An Ill-Fated Sky

by Darrell Drake

  As such, a noble was supposed to be inseparable from his mount. Traveling long distances by foot was plain disrespectful. Tirdad had weathered the resultant dishonour because the greater honour lay in escorting Ashtadukht. Afterward, his family had turned their collective backs on him—not that he held that against them. But it meant he hadn’t led the life of a noble for years, so why bother keeping to its tenets?

  Against his will, he’d cast off the only life he knew. From there, apathy had been quick to swoop in. And here, in the form of a beautiful charger, his dear friend was offering him his life back as casually and selflessly as everything he did. Arranged on a nearby slab were all the accoutrements of a Savaran, neat and bearing the insignia of Chobin’s House.

  “All yours,” the marzban inserted into the lengthy silence. He took Tirdad by the scruff, pressing his forehead against Tirdad’s grey-banded hair. “It’s been a long time coming. You deserve this, family or not. You never should’ve lost it.”

  It took a moment for Tirdad to collect himself. He didn’t deserve this. Not after what he’d done. Nevertheless, he’d been given a second chance. Knowing the nature of the gift and seeing it were worlds apart; seeing it gave it substance, pulled it into reality as if drawing a lot.

  Tirdad broke the huddle and wiped the tears from his eyes, drawing in a breath so deep his ribs complained. “I thought . . . thought that life had ended.”

  He felt as if he were in a slow-moving dream, which could be traced back in part to the wine. He clasped Chobin’s shoulder, and tried his best to sound sincere. “You won’t regret this,” he said.

  The marzban’s already indefatigable smile gained a second wind. “Surprise me,” he said, slapping his back and matching the flinch it engendered. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

  Tirdad gradually broke out of his flinch, not all that eager to see how upset his ribs were. To his relief, they’d taken it pretty well.

  “I should get back to it,” said Chobin, indicating the way they’d come. “Do me a favour and take the time you need. I know it’s been a busy few days for you what with the bandits and divs and festival and fucking half-divs.” The marzban ended on that and a smirk as he made for his command center.

  “Thank you,” Tirdad called, to which the marzban just threw a hand over his shoulder to wave it away. Tirdad turned to Shkarag where she leaned into her spear; she’d been characteristically mum. “See? Chobin’s a good man.”

  The half-div aimed a cant square at him and said, “So were you.” She looked away. “I think.”

  He didn’t need that translated. Neither did he disagree with the sentiment. “Yeah.”

  Tirdad approached the charger, which had its head down and one hoof rested on the tip. Its wheat-coloured ears pivoted his way as he approached. He matched its calmness in reaching up to stroke its neck. “I’m Tirdad,” he said, low and soft. “I promise to do my utmost in taking care of you.”

  Motion to his left caught his attention, which turned it on Shkarag. She was standing over his accoutrements, swinging an axe while trained on its head. The first swings were listless, patently experimental. A couple more and she set it to a spin, running through a short routine before returning to the listless swinging.

  He patted the horse’s neck and joined the half-div by his gear. “What’s the verdict?” he asked. “Does it suit you?”

  “. . .” She turned it over in her hand, drawing her fingers over the ornamental flourishes carved into the wood and engraved into the head, across the golden floral overlay that bordered the blade. “Maybe,” she said at length.

  “A bit?”

  She sniggered at that. “An axe is an axe. Either it swings with gusto—” Demonstrably, she chopped the air. “—or it’s a branch crowned with ore, wearing a too-big tunic and doing a šo-lousy impersonation of an axe. A pretender.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re going out of your way to avoid saying you do have an opinion.”

  “An axe is an axe,” Shkarag reiterated.

  Tirdad eyed the one that hung from a loop on her hip. It had quality ornamentation of its own. He recalled her having two axes during their duel, and supposed she’d only recovered the one because it’d been used to chop her apart. “It’s yours,” he said.

  Shkarag hadn’t looked up until now. She cocked her head and stared as if waiting for him to explain what he actually meant, likely because his giving it away so soon if at all was absurd, even to her.

