When Jackals Storm the Walls

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Blood runs thick in the desert, Ihsan mused.

  The lesser Kings had reached out to the Moonless Host, freeing nearly everyone they had imprisoned, along with a message: join us, and together we shall save Sharakhai from her enemies. It seemed a simplistic gambit, but Ihsan had underestimated just how weary the scarabs of the Moonless Host and their sympathizers were of the war that had raged for generations. Many flocked to the Kings’ cause, helping in the silent war where they could, seeing the offer as the Kings had hoped they would, as a way to turn over a new leaf and find a brighter day. It had Nayyan’s fingerprints all over it. She wanted peace. She wanted to live in a city that was safe. Only then could she and Ihsan continue what they’d started and rule Sharakhai and the desert together.

  It was a long game she played, which was precisely what was needed. And meanwhile, Ihsan was making moves in another long game. They’d had no word of Zeheb so far, but Ihsan had sent word to his own vizir, Tolovan. He hoped that Zeheb had reached out to the part of his family that had tried to kill him, and would come to an arrangement to share the power of his throne. Or that he’d reach out to the Kings for their help in pruning that particularly offensive branch from the family tree.

  Tolovan had sent word only two days ago. There is no contact yet, my lord King, but you will be informed the moment we learn of it.

  Cahil and Husamettín returned a short while later. Cahil flounced onto his bed in the corner. Husamettín, meanwhile, leaned against the wall near the door, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared down at Ihsan with his dour, disapproving stare.

  “This can’t go on, Ihsan. We need more clues.”

  “And we’ll get them.”

  “When?”

  “I wish I knew. But I trust in Yusam’s vision.”

  Cahil took up a rag, wetted it from the ewer, and ran it over his forehead and the back of his neck. “You wave that vision around like a priest with an empty offering plate.”

  “Well, I’m sorry the fates haven’t seen fit to grant us our wish immediately,” Ihsan said evenly, “but I’m afraid I have no control over them.”

  Yndris, halfway to sleep, said, “What about Tolovan?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know. We all agreed not to contact anyone from the House of Kings.”

  Yndris opened her eyes just long enough to roll them at the ceiling. “Let’s pretend for a moment that you had contacted Tolovan. How might he have replied?”

  Ihsan nearly smiled. Yndris had once been so brash—and make no mistake, she was still that—but life had filed off a few of the sharper burrs. “Well, I would wager that if I had reached out to Tolovan, he would have replied that there was no news of Zeheb so far and that he would notify his one-time King as soon as he learned anything different.”

  Cahil stared into the middle distance, then his gaze came to rest on Yndris. He actually smiled, the pride in him clear.

  “And the other Kings?” Ihsan went on. “Supposing they reached out to their former houses, might they have found some hint of Zeheb’s whereabouts?”

  Cahil immediately said, “No.”

  Husamettín, normally so direct, was suddenly finding it difficult to meet Ihsan’s eyes. With a brief guilty look, he shook his head like a surly adolescent who’d been caught stealing into the house early in the morning.

  They’d all agreed not to contact their families, but of course they had. They each had their own designs on the city, after all. After months spent in the desert, the chance to see where each of them stood in the great game, and what moves they might make in response, had proved too tempting.

  “Well, then,” Ihsan said, “I propose we continue as we have been. Something will come up.”

  They ate a meal of dates, mild cheese with minced lemon zest, and some rosemary flatbread from the day before that was stale but when dipped in spiced olive oil was still quite tasty.

  “I’m going out,” Cahil said, and launched himself toward the door.

  “To search?” Husamettín asked.

  He stopped halfway through the doorway. “To drink!” And with that he closed the door behind him.

  Yndris, all hints of her exhaustion now vanished, was up and following him in a flash. “Don’t wait up!”

  Husamettín stared at Ihsan, then the door, then at Ihsan again. Pushing himself off the wall, he said, “Coming?”

  Ihsan shook his head. “A quiet night alone would be good.”

