They rode through the city, leading their camels along the boulevard. Thousands of people clogged the road with them: peddlers riding wagons of wares, farmers wheeling forth their goods, children riding donkeys, soldiers riding horses, and great aurochs—larger than any horse—with horns like spears, dragging gilded carts where sat silk-laden nobles. Farther back, past the blue towers and the hives of the poor, columned temples soared, monuments of sandstone and gold. Statues of dragons rose above palm trees, flames burning in their maws, their teeth forged of iron. Gazing at them, Maya remembered the skeletons she had seen in the desert—great beasts like whales with wings.
Dragons, she thought, staring at a massive statue of one that rose at her side. They were real once. Long ago.
Her mind turned toward more recent history. It was six hundred years ago—relatively recently for an ancient kingdom like Zohar—that the king of this city had marched a massive army across the desert, half a million strong. Sekadia had captured Zohar in that war, had destroyed Beth Eloh, had crushed the Temple and sent the palace crumbling down. The children of Zohar had been marched into Sekur as slaves, forced to serve the king and his people, forced to kneel before idols—maybe even before these very dragon statues. As Maya walked down this boulevard, she tried to imagine those ancient Zoharites marching here, chained and whipped, far from home. She could still feel their souls calling out from the stones.
And now it's Aelar that crushes my homeland, that enslaves my people. For three thousand years now, every generation, a nation had risen to destroy Zohar, this tiny kingdom trapped between sand and sea. The Sekadians. The Nurians before them. The Kalintians a mere century ago. The Aelarians today. Many others, going back across the millennia, empires that had risen, butchered, then vanished into dust. Maya hung her head low. Will my people forever be trapped between empires, forever be enslaved, slaughtered, brutalized by the cruel and powerful? Will we never be a nation of healing, of peace?
Her mind strayed to the vision she had seen outside the Gate of Mercy in Beth Eloh, that day she had entered the city with her mother, had come to see Shefael upon his throne. The lume had claimed her, and she had seen another gate, a mythical gate. The Gate of Tears, lost to history, still rising in her mind. And through that gate . . . a healer, all in white, all in light, entering the city of blood, bringing peace, bringing grace.
Maya shook her head wildly, banishing the thought. That had been a mere illusion, a dream. If the Gate of Tears had ever truly existed in Beth Eloh, it was now lost, sealed up, filled with bricks, never to be found. There would be no mystical healer of light for Zohar, merely the hard work of lumers . . . like the lumer she hoped to become.
"Let's find a market," Maya said, pulling her thoughts away from shadow.
Leven nodded. "Markets are prime locations for pickpocketing."
"So you better be careful." She raised her fist. "Because I intend to pound any pickpocket I find. We're going there to get supplies, that's all. Food. Water. Wine. Bandages and medicine and oil and wicks. Maps too. Enough to last me on my way east to the sea. And . . ." Maya lowered her head. "And enough for your journey back to Zohar."
Yes. Leven had always meant to return to Zohar after stocking up on supplies here. When the bone-raiders had captured them, Maya had begun to think that she would die with Leven; now she realized she would live the rest of her life without him.
So what? She should rejoice! Leven was nothing but a no-good thief. He had stolen her camel! What kind of man encountered a hungry, wandering girl, and instead of offering aid stole from her? A scorpion, that was all. A scorpion who stung even the frog he rode across the river, unable to change his nature.
So why did she feel so sad to part from him?
Maya looked at the thief. Leven rode beside her, wrapped in a white robe, his hood and veil tossed back. A dark, closely cropped beard covered his cheeks. The boy was so vain he trimmed that beard regularly, even on days when only Maya was there to see.
I don't care about him, Maya told herself . . . yet she kept remembering that damn time he had kissed her.
Trumpets blared.
"Out of the way, out of the way!" rose a cry. "Part before Mareeshen the Magnificent, the Healer of All Hurts!"
Maya turned around on her camel and gasped.
"Well fuck me," Leven whispered, rubbing his eyes.