  “Take it,” he insisted. “It’s yours.”

  Her eyes darted down and back. “That goat-fucker gifted it. Just now like some, like some overeager dowry.”

  Tirdad waited. She stared. “Oh,” he finally replied. “That was strangely concise. Throws me off when you’re always so long-winded once you get into it.”

  “. . .”

  “Well,” he said, blinking against the fog that suffused the edges of his vision, “I’d like you to have it. I can’t bring along both axe and mace at the same time, and you’d put it to better use than I ever could. Besides, I always went with the mace. It’d collect dust otherwise.”

  Shkarag held the axe up to better appraise it. She let her spear clatter to the stone so that she could apply a two-handed grip to the haft. Evidently, she approved, because she slid it into the empty loop on her weapon belt.

  “. . .” Shkarag further evinced her approval by turning a crooked smile his way.

  She had the lemon-yellow scarf around her neck, which laid bare the scales that dominated her head, the scars that imposed upon them, and her enlarged pupils. The crisp lapis lazuli scales suited her—as striking as her personality. The scars spoke to her experience, gave further credence to her legend. She’d probably faced and overcome more trials than she could recount. Her eyes, though; her eyes were a thin band as bright as poppies growing around utter darkness—a line easily drawn between the div in her, or in a different light, her illness.

  These were all important characteristics because they were borne of her lineage. What gave them their importance at the moment was how thoroughly captivating he found them.

  He realized he was drunk. He also said this aloud.

  “Maybe,” she agreed, uneven smile vanishing as completely as a crescent moon dipping below the horizon. Her eyes darted away, instead finding the mail-and-iron spangenhelm amidst his gear. He picked it up and rolled it end over end in his hands.

  “Never did like all the armor,” he said. “It’s sweltering at best, though the mail breathes better than lamellar, laminated, or scale. Doesn’t do much good when you’re wearing it over a surcoat with metal plates sewn in.”

  Tirdad glanced up from the helmet, and her abruptly down at it. He found it pleasantly surprising that she was paying attention at all—even if she was only entertaining him—so he went on.

  “You still have to deal with the laminated thigh guards and gauntlets, which can work up a sweat in no time.” He placed the conical helmet where he’d gotten it, and let his attention roam the arrangement until it landed on a tunic.

  “Plum,” he said, noting the colour and indicating it with a tilt of his pommel. “The whole of the empire would be plum if his family had their way. What do you think of it?”

  No response.

  “Well,” he continued, accustomed to her non-replies, “they’re outfitting me, so I don’t suppose I’m in a position to complain.” He swept his gaze over the gear, naming it as he did. “Breastplate, mail, girdle, helm, strips of metal on leather—it’s mighty effective, but you won’t find me wearing it all at once unless I’m made to be shock cavalry. I’m telling you, it’s a veritable oven. Can’t even mount your horse on your own.”

  Tirdad chanced another glimpse of the half-div. She was gone. He turned a circle, squinting in his inebriation as he did. “Shkarag?”

  Hush.

  “Shkarag?” he called.

  Hush, ragged and meaningless.

  He would’ve scowled at it if he could have; instead, he just scowled. “Shk
arag?”

  Hush, thinned to background noise, deprived of the unspoken currents that coursed a hair’s breadth from the surface.

  “Fuck.” His palm shot to the ram’s head pommel as if to check if it too had left him. He hadn’t overlooked the fact that she’d spent her time by his side for what amounted to his every waking moment. Since she’d thrown in with him, she hadn’t found a single reason to disappear. That is what troubled him the most about the hush. It didn’t belong.

  Without a second glance, he left the gifts behind and went in search of Shkarag. Her footprints led him back through the orchard, and into the traffic of the citadel, which warranted another scowl. “Great,” he said. The trail had been trampled away.

  Tirdad spent the better part of the day searching for her. He asked around, but wasn’t all that surprised when he couldn’t find a single soul who had seen her scarf or cuirass. She’d always been able to vanish without a trace.