  Husamettín shrugged, then headed after the other two. Ihsan gave them a few minutes, then made his own way out and to the garden, looking for the pretty priestess. He ducked into the small temple, but found it empty. The refectory as well.

  He was just going to head along the alley toward the wharf, thinking the clergy must have all left for some reason—some sort of celebration day in Kundhun?—when he noticed the door to the room Ihsan was sharing with the others was cracked open.

  He approached warily, peering into the shadows of the courtyard, then into their room through the narrow crack left open in the door. But dusk had arrived, and it was simply too dark to see inside.

  He drew his curved kenshar and stepped onto the stone porch along the front of the dormitory. He padded carefully toward the door. It creaked softly as he pressed it.

  He’d only just taken a step inside when he heard footsteps pounding over the dusty courtyard behind him. He spun. Saw a shape outlined by the peaches and pinks still splashed across the western horizon.

  “Halt!” he ordered.

  But they kept coming.

  “Halt!”

  A tall man with wide shoulders barreled into him, drove him back into the room. Ihsan tripped over the corner of his own bed and fell hard to the floor. He’d no sooner turned over than the man fell on top of him.

  “I command you to halt!” Ihsan grunted.

  His power flowed—he could feel it—but it simply wasn’t working.

  The cool edge of a knife pressed against his throat. “Give me one more command,” came a deep voice, “and I’ll do more than take your tongue from you.”

  By the gods . . . “Zeheb?”

  It was. It was Zeheb, dressed in the rich clothes of a Kundhuni caravan master. Taking a fistful of Ihsan’s shabby khalat, and keeping the tip of his knife pressed beneath Ihsan’s jaw, Zeheb drew Ihsan up and threw him onto his bed so hard that the back of his head cracked against the mudbrick wall, sending bits of brick and mortar raining onto the bed and the floor behind him.

  Zeheb had been thin as a ghul when he’d escaped from their camp in the desert. He still looked haggard, but he’d clearly added weight since then.

  “You’re eating better,” Ihsan said.

  Zeheb slapped him hard. “For all you’ve done, I ought to kill you.”

  Ihsan’s ears rang as he replied, “After long hours of torture, I suppose.”

  Zeheb slapped him again then gripped his throat. “Don’t tempt me.”

  The ringing became worse. The pain over his cheek and ear stung badly and was long in clearing. “Zeheb, we’ve come a long way. We’ve been out to the desert and back. We’ve returned to a city that neither of us recognizes. There are strange games afoot, and I’d rather stop faffing about in the bloody west end and get to playing them in earnest so we can return to our thrones on the mount. So why don’t you tell me why you’ve come so we can get on with it?”

  Zeheb’s breath came fast and heavy. He looked like he was having trouble ordering his thoughts. He blinked hard, a clear echo from his time of madness. If Ihsan were pressed, he’d guess that Zeheb was still prone to hearing the whispers, even when he didn’t want to.

  “Come, Zeheb. Get to the point.”

  “The Blue Journals,” Zeheb replied, “is it true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “All of it. Nalamae. Sharakhai. The city being destroyed.”
>
  “If by true you mean, Is it all truly in the Blue Journals?, then yes. Just as I told the others.”

  Zeheb’s hand tightened on Ihsan’s throat. “Do you think it’s true?”

  “My good King,” Ihsan rasped, “why ever would I have gone to all this trouble if I didn’t?”

  It took Zeheb some time to digest this. “What happens?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To us? What do we do to help?”

  “You find Nalamae using the whispers. We rescue her.”

  “From what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Zeheb shook him harder still and kept shaking him. “From what?”

  “In the account I read, the most lucid of Yusam’s thoughts on the end, an angry god walks along the slopes of Tauriyat. I thought it was Goezhen but it might have been Thaash. The god nears a pillar of light and passes through it. A fog spreads from the rift, and all it touches is consumed. Men, women, children, all turn to dust. For many long years it spreads to the desert beyond, leaving all barren and lifeless and Sharakhai little more than a tomb.”