A great procession was marching down the boulevard from the city gates. Maya had never seen a parade of such splendor. Trumpeters led the way, blowing silver horns, while a crier rang a bell. Behind them, dancers somersaulted and jugglers juggled flaming blades. Mighty aurochs followed, draped with samite, their horns gilded and ringed with jewels. The beasts pulled a giltwood wagon, carved into the shape of a coiled-up serpent, complete with shimmering scales. Its curtains were drawn back, revealing many bottles and vials that rattled on shelves, their caps golden. Atop the wagon, on a plush leather chair, sat a corpulent man. He wore pastel silks, his mustache was thick and curling, and rings shone on his fingers. Above his seat dangled a wooden sign that bore the words: "Mareeshen the Magnificent, Healer of All Hurts! Praise him and be healed!"
"Bit showy for a healer," Maya said, remembering Master Malaci back in Zohar, a humble man in homespun.
Leven's jaw nearly hit his saddle. "So much gold in that wagon."
The trumpeters blasted a fresh fanfare. The hefty man rose from his seat on the wagon, bracelets jingling. He stroked his mustache and bellowed in a rumbling voice, "Never fear, people of Sekur! I, Mareeshen the Magnificent, shall heal your king."
Across the city, people grumbled and scoffed.
"The Priests of Elem couldn't heal our king!" one man cried out, his curled beard hanging down to his belt.
"A thousand healers from across the world failed!" shouted a woman, her headdress formed from serpents of tin and lapis lazuli. "Leave our city, fake one."
But Mareeshen only shouted louder, arms raised. "A thousand false healers have entered your city, selling perfumed water as medicine, chanting meaningless prayers to callous gods. But I have healed lepers! I have caused legs to sprout from the stumps of the legless! I have healed babes whose breath had died upon their mothers' breasts! I will heal your king, people of Sekur."
Leven frowned and turned toward Maya. "Maya, you're a healer. I saw you heal my little brother." His eyes widened, and he pointed at the ziggurat. "Do you know what this means?"
Maya stared at the towering structure down the boulevard. Twin statues of dragons rose there, dwarfing even the mightiest tree, and their eyes seemed to stare at her across the distance.
The King of Sekadia lives in there, Maya thought. The descendant of the man who destroyed my homeland.
"If healers have been traveling here to heal the king, they might let me try too," Maya said.
"Exactly—and once we're inside the palace, we can steal the crown jewels!" Leven licked his lips. "God, Maya. A king! I can steal from a real king! While you're healing him, I'll sneak—"
"If you steal anything in this city, even a cracker, I'm going to magically shrivel your bollocks into raisins."
Leven blinked. "But I hate raisins!"
"So you better behave."
Abandoning the market for now, Maya led her camels down the boulevard toward the ziggurat. It was a long walk, but after two months in the desert, it passed within a heartbeat. Mareeshen the Magnificent (whom Maya thought was more like Mareeshen the Mucky) reached the palace a few moments before her. He alighted his wagon with a flourish of silks. His trumpeters announced his arrival, and the heavyset healer settled in a palanquin. Bald eunuchs, collared and clad in loincloths, lifted the palanquin and began to carry it up the ziggurat's staircase. It was a long climb; hundreds of steps rose toward an archway above.
"Will you carry me?" she asked Leven. "Mareeshen's men are carrying him."
Leven snorted. "I'd sooner carry the camels."
They dismounted said camels, left them with the palace guards, and began to cli
mb the staircases leading up the ziggurat. The sandstone dragons rose at their sides, taller than the walls of Beth Eloh. Fire burned in their eyes and mouths, casting out smoke. As Maya climbed higher, she saw that bones lay inside those stone maws, and she shuddered. Those were human bones—human sacrifice to the gods of the ziggurat.
It seemed hours that she climbed, and Maya was soon wheezing. She hadn't eaten much since leaving Zohar. Even the bone-raiders had left her only paltry supplies in their saddlebags. Maya had always been thin, but now she was downright scrawny, and the climb winded her. There were hundreds of stairs here, maybe a thousand. When she looked behind her, she could see most of the city—a vast settlement, as large as Beth Eloh, full of sandstone homes, temples, silos, towers, and bridges, palm trees swaying between them.
"Maya," Leven wheezed, crawling up the stairs on hands and knees. "Can you carry me?"
