With Blood Upon the Sand

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “My good Kings, here we find Taram, a man particularly gifted, I am told, with the flora of the desert, their distillations, how they might be combined for different effects, and so on.”

  When Ihsan made no move to say more, Azad became irritated. “Do you expect me to conduct my questioning down here?”

  “I do,” Ihsan said simply.

  Azad’s face fell. His entire frame slumped. “This cannot continue. All of this would be infinitely easier in my palace.”

  “As would acting in the open,” Ihsan replied. “But this is dark business, Azad, and I will not let them out of my proverbial sight. And before the question arises, no, the room where you conduct your experiments will not be moved from my palace.”

  “It slows everything I do,” Azad breathed.

  “Then it is slowed. I’ll not leave this to chance, so you may as well move beyond it and ask whatever it is you wish to ask.”

  Azad stared. “I work better alone.”

  “Perhaps, but you’re working too slowly for my tastes. We will conduct our questioning here, and I will oversee your work until we are done.”

  “But—”

  “You said you were close,” Ihsan broke in.

  “I am.”

  “Then this will all be over shortly.” Ihsan waved to Taram. “You may begin.”

  “Well.” Zeheb smiled impishly at the two of them, an amused expression on his jowly face. “I leave my two good Kings to the task at hand.”

  Zeheb left, leaving Azad staring balefully at Ihsan. But Ihsan knew it would pass. It always did.

  “Are there more?” Azad asked.

  “Yes, there are two more scholars for you to speak with.”

  Finally Azad breathed out, scraped one of the empty chairs toward him, and sat. “Let’s begin with what you know of the adichara.”

  What Taram must have thought of all this Ihsan couldn’t guess. But he was an intelligent man. Likely he knew where this would all end. Yet he uttered no complaints. He didn’t plead with them. He merely bowed his head, said, “Of course, my King,” and began a recitation of the properties of the adichara—roots, branches, thorns, and blooms.

  Very good, Ihsan thought. Very good, indeed.

  Chapter 27

  EMRE STRODE ALONG THE STREETS of the Shallows with a bagful of coin, Frail Lemi towering at his side. Five years ago he would’ve walked through this part of town and thought someone like him the perfect mark. He could picture the setup. A boy distracting him ahead, another behind, nicking the bag with a knife, more ready to nab coins if they fell. A few might get roughed up. One or two might even be killed for it, but a bag this size was the sort of thing the gutter wrens in the Shallows would take risks for.

  Having Frail Lemi at his side was a deterrent, certainly, and a considerable one at that, but it wasn’t the most significant. That honor fell to his status as a scarab, a soldier of the Moonless Host. Everyone in this part of the city knew that if they laid but a finger on him, they would answer to the Host.

  There might be some newcomers stupid enough to make a grab at the bag, or challenge him for it—foreign toughs who didn’t know any better, or the truly desperate—but if they did, everyone nearby would close in, knives in hand, and take care of things as quickly as they’d started. Emre could see it in the way they watched him with looks of respect, with the sort of careful nods he’d seen them giving to Hamid for months now.

  Emre was just about to turn down an alley when he noticed a street tough leaning against a building, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t doing anything threatening, just watching Emre and Frail Lemi, but he was watching closely. The hood pulled over his head hid his face, but there was something familiar about him.

  Frail Lemi cracked his knuckles loudly. “Want him and me to have a little chat?”

  A little chat . . . More than likely the man would end up bloody and writhing on the ground if Frail Lemi came within two paces of him. “No, leave him be.”

  It was only as the man began walking away that Emre remembered where he’d seen him. The sleeves of his shirt had hidden his arms, but when he’d pushed himself off the wall, Emre saw the scars crisscrossing his hands. The sun on his chin and neck revealed more scars, more than Emre had ever seen on a man.

  It was Brama, a boy he and Çeda and Tariq had occasionally run the streets with. He’d been through something terrible with Çeda years ago, and everyone thought he’d died. But he’d returned to Sharakhai months later, sporting those scars. What had happened to him Emre hadn’t learned. He only knew that Çeda had helped to extricate him from the trouble he’d been in. Now he lived in the Knot. Called himself the Tattered Prince. It was said he had a gang of some sort. Drugs, maybe. Emre didn’t know.