  When evening rolled around and the waning sun once again smeared honey over the mudbrick city, he called it a day. Shkarag was more than capable of handling herself. But that’d never been the problem.

  Tirdad took the stairs leading to the spring, figuring he’d spend the night away from Chobin’s mirth and all that entailed. He conceded that he was depressed without the half-div around; he’d grown used to her company, had crossed the city many times over in seeking it out.

  He’d grown adept at blaming himself since exiling Ashtadukht—self-loathing came to him naturally by now. At no point did he consider that perhaps she only needed time alone. Too caught up in his mistakes and deathly afraid of losing the scraps that remained of his life, he assumed the worst. She couldn’t die, but she could walk out of his life same as Ashtadukht had.

  So that’s where he ended the night. He’d pushed her away, same as he had his cousin. In doing so, he’d lost to the same fate that had damned him from birth. As he lay there beneath the planets he now belonged to, sword throbbing where he clutched it to his chest, he returned to a ritual abandoned upon Shkarag’s return. He replayed their adventures together until he fell asleep, and any semblance of happiness ran away from his face, his life an empty stage where his companions once were. He always thought she’d come back, always hoped. And when she finally did, she left him with no choice. If he but reached—and only lethargy prevented him—he could have visited those lonely nights during which Ashtadukht contemplated suicide.

  • • • • •

  Eggs. Rotten, rancid, and like sulfurous steam wafting over his flesh. It was the strangest thing, because within the stench there mingled the savoury smell of breakfast, of the omelettes that had become a cornerstone of his morning routine.

  For the second day in a row, he awoke to an odd scene—though decidedly more striking. Shkarag lay close enough that her steady breathing tickled his face, and explained the stench. He curled his lip, but only as long as it took him to become acclimated to the smell.

  Tirdad lay there for a moment, watching the slight movements of her lips that betrayed an inner dialogue, the tips of her fangs where they curled back into her mouth. In other circumstances, he would have either wondered what she was up to, or written it off as her natural eccentricities. For the time being, he was just happy to see her.

  Sober and in a better mood, it came to him how much he’d overreacted the night before. He felt silly and embarrassed, but acknowledged the authenticity of it all. The saying that one should consider a decision first while drunk, second while sober rang true as ever, and now that it was on his mind, Shkarag had advised him to do the former more often.

  He sat up, meaning to speak with her, but her gaze didn’t follow him or flicker as it should have.

  “Oh,” he said. He figured she had entered one of her faraway stares, and wondered whether it’d be inappropriate for him to ask her what exactly went on during those unresponsive stretches.

  He entertained the possibility of them being a state of absolute quiet—an escape from the reality that caused her so much grief. Perhaps it was a time for revisiting what was no doubt a storied past, turning over those nests beneath which she so often stowed memories. Maybe she simply thought better without distractions.

  Tirdad went about his morning ritual: praying, tying his sacred girdle, and cleansing in the spring. He devoured the omelette, which to his dismay had gotten cold. When he’d finished and she still showed no signs of having sobered, he frowned, but thought nothing of it—reeking as it was, he’d awoken to her breathing, after all.

  It wasn’t until he went to retrieve his sword, which she had clutched in one hand between them, that he noticed the grape leaf bunched between her palm and its golden scabbard.

  He took a knee and leaned in to further inspect it. Food was commonly wrapped in leaves, so it was only out of the ordinary because she didn’t make a habit of bothering with conventional meals. But the festival had only just passed; he figured she had likely scavenged something from the sweetmeats that remained.

  Putting it out of mind, and careful to avoid stirring her, he eased his blade from its scabbard. The usual greeting was warm in his grasp. A heartbeat that had once been repulsive now soothed him. Transfixed on its nacreous sheen, he pondered its nature.

  With it, he had slain star-reckoner, yazata, div, and man alike. Come to think of it, a star-reckoner had been the first to fall to the blade, and neither yazata nor div had matched the utter satisfaction it’d communicated through its hilt. Not by a long shot. It was almost as if some of Ashtadukht’s will remained. Tirdad, no longer hopeful but willing to entertain a fancy here and there, liked to think a part of her personality had been preserved.