"I'm going to kick you all the way down," she said.
Finally they reached the archway upon the ziggurat's facade. It felt like Maya had climbed a mountain, yet they had ascended only half the building's height. Towers, balconies, and battlements still soared above, spinning her head when she gazed at them.
Mareeshen had already entered the archway long ago. The entrance was shaped like the mouth of a serpent, complete with ivory fangs, the eyes formed of green crystals the size of human heads. Guards stood here, tan cloaks tossed across their ring mail, their curled beards as ringed as their armor. Their spears tilted to block the passageway into the ziggurat.
"I'm a healer," Maya told them. "I've come to heal the king . . . or try to, at least."
Leven nodded. "And I'm her loyal assistant. Well, more like manager." He winced as she elbowed him in the ribs. "I mean companion?"
"My servant," Maya said.
"I—" Leven began before she elbowed him again, harder now.
The guards stared at her, eyes dark. "Many have come here for years, seeking to heal our lord. Priests. Wizards. Charlatans. Physicians with ointments from distant lands. All have failed. Why should a young girl succeed when the wisest masters in the land could not?"
Maya raised her chin. "Because I'm a lumer."
That was a lie, of sorts. She wasn't yet a lumer; she wouldn't become one until she reached the sea, until she found a teacher. But she knew enough of Luminosity to heal. She had healed Leven's brother, had healed her mother's finger, had healed the stray dog before Seneca had shot him. So let these guards believe she was a mistress of magic like Avinasi. She raised her hand, summoning just enough lume to kindle her fingers, to weave strands of luminescence into a cat-sized dragon, then let them disperse.
It was enough to impress the guards. They stepped aside, eyes wide, and Maya and Leven entered the ziggurat.
They found themselves in a vestibule, the mosaic on the floor depicting thousands of serpents. Embers crackled in dragon braziers. Many people filled the room. Mareeshen was here, dabbing sweat from his brow with a purple handkerchief. Also present was a dwarf, his beard long and white, with many vials hanging from his belt. A sorceress stood beside him, eyes closed, chanting under her breath. An old man, his beard forked, held a cart full of herbs and powders. A priest held a staff around which coiled a live snake, a symbol of healing. A group of men stood in a corner, wearing beaked masks, staring through glass goggles.
"They're all healers," Maya said. "They've all come here to try to heal the king."
Leven snorted. "They've come here trying to make some money." He leaned down toward the dwarf. "Tell me, friend, what is the reward for healing the king of this place?"
The little old man raised tufted white eyebrows. He spoke in a squeaky voice. "You do not know, young man? Why, King Zamur has promised a palace to whoever can cure his ailment."
Maya had to catch Leven before he passed out.
"A palace . . ." The thief blinked. "A palace!" He grabbed Maya. "God. God, Maya. God God God. Just do what you did back at the oasis! Heal him like you healed my brother. We're going to be rich! We're going to be powerful! We're going to be lord and lady of a palace!"
"You," Maya said, "are going to be nothing. And I'm not interested in living in a palace. My homeland is in Zohar. I wish only to learn enough Luminosity to help my homeland."
"But . . . A palace! Even if it's a small palace." Leven clutched his hair. "And we wouldn't even have to steal it."
"Shush!"
One by one, guards let healers through a blue doorway into a chamber beyond. One by one, they returned into the waiting room, crestfallen. The dwarf muttered that he needed more time for his ointments to work, while the masked priests grumbled that the heathen gods of the ziggurat blocked their prayers. Mareeshen the Magnificent spent nearly an hour in the chamber, then finally emerged, silks fluttering, face red.
"I demand exclusive treatment of the king!" said the hefty healer. "I will not share my work with this riffraff." He pointed at Maya and the others who still waited in the antechamber.
"I gather your healing didn't go very well," Maya said. "Did you use the wrong sort of snake oil?"
Mareeshen blustered past her, cursing, and left the ziggurat. His guards hurried to follow.
Servants emerged from the inner chamber. They were young women, their hair long and black and curled, and their white dresses were cut to reveal their left breasts. They gestured for Maya.
"Come, healer," they said. "May the spirits give you the wisdom to heal our king."