  By his side, Frail Lemi was growing restless. “How many more, Emre?”

  “Two more,” Emre said, giving the dwindling form of Brama one last look before heading down the alley.

  “Two more,” Frail Lemi said. “Two more. Then we’re off to the baths, like you said. The one with the hot stones.”

  “Just like that, Lemi. Hot stones on our back, the two of us relaxing like Kings.”

  “Like fucking Kings.” He stretched his neck, as he’d done the past dozen times he’d mentioned it. “Need it something fierce, Emre. Neck hurts bad.”

  “I know. We’ll be there soon enough,” Emre said as they walked into the open doorway of a tenement. They took the stairs up to the fourth floor, the smell of curry and lemon and roast lamb making Emre’s mouth water. They wove through the halls, passing doorways in various states of disrepair, some with carpets or blankets strung across them, others open to let the breeze wander through the building. Many nodded at their passage. Emre didn’t bother nodding back any longer, but Lemi nodded to every single one, a serious look on his face.

  “How many more?” Lemi called.

  “Just two. Wait here, Lemi.” Emre ducked under the carpet that served as the door and entered a room with a grid of eight simple pallets laid out over the floor. Six of the pallets were occupied by young men, the other two by girls. Most were snoring. An old man was sitting by the window on a wicker chair, a pile of pistachios on the windowsill next to him. He took one, cracked the shell between his teeth. He spit the shells into his hand and dropped them between his feet, where a pile of them lay. The man’s eyes were opaque and hauntingly white in the dimness of the room. As Emre navigated the floor, trying not to wake anyone, the man turned toward him, the wicker chair creaking under the movement. “Who’s come?”

  “A friend,” Emre said.

  “Ah.” He chewed on another pistachio, white eyes staring sightlessly. “Come to pay for the souls you bought.”

  Emre had just opened the top of the bag slung from his shoulder, but he paused. Of the twenty stops he’d made already, this was the first to say anything against him, or for that matter even mention the reason behind the payment. “If that’s the way you want to put it.” Emre began counting out coins.

  “Seems to me that’s how it is. No sense dancing around it.”

  On the other stops, the money went to the families of those who’d given their lives during the attack on the collegia grounds. But not here. This man, Galliu, was different. He found orphans for the cause. He promised them they would find themselves princes and princesses in the farther fields. He promised them their friends or sweethearts would be treated with kindness by the Host afterward. He promised them their friends and family would be marked so that they could find their way to them when they passed beyond these shores.

  “They’ve helped a greater cause,” Emre replied. “They deserve to be paid for it.”

  “You believe that? That they serve a greater cause?”

  “Don’t you?” Emre still wasn’t sure if Galliu was an earnest man or a swindler.

  Galliu snorted while spitting the she
lls into his palm. “Here’s what I know, though you likely don’t want to hear it.” He chewed and swallowed. “Our bones will be buried in the sand, as will the rest of the soldiers’ in the Al’afwa Khadar, long before anything changes in this city.”

  “A King lies dead.”

  Galliu tilted his head, a perplexed, almost angry look on his face. Sunlight slanted neatly across his face, making him look like the god of chance, of light and dark. “And what does that prove?”

  “If one can die, they all can. We’re winning.”

  “Winning . . .” Galliu laughed, an old saw biting into fresh wood. “Let me ask you something. Were you able to kill all the Kings with but a wave of your hand, what do you suppose would happen?” He grabbed a nut and poked it at Emre. “I’ll tell you what. Their sons and daughters would sit their thrones ere they grew cold, as the freshly crowned King Alaşan has already done with his father, the Wandering King’s. They will extend the rule of their fathers over this city. The sands of the desert do not change.”

  “Even the mighty can fall to the shifting sands of the Great Mother.”

  “But will you and I be alive to see it?”

  Emre finished counting out the coins and cinched the top of the bag. “I don’t care if I’m alive. What I do now will help others.”

