When Jackals Storm the Walls

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “In order to do what, send them into the desert as ambassadors?”

  “Or to host the tribe here in the city. There could be countless benefits.”

  Davud altered tack. “Chancellor, did Altan speak to you about his fears?”

  “What fears?”

  “I believe he and I have made the same discovery. That those found were being marked.”

  “Marked for what?”

  “For abduction. For ransom or possibly murder.”

  The chancellor waited, clearly expecting more. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’ve checked it myself,” Davud countered, expressly avoiding Esmeray’s name. “Many of those found in his research have gone missing.”

  Abi shook his head as if he didn’t understand. “As I said, there is a war on.”

  “This isn’t about the war. This is about Sharakhai and the darker histories you just alluded to.” Davud paused. “Who do you give the names to, Chancellor Abi?”

  His manner went suddenly stiff. “You’re overstepping your bounds, scholar.”

  “Am I?” Davud handed him a piece of paper, a list of the names Esmeray had compiled after her many forays into the city. “The people on that list have all been reported as missing. They were recently identified in the course of Altan’s and Cassandra’s research. Some are from the Shallows. Others are from Roseridge or the Well or the Red Crescent. All are descendants of the thirteenth tribe.”

  Abi shook the paper. “I have no idea where these names came from.”

  “Check them against your own records if you wish, but I promise you, they’re all there. You’ll also find that they’re all gone, presumed dead.”

  “Scholar, I’ve granted you an audience out of respect for your studies here. You’ve brought a serious matter to my attention, a matter that will be investigated with all haste. But those names have been given to no one, and if you imply again that I am somehow involved with the deaths of innocents in Sharakhai, I’ll set down these books and punch you right in the nose.”

  Abi was so angry, so apoplectic, Davud found that he believed him, but they were dealing with blood magic—Abi could be a pawn and have no recollection of the things he’d been made to do. “Let me be frank, Chancellor. I fear that one of the Enclave, a blood mage, has ensorcelled you. I believe they’re behind this project and are using you as their pawn.”

  Abi stammered, “I can assure you no such thing has happened.”

  “You wouldn’t know if it had.” Davud pulled his blooding ring from the bag at his belt and showed it to him. “They would have used a ring like this. They would have healed the wound after. They would have wiped your mind of the memory as well.”

  So confident moments ago, the chancellor looked completely out of his depth.

  “Let me examine you,” Davud pressed. “I know the signs. We’ll find the truth of it. And if a compulsion has been laid upon you, I’ll remove it.”

  “It seems impossible. What would they want with me?”

  “That’s what I’d like to find out.”

  “What about my family? My wife? My children?”

  “I’ll see to it that they’re protected.”

  Abi took in the students enjoying the esplanade, regarded the tall, blocky buildings. He stared up at the bright sun, then down at the many books he held in his arms as if he’d just remembered they were there. “Come to my residence tonight,” he said at last, “after the dinner hour. We’ll find the truth of it then.”

  Davud nodded, feeling as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Very well.”

  Abi left under a cloud, while Davud, after casting a spell of concealment, returned to his cellar room. That night, Davud did as the chancellor had bid him. He walked across the grounds to the chancellor’s residence as the sun was setting, only to pull up short as a cold, sinking feeling was born inside him.

  The front portico and lawn of Abi’s expansive home was crawling with Silver Spears. There were so many that, despite Davud’s spell, one of them, a burly woman wearing the white tabard of an inspector, bumped into him and looked straight at him.

  “What’s happened?” Davud asked her.

  The inspector frowned. “It’s the chancellor. He’s been killed.”

  The sinking feeling yawned wider and wider. Davud felt sick from it. “How?” was all he could think to ask.

  “No one knows as yet,” said the inspector, “but it was grisly, I can tell you that much.” The woman’s eyes, dull, almost lifeless a moment ago, suddenly sharpened. “Did you know him, the chancellor?”

  While intensifying the spell of concealment, Davud backed away. “No.”

