An Ill-Fated Sky

by Darrell Drake

  She and her knobby-limbed opponent mirrored one another, orbiting the centre in suspicious circles. It was nothing like Shkarag’s previous matches, which she’d wrapped up immediately with successful takedowns. He noted how she made claws of her hands; if he didn’t know better, he’d think she were nervous. At least a dozen more agonizingly tense circles and the crowd was growing restless. The suspense had to break. Shkarag must’ve felt the same, because she finally darted in.

  Her takedown reached for his ankle, meaning to use momentum and her shoulder to pluck it from under him, but her speed failed her. The takedown would’ve been punished had she not rebounded so nimbly to the side. Shkarag was hardly on her feet again when her knobby opponent was on her. He moved effortlessly, and though his size hadn’t changed, something about him gave the impression of being much larger than when the fight began. She sidestepped his takedown, went for a throw, was rebuffed by an escape, escaped his counter, and the two ended up in a clinch.

  Now, Tirdad was certain something was off. Shkarag fought so hard she trembled. She gave ground step after step, bad leg almost buckling when under the weight of the clinch. Her veil turned his way, and it was then he knew she had lost.

  His disappointment was short-lived. Only because what came next was so much worse.

  The knobby-jointed wrestler emitted a hoarse laugh, and stepped to the side, which flung her forward and off-balance. He caught her mid-stumble with a sweep that threw her into the ground, immediately jamming a knee in her back. With that same hair-raising grin aimed at Tirdad, he took her by the chin and, with a nauseating crackle, snapped her neck as effortlessly as a stick of cinnamon.

  The braziers popped. A heavy speechlessness endured.

  “I win,” clucked the knobby man. He stood on her corpse, and though he didn’t tower, his presence made it seem as if he unfurled in doing so. He tilted his head. “Time to claim my prize. I’ll have what she was having.”

  Tirdad was blind. He couldn’t see for the sanguine haze that stole his vision. Looking into it obliquely, he could hear Shkarag say ‘pomegranate-red’. The ring of the planets played a counter-melody to her words, the starling-black a silent observer.

  Shkarag. She had a phylactery. She had said as much, said it restored her. A truth he had not forgotten; trouble was, he couldn’t get to it. Just then, all he knew was loss. Supreme and eternal. The thing about loss was that there was no beating it. Deny it, distract it, shape it, avoid it—never fight it. Any defense was untenable, any offense unsustainable. Tirdad had brought this upon himself, had invited loss into his life as destructively as an enemy into his home. He’d killed them both.

  The sting of that truth cut through the red. Like a true leader, Chobin charged by, bellowing the call to attack. “To arms! Everyone else to safety!”

  The screaming in his ears soon took form as his own. It wasn’t until Chobin’s hide shield buckled in fending off a blow meant for Tirdad that his senses fully converged on his body. He’d charged just behind Chobin, blade eager as ever, adrenaline amplified like never before—fire in his veins and a forge in his muscles. His scream went on, rattled in his ears but never broke, joining the sharp chorus of shrieks left by fleeing civilians.

  He ducked a left elbow that passed overhead with such force it made his ears pop, weaved in and around a straight knee that would have obliterated his torso. Tirdad retaliated by plunging his blade into the man’s side, and dragged it down and out. The starling-black sliced with whetted impunity.

  Staying in melee range of such a powerful foe was ill-advised, but something uncanny pushed Tirdad to maintain the offensive. Not once did he so much as entertain a withdrawal. The knobby man cackled hoarsely, breath reeking of cadaver in summer, and lunged forward to try for a grab. Tirdad bobbed under, and he would have been punished with a rising knee fierce enough to tear his head from his shoulders. Lucky for him, the man wasn’t as heavy as he was strong. Chobin intercepted with a charge that sent him hurtling.

  “Fucker’s a div?” asked the marzban.

  The question registered, but the part of him it registered to had been shoved aside. It wasn’t needed. His response was an ear-piercing scream. He bent his knees, muscles bunching, and leapt forward with a ferocity that would have matched that of the half-div, scream following close behind.

