. “There is no beauty in this.”

  No, Hannei agreed, as she slid the blade between Noura’s ribs. But I am Kha’Akari. The only beauty left to me is vengeance. It was a clean death, a good death. It was, as Noura herself had admitted, a very good day to die.

  Hannei picked up the sword of the Ja’Akari. She kissed it, and she kissed the blade newly blooded, and thrust them up toward Akari Sun Dragon. It was a promise, no less true for being silent.

  The crowd went wild.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  His feet hurt.

  His feet hurt, his back hurt—Leviathus was so tired his hair hurt. Life as a pirate, he was beginning to suspect, was not as glamorous in true life as it was in his books.

  Perhaps nothing is, he mused. Perhaps one who has experienced life mostly through books is doomed to be disappointed by the real thing.

  He sat crosslegged upon the deck of the empty ship, examining the roughened skin of his knuckles by the light of a small lantern. He winced at the little red crosshatch marks that made a bloody map there. Mahmouta had insisted that he train as a fighter, and so far that training consisted mostly of pounding a burlap-wrapped board until his skin was raw, then plunging both hands into salted, scalding water. It was too early to tell yet whether the technique would be successful in toughening the skin, but it had certainly inspired him to foul language.

  Leviathus turned his hands over and winced again at the sight of his blistered palms. It was too much, he supposed, to hope they might be healed by morning.

  “Five years,” he grumbled. That was the time he had promised Mahmouta, in exchange for food, lodging, training, and a share of booty. So far the only booty he had realized was the sight of his fellow pirates’ bare bottoms as they shat over the side of the ship. “Five years. Sixty two-moons. One hundred and twenty small-moons. Not that anyone is counting, mind you.”

  “Counting the moons does not help,” a high, sweet voice chided. “Neither does picking at your blisters—they will just hurt worse tomorrow. Let it be. Blisters heal, and the moons roll across the sky, and it is better to just let things be as they will be.”

  He turned to see Totoua standing barefoot on the deck behind him, grinning and holding a pot of salve. “Hey, little man,” Leviathus said to the boy. “Why are you not asleep in your mother’s tents? You should not be on the ship at night. There are serpents, remember? If your mother catches you here, she will likely beat us both.”

  “My mother is no more likely to beat me than I am to eat a serpent,” Totoua said, laughing. He handed Leviathus the pot, which smelled of cool mint. “I would rather face the serpents than your na’iyeh—but I think they have lost your scent. I have not seen them in some time. Maybe you do not need to sleep on the boats anymore? Maybe they got tired of chasing you? Anyway, it is a beautiful night, and I like sleeping on the ship.” Grinning, he hopped up to sit on the railing.

  Leviathus rubbed the salve into his blistered palms, shaking his head. He could scarce keep up with the child’s words as they skipped like pebbles across the surface of his thoughts.

  “I was told that once the na’iyeh have a scent, they do not stop hunting until they catch someone or unless they are killed. I do not know where they might have gone, but as they have not yet managed to catch me, and as I am fairly certain that I have not managed to accidentally kill them, I will sleep on the ship as often as I can. You are right though, my friend—it is a beautiful night.”

  The sands were singing, and the serpents as well, far enough away that it was a lovely thing to listen to. Moonslight danced upon the Dibris. It was a good night not to have been beheaded, or eaten, or dissolved and turned into a nightmare plant. A very good night to be free. Leviathus took a deep breath of the clean night air, and closed his eyes so that he might better listen to the songs of the night.

  Free.

  A thump sounded from below, a deep shuddering sound like someone striking a wooden drum with a hammer. Thud. Thud-thump. Leviathus leaped to his feet, staggering a
s the ship rocked violently.

  “Serpents!” Totoua shouted. He clung to the ship’s railing with his arms and legs, eyes rolling white in terror. “’Ware serpents!” The ship lurched and the boy screamed, arms flailing as he lost his grip and slid over the side. Leviathus only just managed to catch the back of the boy’s trousers with one torn hand as he fell.

  Please, Divines, no, he begged, more fervently than he had ever asked for himself. Not the boy, not the boy, please. Take me, take me, only leave the boy.

  Totoua, skinny as a brown eel, began to slip out of his trousers. Leviathus flailed with his other hand and was able to get a handful of hair. Cussing, straining, and praying, he hauled the lad to safety. They collapsed together upon the wooden deck.

  The ship shook one final time, timbers squealing in protest. His lantern toppled over, sputtered, and went out. Then the world went still, as if the lonely shepherd girl in the old stories, who played the song of life, paused to draw a breath. Totoua curled into a tiny, shivering ball. Leviathus shielded the boy’s body with his own, turning his face so that he could see the constellation Bohica, she who guided soldiers safely home.

  Divines, help us, he prayed. Help him.

  A shadow deeper than prayer, darker than the night, spread across the sky like ink, blocking all light and hope of salvation as an enormous sleek head rose dripping from the river. Two eyes, bigger than his head, pale as moons, peered down at Leviathus as he lay curled around the terrified child.

  The giant head wove back and forth, back and forth, glistening in the light of the moons and stars. The serpent opened its maw and a tongue flicked out, flicking through the air like a whip as it tasted the air. Scaled lips pulled back, revealing row upon row of jagged white teeth. It blinked again. Air hissed through its teeth and the beast’s throat swelled as it sucked in a long, slow breath. Leviathus flattened himself upon the ship’s deck, his only wish that the thing would eat him and leave the boy.