  Oddly, the spell seemed to be ineffectual against her. Over and over, it shed from her like sand off a lizard’s back. “Were you coming to see him?” the inspector asked.

  “No,” Davud repeated, and quickened his pace.

  “Halt,” the inspector said and took several loping strides toward him. “Halt!”

  With a wave of his hand, Davud triggered a spell he’d cast that morning, a spell kept on the very edge of taking effect. A simulacrum of himself ran in one direction, while he, the real Davud, went in another. The Silver Spear lumbered after the illusion and Davud made it safely away, but he was unsettled now. Every shadow seemed dangerous.

  Slow down, Davud. Think this through.

  How could Abi’s murderers have found out about Davud’s conversation with Chancellor Abi so quickly? The only reasonable explanation was that Abi himself had confessed it to them. Sadly, it provided an answer to Davud’s earlier question—Abi wouldn’t have been killed had he been a willing accomplice, which meant he’d been a puppet all along. Had he been incensed and challenged those who were behind the request to identify more of the thirteenth tribe in Sharakhai?

  Was it the lesser Kings? Queen Meryam? A mage from the Enclave? Or maybe it was Hamzakiir, or someone else with a grudge against the thirteenth tribe.

  Standing there alone beneath the darkened buildings of the collegia, a terrible realization came to him. If they were searching for him, they’d be searching for Esmeray as well. He turned and rushed back to the cellar. Every moment that passed felt like the one that was going to make him too late to save her. The fates were kind, however, and he found Esmeray already there, waiting for him.

  “The chancellor’s dead,” he said, and told her the story in a breathless rush.

  “This isn’t your fault,” Esmeray reasoned when he was done.

  “Yes, well, that isn’t what’s most important now.” The whole way back to the cellar and all through the story, he’d felt like the door was about to crash in and Queen Meryam herself would storm in and kill them both. “You need to leave, Esmeray. You need to hide.”

  “I need to hide?”

  “Yes. Someplace they’ll never think to look. I’ll find Undosu on my own.”

  Davud thought Esmeray would be angry with him for saying it. Instead, she smiled pityingly, as if Davud didn’t understand a thing about what was going on. “There’s no running from this, Davud, not for me, not for you. Not anymore. We’re in this together, and there’s nothing that’s going to keep me from being by your side to see this through. I’ve seen too much, you understand? I’ve spoken to too many broken families, grieving loved ones, to stop now.”

  Davud felt impotent. This all felt hauntingly familiar. He’d escaped Ishmantep with Anila, only to see her body burned by coldfire when they returned to try to stop Hamzakiir from escaping with their friends. Anila had lived, though barely, but she’d suffered greatly, and it had all been Davud’s fault. Now here was Esmeray, a woman he’d come to love. She’d already lost her magic because of him. He didn’t want to see her lose her life, too.

  Esmeray stepped forward and took his hands. “I know you think of me as fragile.”

 
“Not fragile,” Davud said. “Vulnerable.”

  “We’re both vulnerable. You can run from me if you wish. You can go after Undosu on your own. There’s nothing I can do to stop you. But know this, I’m still going to help. I’ll comb the west end for more who’ve gone missing if you think to hide from me. This is too important not to.” She squeezed his hands. “I’d rather it be with you, though. You ground me, Davud. You make this strange life bearable.”

  Davud stood there, dumbstruck. Esmeray’s confessions of love were so rare that for a moment all he could think about was how she made him feel. She cherished life. She fought for it. She lived it to its fullest. It was a thing that had not only made him fall in love with her, but admire her. As scared as he was of the dangers that lay ahead, as much as he wanted her somewhere safe, he suddenly couldn’t see himself taking another step without her.

  Without a word more being spoken, the two of them fell into one another’s arms. “You’ve found another place for us to hide?” he asked her.

  She nodded, the movement subtle, the touch of her against his neck, cheek, and ear deeply intimate. “A seamstress I’ve known since I was a child.”