  “Or maybe what you do, what we all do, will raise their ire and give them four hundred years more.”

  Emre took Galliu’s hand and placed the golden rahl into his palm. “Why do you find boys for the Host if you don’t believe it will help?”

  With incredible speed and precision, Galliu stacked the coins along the windowsill into eight neat piles, one for each of the young men he’d sent to battle, then took a single coin from each and dropped them into his own purse at his belt. “A man has to eat.”

  “You traffic in the lives of others. You’re telling me it’s not for coin and coin alone?”

  Galliu leaned back in the chair once more, scratching the white stubble along his chin and staring across the city as if Emre no longer existed. “Make no mistake, my wayward son. We are the same, you and I. At least I’m man enough to admit it.”

  Emre wanted to say something, give him some sharp reply, but what did it matter? He didn’t need Galliu’s approval. The old man delivered the recruits Macide needed. It was as simple as that. And yet, as he left the small room with Frail Lemi following, he wondered. Did he traffic in lives? He wished it wasn’t the case, but just then no words had ever felt truer.

  “How many more, Emre?”

  “Just one, Lemi.”

  They went to another house, where a woman no older than Emre accepted the last of the coins. She acted no differently than the others. There was gratitude in her voice and sorrow in her eyes, and yet Emre felt as though he’d been the one to kill her husband, as though he’d been the one to order the attack on the collegia that had sacrificed every last soldier the Host had sent to fight the Spears and the Maidens. Consumed by the devil’s trumpet as they were, they’d fought until they were dead or wounded so badly it made no difference. And those who had by some miracle survived had been taken by the poison hours later.

  “My tears for your loss,” Emre said, a thing he’d said to no one else that day.

  “Keep your tears.” She held the coins tightly. “Keep them for the day we are all free, then weep with joy, for Adram walked with his eyes wide open.”

  A heartening thought, and yet it was Galliu’s words that haunted him like a restless spirit. Make no mistake. We are the same, you and I.

  As he left the building, Emre turned to Frail Lemi, who leaned against the wall, arms folded like a shisha den guard across his chest. “Now we go, right Emre?”

  The grin on his face was wide as the Haddah in spring. In all honesty, after this day of paying for the dead, he was looking forward to the bathhouse as much as Frail Lemi. Emre was just about to tell him so when a ricksha rattled to a stop a few paces away. Emre was about to bark at the skinny driver to move along when he realized who was sitting in the seat, half-hidden by the canopy’s fringe, wearing a fine desert khalat.

  “Hold on, Lemi,” Emre said as he took a step toward the ricksha. He nodded to Ishaq, Macide’s father and the supreme leader of the Moonless Host.

  Ishaq nodded back, his eyes expressive, curious, almost humorous. “Come, sit by my side, Emre. A talk between us is long overdue.”

  “Of course,” Emre said, but he made no move toward the ricksha. He turned back to where Frail Lemi was standing and said, “Wait for me here, Lemi.”

  Lemi’s gaze darted between Emre and Ishaq. “We’re going, right Emre? We’re going to the bathhouse?”

  “We’ll go a bit later. After I get back.”

  “You said one more. You finished them all, and now it’s time to go.” Lemi was flexing his arms, balling his hands into fists. “You said one more.” Gods, his eyes. They looked confused, like a boy preparing to do something very foolish. The last time he’d seen Frail Lemi like this was at an oud parlor. He’d asked for a song from the musician, who’d played it with gusto. When Lemi had asked for it again, he’d nervously agreed and played it a second time, but when Lemi had asked for a third, the man had refused, and Lemi hadn’t taken kindly to it.

  Emre had been sitting there beside Hamid and Darius, all three of them watching the exchange, knowing what was going to happen. Hamid had just stood and was raising his hands, speaking calmly to Lemi, when Lemi charged and crashed his fist into the musician’s face. He fell on the poor man, blow after blow thundering down, turning the musician’s once-handsome face into a bloody cut of pork. By the time they’d left, the musician’s clothes, his oud, the carpets in that corner of the room, had been layered in red.