  Zeheb’s gaze, distant as Ihsan had spoken, focused on Ihsan once more. “But Yusam was often—”

  “I know what you’re going to say. That Yusam was often wrong. And you’re right, but this felt true, Zeheb. I felt it in my bones each time I read it. I swear to you, as surely as the Great Mother is merciless, that is where we’re headed. That is what we have to stop.”

  Zeheb slowed his movements, then loosened his grip on Ihsan’s neck. “And Nalamae helps?”

  Ihsan nodded. “Nalamae helps. The journals weren’t entirely clear, but this much is plain: after we find Nalamae, she regains her memories. She helps us save the city from the destruction that awaits it.”

  Zeheb’s jaw worked. His eyes moved ceaselessly.

  “Tell me your thoughts, Zeheb.”

  Slowly, his gaze returned to Ihsan. “Very well.”

  “Very well what?”

  “I’ll help you.”

  There was so much certainty in his eyes that it made Ihsan wonder. “You know something.”

  Zeheb nodded.

  “You’ve found her, haven’t you? You’ve found the goddess, Nalamae.”

  He nodded again. “I’ve found her, Ihsan.”

  “Where?”

  “She’s with Çedamihn.”

  Chapter 25

  THE MORNING AFTER Queen Nayyan’s unexpected arrival at Osman’s estate, Kameyl burst into Çeda’s room. “She’s awake.”

  Çeda, who’d hardly had any sleep, was up in a flash, her grogginess vanishing as the weight of the moment began to settle on her. They found Lady Varal sitting in a chair in the far corner of her room with a wary look that almost, but not quite, hid the terror in her eyes.

  Jenise was there, as was Sümeya. Queen Nayyan had apparently left some time during the night.

  Çeda could already tell that this was going to go poorly if they were all in the room. Varal would only feel intimidated. “Leave us alone for a moment, won’t you?” Çeda said to others.

  They all seemed to understand and left, at which point Çeda closed the door and turned to Varal. “Would you like some tea? Some breakfast?”

  Varal, her graying hair falling in her face, shook her head.

  “You’ll have many questions, I’m sure,” Çeda ventured.

  “You think you can ransom me?” Varal’s chin quivered as she spoke. “Garner some favors from the Kings to secure my release? I tell you now, they’ll not trade a thing for me.”

  Çeda felt horrible for having done this to her. The fear in Varal’s eyes was once again making Çeda question herself and everything the mere had shown her. The vision hadn’t been specific, after all. Varal might not be Nalamae herself, but the one to lead Çeda to her. But there had been no way to ensure they could find the truth of it other than to take her somewhere safe, to question her and see what came of it.

  “I will explain all, but first I would ask you to hold this.” She lifted Nalamae’s staff from where it leaned against the wall, then held it out for Varal to take.

  Varal stared at it, refusing to move a muscle.

  “This will all go much faster if you just take the staff.”

  She looked as if she were going to decline, but then, hands shaking, she reached out and accepted it.

  Çeda waited. She stared into Varal’s eyes.

  “What?” Varal asked.

  There was no glimmer of recognition, nor any other change that Çeda could sense. Çeda even opened her senses and listened to her heart. She felt for something deeper. But there was nothing special about Varal. Nothing at all.

  Varal twisted the staff in one hand, took in the gnarled head and the gemstones worked into the wood. “Am I supposed to do something with it?”

  With a sigh, Çeda took it back, leaned it back against the wall, then scraped the other chair closer to Varal and sat down. “You know the goddess, Nalamae, of course.”

  “What child of Sharakhai doesn’t?”

  “Then prepare yourself for a wild tale.”

  Çeda proceeded to tell her all of it, how the goddess had chosen to remain away from Tauriyat on the night of Beht Ihman. The dark pact the Kings had made with the desert gods. The truth of the thirteenth tribe and the asirim. How the gods had chased Nalamae and killed her, over and over again.

  When Çeda was done, Varal forged a smile of disbelief and genuine amusement. “And you think I’m Nalamae reborn?”