  For all its might, and for all its bluster, the div recovered in time for fear to flash across its features. Then, its ragged baying challenged Tirdad, and the two met in a hail of metal and flesh. Tirdad crouched and pivoted beneath the kick meant for his jaw, severing the div’s other leg at the knee as he passed under. It laughed, cartwheeled forward, and by the time it had, the leg had already regenerated.

  “You can’t kill me, Tirdad!” It let out a whooping laugh. “She molded me for your demise. Your fate was sealed before you ever joined your cousin.”

  Again, the words fell on deaf ears. Another scream, and Tirdad rushed in. A clean thrust into its undefended sternum followed by a twist, and he pulled his sword up and straight through its head, which looked much like it smelled. The blade’s unnatural sharpness allowed for maneuvers that wouldn’t have suited it otherwise.

  The div’s skull split in half for a heartbeat before it was whole again, and wearing a shit-eating grin.

  What finally reached Tirdad was the frustration of his sword, its obscene throbbing returning his grasp and urging him to kill the div as if Ashtadukht were there tugging on his hand. With it, the understanding that this div was after him, and that he couldn’t defeat it by normal means.

  He opened his mouth to intone the lines to a lot, reached out to the part of him that now belonged to the celestial theatre . . . and stopped short. Chobin was there, onlookers crowded around corners, a few brave children peeked from rooftops. If he failed, who knows what would befall all the innocents gathered around him.

  “Fuck,” he swore, and tore off into the nearest alley. If it was after him, it’d have to catch him first. And maybe he could lure it far enough away that drawing a lot didn’t pose such a threat to others.

  Tirdad turned corner after corner, stumbling over shapes in the night, crashing through some, with hoarse laughing in pursuit all the while. His eyes would flash up every few turns to maintain a course toward the ridge. Porcelain shattered around his boots as he barreled through the section of the bazaar dedicated to pot makers and into an adjoining alley. More crashes sounded behind him, and though he would have liked to blame it on a delayed fall, he could hear the div’s stride, its summer-stink growing more offensive by the second.

  His next glance at the ridge demanded a double take. Someone was up there, outlined in the gauzy cast of the moon. He felt their gaze follow him even after he looked away, and it came to Tirdad just as the alley emptied him in front of an unassuming flight of stairs that he would have been better off leading the div beyond the city walls.

  A cackle behind him curtailed that thought, spurring him up the stairs and into the pitch-black tunnel that burrowed higher up the ridge. Tirdad didn’t slow down; instead, he relied on instinct to guide him through, following the incline and the walls as best he could at a near sprint.

  When at last he reached the exit, he nearly missed it. The moon had vanished. Only the constellations and a pair of sorely outnumbered planets sneered at him from the heavens. His mind burned where a caustic die had left sizzling clefts. Tirdad felt as if he’d been rolled up in a carpet and flung down a mountain. He braced himself against the exit, wheezing for air, and a braid slipped over his shoulder to smear the sweat of his cheek and blood across his chin.

  “Now Ashta,” remonstrated a voice smooth as leather but rank as a tannery.

  “Don’t you fucking call me that!” he screamed. Or tried to. It emerged as little more than an electrified rasp. Rage rose in his throat, quelled by the bile that joined it and splattered his boots. Screw Venus, and screw the Crab for its elemental phlegm. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized he’d been drawn into an
other of Ashtadukht’s memories.

  “Mmn. I admit that was uncalled for, but you really should take better care of yourself. Can’t we just discuss this over something warm like we usually do?”

  He made to wipe his mouth on his sleeve, but another wave of vomit spewed forth. Now he felt light-headed in addition to everything else. “You went too far, Niyaz. I can’t look the other way any longer.”

  “I meant nothing by it.”

  “You always mean something by it!” He coughed, his throat raw from all the stomach acid. A dry heave doubled him over even as he straightened, which drew a frustrated growl. “The rules were clear,” he said. “Peddle all you like, but no contracts with children.”