  “Lemi, I promise you, we’ll go. Just a little while, and then we’ll go.”

  “You’re going to leave?” Frail Lemi pointed at Ishaq. “With him?”

  Before Emre could answer, Ishaq whistled sharply, twice. “Come,” he said, motioning Frail Lemi closer. Ishaq held out one hand, but Lemi ignored it, continuing to bunch his fists, the muscles along his arm rippling. His chest worked like a dirt dog’s his first time in the killing pits, but Ishaq appeared not to notice. He flicked his hand again, and this time, Frail Lemi raised one meaty hand and placed it in Ishaq’s.

  “Orange peels,” Ishaq said. “Do you like them?”

  Frail Lemi blinked.

  “Orange peels and clove. We take them into the caves far to the west of the Great Shangazi. We steep them in hot water for hours before pouring the mixture over hot stones. Some say it summons Thaash. It is a bold and sturdy scent, after all. But I’ve always thought it more likely to attract the notice of Yerinde, for whenever I breathe that air, I think my most ambitious thoughts. It’s what I used the day before I came to the city.” Emre realized Frail Lemi’s free hand was no longer in a fist. It hung loose, and Lemi’s eyes were reflective, almost calm as Ishaq continued speaking to him. “You and I will go when I return. Yes? We’ll breathe those scents and wonder where the winds of the desert will take us.”

  Frail Lemi’s eyes were awash with emotion. He stared at Ishaq. He blinked. And then nodded.

  “Good,” Ishaq said. “Wait here. We won’t be long.”

  Frail Lemi nodded again, and Ishaq motioned Emre to take the seat beside him. Ishaq knocked a ruby ring on the wooden frame of the ricksha, and the driver, a middle-aged Mirean man—so thin Emre felt terrible for adding to his burden—leaned into the wooden rails, setting them into motion. Frail Lemi watched their departure, but Emre suspected he hardly saw them. He had that look about him, as if he were off, somewhere else.

  The ricksha rattled and bounced. Ishaq glanced at Emre, running his hand down his trim gray beard. “In the catacombs, you told me you knew Çeda well. Quite well, I think you said.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Tell
me about her.”

  Months ago, Macide had implied that he’d known Çeda’s mother, Ahya. Emre had that same impression now of Ishaq, a man who wasn’t so much discovering things about Çeda as he was filling in gaps.

  Emre wasn’t sure where to begin. “She’s strong-willed. She takes care of her own. She loves poetry and books. She’s funny when she’s not so wrapped up in . . . everything.”

  “And her mother, Ahya? Did you know her as well?”

  Emre shrugged. “I knew her. She didn’t know me, though. Not well, at least. She was always chasing me away from their home, wherever they’d taken up. Once she took a switch to my backside for coming to Çeda’s window late at night.” He could laugh now, but how it had stung then. “She said it’d be a carpet beater the next time. And a sword after that.”

  Ishaq smiled a melancholy smile. “And how long did it keep you away?”

  “One night.”

  Now came a chuckle. “You enjoy taking beatings, then?”

  “I was scared Çeda had received the same. I wanted to apologize.”

  “And did you? Apologize?”

  “Yes, but I got her in trouble that same night. We snuck away to watch the fire eaters performing at the Wheel, and Ahya switched her again.”

  “Willful,” Ishaq said as the ricksha turned onto the road known as the Corona, just short of the western harbor.

  “My fault, probably.”

  “Perhaps, though her mother had enough willfulness running through her veins to share.”

  “You knew her, then, Ahya?”

  Ishaq smile wryly. “Yes, I knew her.”

  “How?”

  Ishaq remained silent, watching the way ahead as it curved gently around the western edges of Sharakhai. They came to a rise, where the ricksha driver took a short break to drink from a skin hanging from his belt. To their right, across the chockablock landscape of Sharakhai, loomed Tauriyat. Ishaq motioned to it. “Have you spoken to her since she took up her ebon blade?” When Emre glanced at the driver, he nodded. “You may speak freely.”