  “Yes.”

  Varal’s laugh was pure and bright and clear. “I can assure you that I’m not!”

  “How would you know?”

  She stared around the room with an expression of perfect impotence. “I grew up on the edges of the southern harbor. I’ve walked the decks of a thousand ships. I know every corner of every pier. I have a husband. I’ve had five children, two of whom died before their time. As our children grew, my husband, bless him, made time for me to apprentice with Yakinah herself, the finest shipwright the desert has ever seen.” She pulled up the sleeve of her dusty workshirt and pointed to a long scar. “I got this when I slipped on freshly waxed skimwood and an iron bar caught my fall.” She pointed to a host of small imperfections on the back of her hands. “These are from the endless war I wage to make the perfect ship.” She pointed to a small puckered scar on her chin. “And I got this when Yakinah returned to the shipyard drunk and sent a chisel flying at my chin while trying to show me how her father used to beat her. I’m no goddess in disguise! I have my own life! I don’t need another, certainly not a goddess’s!”

  Çeda replied in calm tones. “The mysteries of her rebirth cannot be explained. Not by me, anyway. Nalamae has been known to return as a babe. But she’s also been known to come back as people who’ve already led full lives. She meant it to be so. It’s how she avoids detection by other gods when she returns to this world. If she didn’t, they would have killed her for good long ago.”

  Varal’s whole demeanor had become one of sufferance, like a mother before a child who’d proclaimed that the sand in the desert came from the dried tears of the gods. “It’s pretty convenient, don’t you think?”

  “What?”

  “That all of my objections can be dismissed with the facile reply that it’s Nalamae’s will?”

  “Isn’t that always the way with the gods? Don’t we always have to have faith?”

  “You’re expecting me to have faith in everything you’re telling me?”

  “Yes.”

  Varal threw her hands into the air. “Well I don’t! I want to go back to my home. I want to see my husband again. I want to lose myself in his arms and forget this ever happened. I want to cook for my children and watch them grow.”

  “Let me explain something to you. By now the House of Kings knows
why we took you. They were already hunting for Nalamae themselves. It’s why she was shot through with an arrow by King Beşir. It’s what led to her death in the mountains.”

  “So?”

  “So what are the chances, knowing what you know of the situation, knowing what you know of the Kings, that they will let you live?”

  Varal went perfectly still. The skin on her sun-weathered face went red. She hadn’t even considered the notion, but now it was striking her like a charging akhala. She was a drowning woman, pleading to be saved, but Çeda couldn’t. No one could. Now it was up to Varal herself and the goddess within.

  “In her last incarnation as Saliah,” Çeda said, “Nalamae kept an acacia tree with pieces of glass that granted visions. There is another such tree waiting for us near Mount Arasal. Let us go, let us visit the tree, and we’ll see what happens then.”

  Tears had gathered at the corners of Varal’s eyes. “I want to go home,” she repeated.

  “That is an option no longer available to you, Varal Andal’ava.”

  Varal blinked. Her tears fell, staining the wrinkled bodice of her gray dress. “Very well. I’ll go to the mountains.”

  They prepared over the course of the day, planning to depart early the next morning just before dawn when the sky would be darkest. Osman offered to take them on his horses. He would escort them out to the Red Bride, then return home the following night after darkness had fallen.

  “I don’t know,” Çeda had told him. “We’ve already asked so much of you.”

  “Let me do this for you.” When she hesitated, he went on. “Think of it this way. If I’m with you, I can’t tell anyone where you are.”

  Çeda laughed, and Osman laughed with her. It was the first time she’d seen him do so since they’d reached his estate.

  “Thank you,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  The following morning, he surprised her. He woke them while it was still dark and led them to the dining room, where he’d prepared a small feast. He’d prepared the horses as well. They weren’t akhalas, but they all looked healthy, and would be fleet enough for their purposes. All six were fed, watered, saddled, and ready, each with a bag of provisions and skins of water, enough to last three or four days in the desert.