  “Can you blame me for trying to pull a fast one on you? I’m a div after all.”

  Having finally gotten his retching under control, Tirdad straightened to face his quarry. She was a shadow against a backdrop of shadows, but he knew that had the moon not scurried away from the theatre, her only outstanding feature would have been how she managed to be so ordinary. She had been pleasant company, her tea a welcome respite. So it made him all the more irritated that she refused follow one simple rule. She’d forced his hand one time too many.

  “Turn back, Ashtadukht. I heard you utter the rites to two lots. You and I both know a star-reckoner’s third tends to be her last. Can’t imagine the failed ones are treating you very well either. So what’s your angle here? Neither of us are fighters.”

  “Menstrual-bathing . . . fuck,” he cursed under his breath. So much for his bluff. Louder then, “I can’t just let you go.”

  “Let me? You’re spent. Your family will cut you down before you catch me.”

  “I . . . huh? I’m not one of your addle-brained clients you can spook with some cryptic reading of squirrel guts or the flights of birds.”

  “You aren’t,” agreed Niyaz. “But self-fulfilling prophecies aren’t unheard of, and it doesn’t hurt to try.”

  He sneered and turned to leave. “If it comes to that,” he said, “they’ll end you when they’re done with me.” With that, he returned from whence he came, eager to put the whole affair behind him, but dragging his feet under the weight of his illness and failed lots. He’d liked Niyaz; she was one of the better ones. Back in the city, he lurched through streets all but dead—with the exception of a young couple out for a tryst. Tirdad passed by without a second glance, his course set for the gate where he knew a star-reckoner’s stamp seal would grant him passage, even at this hour.

  A ways off from the couple he passed another youth, this one kneeling behind a stall and gazing longingly down the thoroughfare. He glanced over his shoulder, then back at the boy. He knew that look. On any other night, he wouldn’t have cared. But this boy, so lanky as to be knobby, compelled him to walk over. “Won’t get anywhere like that,” he said. Naturally, the boy was startled, but that only froze him in place. “There’s a woman at the overlook. You know it? See her, ask for what you desire, agree to the contract. If she isn’t there, look for a red tent tomorrow evening.”

  Moonlight returned as if from behind a cloud, gleaming where the night had been impenetrable, though the sky was crisp and clear. With it came the realization that Ashtadukht’s memory had released him.

  Ahead, standing at the vantage that pored over Ray, there waited a woman. No, he realized, a div. Even the flattering ivory moonlight couldn’t surmount her ordinary appearance. She wore it like armour. It kept her out of mind.

  “Niyaz,” he said, tone even.

  She inclined her head. “You killed her, and now you’re here for me. When I heard . . .” She blew out a sigh. “Haven’t had tea since. Ashtadukht was so hard-headed. We both were. I’m not above admitting it was my doing.”

  “You’re a div after all,” Tirdad stated. “Like you said back then.”

  That drew a long pause, during which Niyaz contemplated his sword. “I took precautions,” she warned at length. “That same night some lovestruck fool devoted himself to me, and I made the most of it. How long can you outrun him? He will prevail.”

  Tirdad couldn’t contain his laugh. “You—” He sucked in a breath and nearly choked on another. “You played into your own prophecy.”

  Another pause, and the confidence in her posture waned as she eyed his sword. “Would you like some tea?” she asked.

  He nearly blurted out a yes. And when a knobby limb reached up and over the lip of the vantage, Tirdad gave it serious but brief consideration. He brandished his sword. “You shouldn’t have done that to Shkarag. I might’ve let you go otherwise. Even taken you up on that tea.”

  “Mmn. Well, if I knew what was good for me I wouldn’t try to turn self-fulfilling prophecies into weapons either.”

  Tirdad swallowed hard. The unpredictability of planet-reckoning was fresh in his mind after the flashback. He could still taste the vomit on his tongue, still feel the burning in his throat. But what really worried him was that he was still in the city—a failure might mean more than just vomit for him and its citizens.