  He pulled away, still holding her hands. “We’d better get moving, then.”

  She drew him in and gave him one of the noisiest kisses she’d ever given him. “We’re going to see this through.”

  He winked at her. “I almost believe you.”

  They packed up and moved immediately to a small home in a cramped neighborhood just inside the city’s old walls. They spent hours laying down their spells of concealment and detection, their spells of confounding. Esmeray, exhausted from giving up so much blood and helping to cast the spells, soon dozed off in the tiny bed, but sleep proved elusive for Davud. He stared at the ceiling and listened to Esmeray’s soft breathing as the night passed, feeling worse with each passing moment.

  He couldn’t shake the idea that he and Esmeray were being hunted or that he’d just betrayed those who’d been found by Cassandra and her efforts, and those who had yet to be found. Strangest of all, he felt like he’d abandoned whoever had left them the books. Whoever had done it had been trying to point him in the right direction. He still had no idea why they would have sent a message in such a cryptic manner, but it was clear they were trying to help—they’d posed Davud a riddle and, so far, Davud had been too thick to figure it out.

  As his eyes fell on the topaz pendant he’d been using to watch Cassandra, a thought occurred to him. Whoever was spying on them clearly knew about the pendant—they’d used it to send Davud a message. So why couldn’t Davud do the same?

  Hope driving him, he lit a lamp and scoured the books their secret benefactor had given them. Eventually he found what he was looking for. After placing the lamp near the open book, he set the topaz crystal onto the page over one word in particular:

  Help.

  He waited, hoping, praying that whoever had aided him before would do so again. The hours crept by. Through the tiny window along one wall of the cellar he saw the crescent moons arc across the sky. Darkness reigned when they set once more. All too soon a pale pink light kissed the pre-dawn sky.

  To come so close, Davud thought. He felt powerless, a minor piece in this grand game. On the bed, Esmeray rolled over. She’d wake soon. The peril they were in made him wonder what might have happened to their secret benefactor. Had he been found out? Had the one now hunting for Davud and Esmeray discovered the pendant?

  I need to destroy it, Davud told himself. It’s too dangerous to keep. A gifted mage could use it to find us.

  He set the topaz pendant on the floor, then stood and retrieved the brick doorstop from the entrance and sat back down in his chair. He lifted the brick high, preparing to smash the pendant.

  And then he saw it. Movement in the topaz’s facets. In a mad, fumbling rush, he set the brick aside, took up the pendant, and lifted it to his eye. Within the large, central facet he saw a book. An unseen source of light illuminated the open pages in a golden glow.

  The story was of Bahri Al’sir. He was searching for a fabled scroll that legend said was actually a page ripped from the original Al’Ambra. In the right hands, the story boldly proclaimed, the scroll could unlock the very secrets of the desert, and Bahri Al’sir was quite certain his own hands qualified. So it was that he entered the wizard’s tower which, unbeknownst to the king he served, contained a vast library hidden deep beneath the earth.

  Despite concealing himself with a magic cloak, Bahri Al’sir nearly lost his life that day, but was saved by use of his own blood. Guarding the library was a massive cobra that struck from the darkness. The poison filled Bahri Al’sir’s veins, but he’d known of the danger and had inured himself to the poison by allowing other snakes to bite him, small ones at first, then larger and larger ones, until his body had become all but immune to it. He’d killed the cobra and stolen into the wizard’s lair, only to be set upon moments later by the wizard himself. The wizard, not realizing Bahri Al’sir had been bitten, had drank of his blood, planning to kill Bahri Al’sir with the power thereby taken. The wizard succumbed to the poison moments later, but not before setting fire to his entire library.

  Davud woke Esmeray, explained everything, then handed her the pendant before she could tell him what a fool he’d been.

  Her tired, sour look showed how displeased she was, but she snatched the pendant from him anyway and used it to read the story. She was silent for a long while after, her eyes going distant, as if she were giving the story due consideration. “It’s a message,” she finally said. “There’s a mage hiding in the collegia.”