Maya inhaled deeply. She found herself trembling.
I'm not a true lumer. How can I heal a king?
Leven took her hand in his, and he looked at her with warm eyes. She read his words in those eyes. Because it's your nature.
They stepped into the inner chamber together.
The stench of rot assailed Maya, overpowering. Bowls of flower petals stood on stone tables, and incense burned in bronze dragons, but the sweetness only mingled with the sickly smell, making it even worse. Maya stepped across a tiled floor, waving aside smoke. The window let in a beam of light, and the air was stifling, but it felt like no true light and warmth had filled this room in years.
On a silver bed he lay—the King of Sekadia.
Maya froze. She struggled not to gasp, not to show her shock, her pity.
Fire, she thought. It was fire that hurt him.
Scars covered the king, erasing his face, his hands, any semblance of the man he had been, like a wave effacing a child's drawings in sand. His ears, his nose, his eyes were gone. He had only two fingers left on one hand, none on the other; both hands curled, swollen, white. His head bloated to twice the normal size, and no hair covered him—no eyebrows, no beard, nothing but wrinkled scars. His mouth opened, a mere slit, struggling to speak.
Leven's hand tightened around Maya's. For once, he said nothing.
Maya looked at the burnt king, and along with her pity, she felt defeat. She felt hopeless.
I can't heal him. This is beyond my power.
She stepped closer to the bed. Two serving girls knelt at its sides, holding ewers of water and cloths. One girl placed a damp cloth on the king's head.
"His pain is great," the girl whispered.
The other girl lowered her head. "It's been greater of late. He moans so much. Sometimes he wishes to end his life."
Maya stood above the bed, eyes stinging.
I can't. I can't do this. His wounds are too great.
There was barely any life left here. A life twisted with pain. Maya felt it inside her—a coiling serpent in her gut, crying out, digging, constricting her. Years. He had been here for years. She knew it, felt it inside her. Years trapped in this useless body, years praying for death, trying to reach out, trying to end this life, only falling . . . falling back into the agony, the endless days and nights, the bloated, rotting, unending existence.
"Hel . . ." the king whispered, reaching up a fingerless hand, swollen and curled. "Hel . . . me . . ."
Maya's eyes dampened. She took the swollen hand in her
s, and the king whimpered. She was hurting him. She gently placed his hand down, and the stench of rot spun her head. His breath rattled. He had no nose left, only two holes for nostrils. Behind her, Maya heard Leven gasp and stumble a few paces back.
How could King Zamur still be alive? How could the soul cling to such a ruin of a body? How could Maya—not yet a true lumer, only a girl—hope to heal the worst injury she had ever seen, an injury she had not imagined could exist?
"I can't," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I can't heal you."
The king had no eyes, but he seemed to stare at her, breath ragged. "Hel . . . me . . ."
"Please try, daughter of Zohar," whispered one of the servants. "You are of Zohar, are you not?" She pointed at the lion pendant that hung around Maya's neck. "The Zoharites are renowned for their wisdom. Please try, daughter of Eloh."
Maya nodded and lowered her head.
I don't know if I'm wise. I don't know if I'm strong. But I know that I'm in this world to heal—to heal nations, to heal the poor, to heal kings, to mend things that are broken.
She thought back to Zohar, a broken land. A land suffering under the yoke of conquerors. A land of swaying palm and fig trees that grew from the desert. A land of ancient limestone towers and archways and domes, where countless generations of sages had walked. Of pines on northern hills and cyclamens that grew along riverbanks. Of the sea that always whispered in her mind, the coast where she had been born, sunset on the waves and dawn over the hills, and chinking seashells and stones under her bare feet.
She walked there again, along the beach of Gefen, feet in the damp sand. The sun rose and fell as the world breathed, as the sea breathed, as all life breathed around her, trees and sand and stones and ancient songs. A land of light, copper, gold, myrrh, stone, and lume. A land of God's grace. The land of her people—a people thousands of years old—and of her family. Of candlelit dinners under a painting of elephants. Of lying safely in her bed, ivy and pomegranates outside the window, of her old scrolls, of her parents, her siblings, of the light that had always filled her.
Crowns of Rust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 2) Page 23