  There was more to it than that, of course. More to the blade. Twice now, he’d been given further insight. The yazata had warned him, said he didn’t know what he was dealing with, though it hadn’t been forthcoming with the details. Niyaz had looked at it with a fear that ran deeper than that of a mundane weapon. She had spoken of its power to destroy her many phylacteries, had wanted it for herself.

  This still left Tirdad in the dark. That no one bothered to explain themselves irritated him to no end. Speak in riddles all you like, but if you’re going to be ominous, speak straight. Otherwise, you’re just drawing a person’s nerves taut as a bowstring, and giving them no outlet through which to loose.

  He tilted the blade, scowling at the thought, and watching the iridescence run as if it were paint clamouring to dribble over the edges.

  Beyond it, the grape leaf caught his eye once more. Tirdad shifted his focus to the fine black residue that clung to one of its folds. He squinted, blinking and trying to remember where he’d seen it before. His memory wasn’t as reliable as it used to be, but damned if he hadn’t—he dropped the sword. “Fuck.”

  Tirdad threw caution to the wind, prying her fingers from the scabbard one by one so he could get at the leaf. Once he had it in his hand, all it took was a sniff for him to confirm his suspicion. The very same drug Ashtadukht had taken and administered.

  He let the leaf fall free. A chill like Saturn’s icy glare gripped his spine. This path was all too familiar, as if he were doomed to relive the same dreadful journey over and over.

  He sat. Because he didn’t trust himself to stand, and because he was already resigned to waiting. Tirdad alternated between staring at his sword where it’d clattered to the stone, and checking for signs of the drug subsiding. Eventually, he made a circuit of it by adding the city below.

  When at last she groaned, he was ready to berate her for being such a toenail-swallowing fool. It never came to that. He had the wherewithal to catch his tongue, which was more than he could say for her.

  “I’m a . . . coward,” she intoned. Where her attention would have darted, it floated like leaves on a lazy creek. “I’m . . .” Her voice moved much the same.

  She tried to get up, but it was obvious her limbs wouldn’t listen. All she managed was to roll herself onto her back.

  „،ترسو
”

  she spat.

  „.ترسو ،ترسو ،ترسو ،ترسو ،ترسو ،ترسو”

  The language she spoke was entirely foreign; all he could make out was that she was repeating something. He knelt beside her, turning a frown on the way her head would list from side to side.

  “Shkarag?” he asked, making an effort to wring the tension out of his tone and keep it low. Ashtadukht had admonished him plenty for speaking too sharply or loudly when she was coming down from her highs.

  She canted toward him, but not directly. Her eyes roamed the sky, only oscillating over him as a matter of their wayward course.

  „،ترسو”

  Tirdad sighed. Whatever she was saying, her carriage of its intonations seemed appropriate, as if she were more than fluent, native even. It must’ve had some special meaning. He doubted she’d have any recollection of having repeated it once lucid; he’d inquire all the same.

  He hung his head and expelled another sigh. He loathed his helplessness. Celestial theatre at his fingertips, planets at his behest—might enough to fell a yazata. And some good that did him. Here he was kneeling before a dear friend who teetered on the cusp of a dangerous spiral, and he hadn’t the remotest clue what to do about it. If his failure to save his cousin had taught him anything, it’s that he was unprepared to do anything for Shkarag.

  She saved him the trouble.

  One minute Shkarag was muttering in her foreign tongue, the next she was posted on one arm, elbow trembling under the load, her rotten-egg breath as subdued as her mind where it tickled his nose and cheek. Her gaze still followed its vagrant path from nowhere to nowhere, but it now did so directly in front of him. She lifted a hand, unsteady and likely meant to be a claw if the asynchronous curling and uncurling of digits was any indication. It stopped short of her head, hovering instead at shoulder level.

  „،ترسو”