  Davud nodded. “He’s the one behind it all. The list. The disappearances. The chancellor’s death.”

  Esmeray looked uncharacteristically worried—she knew it wasn’t going to be easy to find the mage, nor defeat him—but then the look vanished and the fire in her eyes returned. “Let’s go find him.”

  Chapter 24

  IHSAN AND YNDRIS WALKED side by side along a wharf in Sharakhai’s western harbor as the sounds of the city rose around them. Ahead, spanning the mouth of an alley, was an old stone archway with a briar rose at its peak, the sign of Naamdah, the Kundhuni goddess of good fortune. It wasn’t common knowledge in Sharakhai that Naamdah was in truth the patron god of thieves. Her priest’s efforts to rebrand their goddess had gone so well that they collected tithes from thousands of followers, even those of Kundhuni blood, which were sent back to the depths of Kundhun to the mother temple. Cahil said he’d chosen the temple with no more thought than it being a place unlikely to hide a bevy of Kings, but to Ihsan it felt like a sign. This caper of theirs amounted to nothing less than the theft of a god, so who better to receive a bit of good fortune from than the god of thieves herself?

  By the time Ihsan and Yndris reached the small, walled-off courtyard behind the brothel, the sounds of the west end had become muted. The priestess, a half-Kundhunese woman with closely shorn hair and a pretty smile, looked up from her work in the small garden and winked at them. Ihsan wasn’t truly sure which of the two she was winking at, but he smiled back anyway. Yndris ignored her entirely and stalked beyond the tiny temple to the building they’d called home these past few weeks.

  They entered their room, shared between the four of them—Ihsan, Yndris, Husamettín, and Cahil—whereupon Yndris flopped onto the nearest of the criminally small beds. She wore a commoner’s dress with a slit in the skirt and a low neckline. She hated it, but it was in line with what one would find in and around Sharakhai’s western harbor, and that was the most important thing: to blend in while they searched for Zeheb.

  Eyes closed, her arms folded across her forehead, Yndris said, “Didn’t that bloody book say anything about where we were going to find him?”

  “I told you”—Ihsan sat on his own bed—“it only mentioned Cahil and Husamettín walking through the city together.”

&n
bsp; “Then why do you assume it means anything? Maybe it was the two of them walking together a hundred fucking years ago.”

  “I assume so because Yusam assumed so. He wrote as much in the marginalia, and we both know his instincts were good when it came to such things.”

  “Yes, and we also know he was wrong as often as he was right.”

  “Well, it’s something to go on,” Ihsan said. “Unless you have some other brilliant plan?”

  She glared at him. “Go fuck yourself.”

  “I’ll pass,” Ihsan said, and lay himself down. He wouldn’t mind having a go at the priestess, though. He missed Nayyan, but he’d been parted from a woman’s touch for too long, and there was no chance he’d be seeing his Queen any time soon.

  A Queen, Ihsan thought. Nayyan is a Queen now.

  It was but one of a thousand changes the city had undergone. The very tenor of life in Sharakhai felt altered, almost alien. Had he not known any better, he might have written off the feeling as stemming from his running around the west end like one of the lowborn, a thing that could easily convince someone of royal blood that the city had changed when really it hadn’t.

  But Ihsan did know better. The lesser Kings—a term that, counterintuitively, encompassed both the Kings and Queens of the new guard—had issued many new proclamations in his absence. Patrols of the Silver Spears were now common. As were their raids as they scoured the city for sympathizers of the Malasani or the Mireans. In a rather brilliant move, they’d managed to turn some of the Moonless Host to their side. Town criers called out news to all corners of the city, heaping praise upon the gains the Kings had made in the desert against their enemy, condemning the Mireans and the Malasani, and calling upon those who loved Sharakhai to help push the invaders out. They were demonizing all foreigners from the north or the east, even those who’d been living in Sharakhai for generations, even those with only a trickle of blood from those foreign lands running through their veins.