  The knobby human made it over the ledge, which drew a frown. It brought to mind that oblivious boy from Ashtadukht’s past. Had she sent him intentionally, was it a whim, or maybe her playing into the prophecy? It could have been all three. He’d never know. At least he had her memories, which is more than he could have said for her of her brother, or Shkarag of her sister.

  “Kill him,” commanded Niyaz. “But don’t toss him over. I want that sword.”

  “My pleasure,” rasped the man, cracking joints so swollen they disrupted his silhouette. His stalk had only just begun when it was cut short by an axe that chopped clean through his ankle. Even with his regeneration, it was enough to throw off his balance, and all the hissing shape that leapt up the ledge needed to drag him over the side.

  Tirdad and Niyaz shared a bout of silence as each watched the lip, as if expecting one of the two to come climbing back up at any minute.

  “Shkarag has a phylactery,” noted Niyaz. She wrung her hands, head bowed. “That comes as a surprise, especially with how her sister died. How they managed all that time without one is beyond me.” She shook her head. “Should’ve sensed it when I passed you during the festival. That’s Eshm’s stock for you. To regenerate so quickly . . . she must’ve died a great many times for her phylactery to know her so well.”

  “You sure love to talk,” said Tirdad, drawing up beside her, and wondering why she reminded him of Ashtadukht. He saw his cousin’s traits, or what he thought were her traits, everywhere now.

  Niyaz emitted a nervous chuckle, eyeing his blade out of the corner of her eye. “I’m stalling, of course. Hoping to string you along until he returns. Your cousin related her travels to me every now and then. I could regale you. I’m not very good at regaling.”

  “You’re terrible at this.”

  “Pleading for my life? Probably.”

  “No phylactery?”

  “Oh, I have more than I can remember. Soul is vouchsafed across the world.”

  Tirdad inclined his head. “You aren’t a fighter, so you work with what you have.”

  “Reminds you of her, doesn’t it?”

  It did. “No.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she lamented. “That blade . . . it’ll eat through them all.” Niyaz lifted her head to meet his eyes, and only then did he realize she was tying her hair into plaits. “Would you like some tea?” she asked.

  The plaits were a bad move. They infuriated him. Without pretense, he plunged his blade between her ribs, and the satisfied heartbeat it poured into his palm and up his arm felt as if someone were reaching from beyond the bridge of souls.

  Niyaz did not die well. She grasped the blade in trembling hands, trying futilely to pull it out or back off—even trying to turn away in her desperation. Niyaz spoke so fast it all blurred together. “What’s itwhat’sit doing?What’sit?Wait. Wait.Tirdad, please.What’s this? Thisissomuch worse than I th—what’sthiswhat’sthiswhat’s this?
What’s—”

  Then, she collapsed.

  Tirdad trained curious remorse on the fallen div. He knew he only felt it because of who he saw in her, but he felt it all the same. He would have welcomed that warm tea, and over it tales of Ashtadukht’s past during her solitary missions as a star-reckoner. Or just some anecdotes.

  He knelt to wipe his sword on her dress, it thrumming contentedly in his grip. Tirdad gingerly traced its blade from guard to point, the iridescence more vivid in moonlight than during the day. Briefly, he got caught up wondering whether it felt his touch, which would have led to a whole slew of questions if more pressing matters weren’t at hand.

  Shkarag. He approached the edge, but peering over only granted him a view of scores of shadows steeled against the glow of the theatre. He hoped she’d survived. Tirdad gave Niyaz one last look before heading back down through the tunnel. It was more difficult to navigate now that he wasn’t barrelling through it, but he eventually made it down to ground level.

  Shouts rose throughout the city, where patrols and their bobbing torchlight scoured the causeways and alleys, searching building after building. Tirdad didn’t give them a second thought. Instead, he took a right and paced to the area directly below the overlook.

  The knobby-limbed man lay flat on his back, limbs out to his sides as if he’d just fallen over for a night of stargazing. Tirdad blew out a sigh. He didn’t care to contemplate what had transpired between the div and her bodyguard—what kind of pact that boy had made decades ago that it’d come to this.